Brian Giese's Blog

34 Scripts and Ideas for Getting Back at Telemarketers

The Federal Trade Commission has just slapped Do Not Call Registry offenders with $7.7 million worth of penalties. These are huge numbers and it's clear that telemarketers are finding that boundaries are an ongoing problem. I found this article on InsideCRM this morning and it's a good laugh. It's a bit of comic relief on handling poor telemarketers with "techniques" to get back at them. Take a look!

5 Worst Habits of Unsuccessful Salespeople

Here are some habits of the worst sellers. I see these over and over again and looking at these (I'm hoping) will give you some insight on what to avoid. Some sellers make lots of mistakes, here are a few;

1. Thinking you can do it all yourself.
Selling is a a numbers game. It used to be that you could spend your time smiling and dialing but these days calling, integrated with marketing, is a better approach. Cold calls have very low probability by themselves but comblined with good marketing campaigns can be very effective in B2B sales.

2. Talking too much.
Salespeople like to talk. The fact is, the best sellers are great listeners and they use silence really well. Listen when you want your customers to talk more. Silence is appropriate when you are listening so you don't interrupt your customer - ever.

3. Doing the same things in all situations.
One of the predictors of sales success is the ability to think on your feet. Some salespeople start their sales calls the same way and act the same way with every type of customer. It just doesn't work, especially at executive levels.

4. Expecting things to happen now.
Some things just take time. If you want a piece of business badly enough you may have to be persistent and try to make contact over a period of months. Be patient and don't give up if the account is worth it. Salespeople have to be able to deal with ambiguity and the unknown and patience is powerful when it's combined with persistence.   

5. Thinking it's easy.
People think selling is easy only because the great salespeople make it look easy. "Easy" really only comes with lots of years of experience doing the right things over and over again and getting the planned (subconsious) results. Until then, prepare!

For another view of this topic read Stephen Schiffmans book, "The 25 Most Common Sales Mistakes: And How to Avoid Them"

15 Sales Questions that Work

Here are fifteen sales questions you can ask that will help you get a picture of your clients' situations and needs (it's by no means complete). These open ended questions are broken down into three areas I call G.A.P. (Gathering, Association, Problem-solving) and are fully explained in Chapter 6 of my book I.T. Sales Boot Camp. Clearly, the best way we can serve our clients is by knowing what's going on in their world. And the best way to find out what's going on in their worlds is to ask them open ended questions—the kind of questions that get them talking about themselves. Here's a way of organizing your questions using the G.A.P. questioning model:

Gathering questions: Ask these open ended sales questions to help you get to know your prospect clients and establish an understanding of their current reality.

1. How much budget has been set aside for this project?
2. Do you have a deadline to make this decision?
3. If you had 3 things you'd like to improve what would they be?
4. Who, other that youself, makes the decision to move ahead?
5. How do you think senior management would evaluate the success of this initiative?

Association questions are used to associate pain to move ahead. Ask these open ended sales questions to help you understand what pain (challenges) your client is facing, and what goals they have for their business.

1. If you were to make this happen, what would it mean to your career?
2. How would implementing these changes affect your ability to compete?
3. If you don't solve (insert the particular challenge here), what kind of difficulties will you face going forward?
4. What would the impact of this be to your team?
5. What implications would that have?

Problem-solving questions help the client solve thier own problems with your guidance (of course).

1. If you could overcome these challenges, what would happen to your company's financial situation?
2. How would you solve this problem?
3. If you could make that happen how would you do it?
4. How would you like to move ahead?
5. How can I help you?

As you ask any open ended questions try not to sound too salsey.  While I've suggested wording, be sure to make the wording your own. Find your own voice (timber, tone, tempo etc)  when asking questions and make this conversational.

Also, sometimes all you need is to ask 1 open-ended question and your client will share with you all the information you need to help them. Be careful and try to limit it to 1 question and let the prospect answer it fully. Peppering them with questions will just confuse the conversation and might make them feel like they are on the witness stand.

One other tip: if your client answers a question but you want them to expand a bit more, ask them, “how so,” or “can you tell me a little more about that?” You'll be surprised at just how much you can learn, and the difference it will make in your ability to help your clients succeed. Hope this helps. Good luck!

One last tip: Be respectful and take notes.

Call me if tou have any, well, questions.

8 Tips for Effective Cold-Calling

Most of you know that I'm not a big cold calling fan but the obituary for cold calling is a bit premature. While in the perfect world, your phone would be ringing off the hook all day with clients offering you business, the reality is that if you want business, you need to go after it, and cold calling is the most effective sales tactic for generating new appointments. The fact is, most sellers would rather spend an entire day in a dentist's chair than cold call. These cold calling tips won't eliminate your fear, but they will help you make cold calling a more successful experience.

1) Start with good data. Good, clean data is the only way to success in cold calling. Start with taking a look at Hoovers, Harte-Hanks, InfoUSA or Jigsaw.

2) Begin at the top of the food chain. I'm a big believer in beginning your calls at the highest possible point in the org. chart. Start with the CIO in a tech sale or the CEO in a business sale. You may not get through but they will refer to the right person to make the appointment. I've found that it's much easier (and faster) to sell down the org chart than sell up any day.

3) Focus on the goal. Beginners tend to think that cold calling is about making the sale. It's not. It's about getting the chance to make the sale. Specifically, the purpose of a cold call is to set an appointment to make the pitch.

4) Research your market and prospects. You need to target your cold calling to the right audience. Use market researcher Hoover's or Hillsearch to focus on your target market. Then find out as much as you possibly can about the company or individual you're going to cold call in advance. This gives you the huge advantage of being able to talk about their business and their needs when you call them.

5) Prepare an opening statement for your cold call. This lets you organize your thoughts before cold calling, and helps you avoid common mistakes in the cold call opening that would give the person you're calling the chance to terminate the conversation. For instance, you should never ask, "Is this a good time to talk?" or "How are you today?" Don't read your opening statement into the phone, but use it as a framework to get the conversation off to a good start.

6) What should be in the opening statement of your cold call? This organizational scheme (from AllBusiness.com) works well: "Include a greeting and an introduction, a reference point (something about the prospect), the benefits of your product or service, and a transition to a question or dialogue. For example, 'Good afternoon, Ms. Marshall. I read in the local paper that you recently broke ground for a new office complex. (pause) This is Ken Brown with Green Works. We specialize in commercial landscape services that allow you to reduce in-house maintenance costs and comply with the city's new environmental regulations. I'd like to ask a few questions to determine whether one of our programs might meet your needs.'"

7) Prepare a script for the rest of your cold call. Lay out the benefits of your product or service and the reasons your prospect should buy. Write out possible objections and your answer to them. Without a script, it's too easy to leave something out or meander. Once again, it's not that you'll be reading your script word for word when you call, but that you've prepared the framework of the cold call in advance.

8) Ask for an appointment at a specific time when cold calling. Say, "Would Wednesday at 11 a.m. be a good time to meet?" instead of saying, "Can I meet with you to discuss this next week?"

This is just a beginning and there will be more to come on this topic in future posts. Enjoy!

3 Sales Tools From Google

Google Maps for Mobile - This is an really cool product. Google Maps is a very functional handheld GPS that combines directions, maps, and satellite imagery - and it's FREE! The only downside is the speed of your carrier will obviously affect the downloads. I use T-Mobile and it's pretty good.

Google Alerts - Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. I use it all the time and it's a great recon tool.

Google Trends - With Google Trends, you can compare interests to topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they've been searched for on Google over time. This is a great marketing analytics tool and can be used for sales research and planning. It also gives geographic data as well.