November 26th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
Mistake #7 – Not leaving voicemails, or leaving long winded ones
The advertising industry says that it takes seven touches for someone to even remember our name, so why waste the effort involved in making the call and not leave a message?
Think of it as personal advertising. So what if they don’t return this particular call. They don’t always call when they see one of your ads, do they? And what better way to leave a message that should mean something to this particular target? It’s better than advertising.
If that’s not enough of a reason for you, think about this. When we make a call to someone, most of the time investment has already been spent. You’ve had to review your list of targets to call, determine who will be called, where are you in the process with this particular target, dial the phone, get through the phone tree, etc. What’s another 10 seconds? (You’re messages aren’t any longer than that are they?
Leave well thought out, concise voicemails and if you’ve got the automation to do it efficiently, send a coordinated email.
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November 20th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
This concept of Bridge Questions is what differentiates us from any other appointment setting process. Specifically, it accomplishes two objectives:
1. It Bridges us back into control of the conversation after the suspect asks us a question;
2. It provides us the ability to Bridge from the suspect’s Conditioned Knee Jerk Response into a short conversation providing us a platform to expand on our value proposition and qualify a bit before we ask for the appointment again. It will also reduce no shows and cancellations.
Rules for Bridge questions – each question should:
1. It should get us an answer to help qualify the suspect and get them into a short conversation to build value for the meeting
2. It must call for a relatively short answer
3. We must be able to predict and control the answer with, “…that’s exactly why we need to get together. How is Tuesday at 2:00?”
4. Generally use How, What or Why questions
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November 19th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
Mistake #6 – Asking leading questions
“You would like to save money wouldn’t you?” Remember, less than five percent of the people we call think they are in the market for what we’re selling when we call. If they don’t think they need us and don’t want to talk to us (because we’re interrupting them), this kind of question backs us into a corner (how can we say no to that question without sounding like an idiot) is offensive and does nothing but tick them off even more at the interruption.
Try our Bridge Questions as their objective is to get our targets to stop thinking about how to get us off the phone and open their minds to a short conversation about how we’ve helped others accomplish something we’d like to talk to them about.
To read more on how Bridge Questions work, take a look at the supplemental Blog for today.
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November 12th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
Mistake #5 – Winging it on each call
Last week we talked about not internalizing our message so that we sound like we’re reading it. The other alternative is just to wing it on each call so that our message is different each time.
The problem with doing it that way is that if we deliver a different message each time, we can’t predict and control the responses we’ll get. That makes the task of handling those negative Conditioned Responses even more difficult.
Remember, if we deliver the same message each time, we’ll get the same few Conditioned Responses each time. And if we get the same Conditioned Responses each time, it reduces the number of Counters we’ve got to learn.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that winging it is the easy way out. It’s not. It’s one of the reasons that make Cold Calling feel so difficult.
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November 6th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
Mistake #4 – Not internalizing our message
One of the biggest reasons I hear reps use when they say they don’t want to cold call is that they don’t want to sound like the proverbial telemarketer. They complain that those callers just seem to be reading their scripts in a monotone voice.
I actually couldn’t agree more. That occurs when we don’t take ownership of our message and internalize it until we sound conversational. If we’re reading a script, we do sound like the proverbial telemarketer.
Only 7% of effective communications is derived through the words we use. The biggest percentage of effective communications on a phone call comes from tonality (38%). Therefore we must not only ‘own’ our message, but we must deliver it with passion. There is only one way the passion can come through and that’s if we know what we’re going to say so we can concentrate on how we deliver it.
You do believe in what you sell, don’t you? Well then know what you’re going to say and deliver it with passion.
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