As companies embrace the idea of decentralizing their sales and marketing systems, team members are given a greater freedom to select their sales approaches. In a way, this works well for the independent salesperson, who can motivate himself and explore newer sales tactics unhindered. But it is not necessarily the best approach for someone new to sales or who might need additional guidance.
Part 7: Cold Calling Series: Solution Selling, Converting Pain to Coin
I always say ‘no pain, no gain’. Of course I’m referring to the high heeled shoes I love to purchase and wear, but the same can be said of making a successful sale.
Knowing the client is a big step in selling to him. And this does not mean simply understanding what he tells you, but acknowledging his real, often unspoken needs. Take for example a software application salesperson. He may prepare for his sales calls by listing the top reasons his system is better than the average CRM systems on the market. It may be more affordable, offer advanced search functionalities, and be quick to implement. In chatting with the prospect however, he may come to realize that the client is bringing an eco-awareness into his organization. And redesigning a paperless client services department is an important aspect of this new goal. By steering the conversation into this new direction, and suggesting his system can cut down on paperwork, the salesperson has already won half the sale.
Part 6: Cold Calling Series: Getting Execs to Talk to You
What’s the secret to getting a C-Suite executive to talk to you? Forget being a salesperson! Yes, I know that’s what it says on your business card. And you wake up each morning, pumped up to be the best salesperson you can be. And here I am telling you to forget about it! But read on and you’ll see why what I say makes sense.
Each day, the average business executive is bombarded by a number of calls on his land line and cell phone. They may be from customers, vendors, and partners. And a few will be from sales executives as well. Now if the business executive is savvy, he’ll get his calls fielded by his secretary or the company receptionist, and will apply filters by way of caller id to block out unwanted calls.
Part 5: Cold Calling Series: 3 Steps to Successful Prospecting
As a salesperson, qualifying leads and prospects is the single most important task you will ever have to do, even more important that working on the sale itself. The reason for this is because your territory is like a gold-mine. You can explore new avenues, revisit old ones, and with persistence, strike lucky on every new attempt you make. Without your prospect list, it is difficult to build a successful sales territory and once you’ve got yours, guard it and prevent others from encroaching.
Part 4: Cold Calling Series: 10 Ways to Get Started
Let’s look at 10 great ideas which can be implemented to grow your lead base, strengthen your phone techniques, and clinch you the sale.
Part 3: Cold Calling Series: Tools for Prospecting Success
There are plenty of routes to success and in my earlier blogs on Cold Calling, Is it Dead? and Smart Targeting, I have outlined some of them. But in order to truly attract success, we first need to cultivate certain habits.
Part 2: Cold Calling Series: Smart Prospecting
We’ve seen how being consistent is important and accepting failure is part of the game. But all this is moot if you don’t get the right person at the end of your line.
Part 1: Cold Calling Series: Is Cold Calling Dead?
Is cold calling dead? In a digital world where twitter and facebook are billed as the new ‘connection’ tools and where friends and contacts are easily made within a 160 character reference, is there place left for cold calling?
Klout Scores: Fact or Fiction?
Klout believes that the number of followers can be deceiving, and so it uses social actions such as comments, retweets, @messages, and likes, to make a decision. So the question is, does Klout measure influence accurately, and does it really work?
Placing Social CRM in a Social Media Context
As businesses’ continue to evolve in a social setting, there’s no doubt that social CRM will play a more well defined role in determining how customer service and eventually how company sales play out to the advantage of both the business and its customers.
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