 |
|
September 29th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
It’s all about how the message is perceived by the Target
What’s your favorite radio station? Are you an easy listening fan, a classical music, hard rock, soft rock, or rap fan? Let me share with you my favorite. It’s WII FM. It’s very difficult to find for some reason, although it’s playing in every market in the country. I don’t care if you’re in Chicago, Miami or Gun Barrel City (that’s in Texas if you hadn’t guessed). It plays whatever you want to hear. As a matter of fact, that’s the whole point of WII FM. You see, WII FM stands for ‘What’s in it for me?’
Cute…but where’s the tie in to sales and appointment setting? Simple. Too many of us, when writing our value proposition statements that we use in our cold calling scripts (you are using a script, I hope) concentrate on the value of what we sell from our (the seller’s) perspective even though we think it is from the potential customer’s perspective.
I recommend that you take some time and go back to some of your current customers and ask them what they think is the overall value they derived from doing business with you. Notice that I didn’t say what value they thought your product or service brought to them. By asking a much broader question, you might get a totally different answer regarding why they do business with you.
Once you get a consistent answer that you’d like to talk Targets about, build that into the purpose for the call portion of your script, but do it in following way. Don’t just tell them you’d like to meet with them to tell them about the great benefit you can deliver to them. Tell them that you’d like to share with them what your customers are telling you about the impact on their business they believe you did deliver. And, if you can make it quantifiable it’s even more powerful. i.e. – they told us we helped them increase profits by 10%, cut waste by 23%, or double the number of Initial Appointments set (I couldn’t resist!).
It is a subtle difference, but it gives us third party credibility (your customers) and it piques their curiosity a bit, particularly if it is something about what one of their competitors, customers, or suppliers is doing (and curiosity killed the cat, right?). Otherwise, we’re just another peddler who is paid to say good things about our product or service. You believe everything sales people tell you about their products, right?
Give yourself an edge and let your customers say it for you.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: 3
September 22nd, 2010 by Barry Caponi
If we’re the exception to the rule – always be calling for an appointment, not trying to sell on an Initial Call, how do we do it?
Last week, I discussed the concept that it makes more sense to call Targets and ask for a separate appointment, not to attempt to sell them right then and there. However, we do run into customers that are the exception to the rule. If you are one of those exceptions, here’s how to handle that.
Still go ahead and ask for an appointment at another time like we teach, XXX, but add right after suggesting the day and time for the separate appointment, add the words, “…or if you have time now, we could actually talk now. Which would work best for you?”
We still get the same categories of negative responses just like we do when we ask for the separate appointment. If they say they’re too busy, we can still use our standard approach to that response (see August 25, 2010 and September 1, 2010 blogs).
However, if they do have time right then, they’ve committed themselves just like they do when they agree to the separate appointment. Now we can relax a little and conduct a true Initial Appointment, complete with questions to help qualify them instead of just product dumping on them hoping we hit a hot button before they cut us off.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: 1
September 15th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
Two reasons why it is dangerous to attempt to ‘sell’ on an appointment setting call.
There are some selling environments that require ‘selling’ on the initial call. Most, however, benefit from not doing so.
At ColdCalling101 we believe that we should always be calling our Targets and asking for a separate appointment, not attempting to sell or close on our solution during the initial call. There is one exception to that and I’ll cover it next week.
There are two reasons for this philosophy.
1. When we call someone, we are interrupting them from doing something, right? That’s pretty much a given. The bigger problem is (if we want to engage in a selling conversation on the initial call), we don’t know what that is, how important it is, and most importantly, if they truly have enough time to engage in the conversation we want right then and there.
Therefore, even if we get someone to talk to us for a moment, the moment they hear something that they don’t like (and trust me, they’re looking for it), they will likely cut us off with something like, “Oh, that’s what you’re selling. We really don’t need any of that. Thanks for calling.”
We have no recourse when that happens. This situation, therefore, causes us to ‘product dump’ as fast as we can, hoping we’ll hit something of interest to the Target before they stop us. We do this instead of asking Initial Appointment type questions to determine whether they’re a qualified prospect like we’ve all been taught to. We also tend to get a bit nervous because we don’t know how much time we really have and even talk faster to try to get out what we want to say before our Target cuts us off. Now we really start to sound like the proverbial telemarketer.
2. The second reason is that one of the most common negative responses we hear on an appointment setting call is, “I’m too busy to talk with you right now.” This is very easy to handle if you’re calling for a separate appointment and very difficult to handle if you’re looking for time right then and there. (See last week’s and the week before blogs for the how to.)
We encourage sales professionals to be more professional, respect the people’s time that we are calling, and ask for a separate appointment (whether over the phone or in person – it doesn’t matter). Those that subscribe to The Formula™ tend to be more successful using this approach than those that do not.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: 2
September 8th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
Cold callers make their jobs more difficult by forgetting to ask for the ‘sale’ again after answering a question or making a point.
In our appointment making methodology called, The Formula™, we constantly remind our students not to forget to ask for the appointment again after they answer a question or make a point. What happens when we don’t do that is we leave what we call ‘dead air’. The result of dead air is that the Target will fill it with another hurdle for us to clear or hoop to jump through. (You can choose your own metaphor.) Here’s an example.
When we cold call, we make a bold statement telling the Target that our clients consistently tell us that they experience a doubling or better of the number of Initial Appointments their sales teams set after going through one of our programs. We also tell them that we’d like to stop by their office and share with them how those clients were able to accomplish that. We then always finish with the question, “Would you be available this coming Tuesday at 2:00?”
The most common response we get from our Targets is, “How the heck do you do that?”
After responding to that question and to regain control of the direction of the conversation, we ask one of our Bridge Questions™ like, “I’m just curious, what kinds of things have you done to address this critical component of the selling process?”
After they respond, we always answer with, “You know what, that’s exactly why we need to get together, would you be available Tuesday at 2:00?” (Lot’s of emphasis on the bolded words, by the way as tonality is our strongest ally over the phone.)
Sounds logical, right? Well, when we role play these new techniques in our Prospectors Academy what we hear until these new methods become second nature is that the sales professional will stop after they answer the question. And even in the role plays, the Target not knowing that they are now supposed to immediately agree to the appointment, will respond with another question or will throw out a negative response that we now have to address. (Prolonging the call and making our job more difficult.)
Don’t make that mistake. The old adage of ‘he who speaks first loses’ does apply here, but only after we’ve asked for the sale (in this case the appointment). We can’t rely on our Targets to remember the closing question we asked in the beginning, “Would you be available this coming Tuesday at 2:00?” Their last thought was focused on the response or question they gave us. We need to ask it again!
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: Leave a comment
September 1st, 2010 by Barry Caponi
Last week I talked about one of the most common Conditioned Responses we get – the “I’m too busy to talk with you right now” response. I told you about what should be your initial Counter – assume the flavor of the ‘Too Busy’ only applies to that very moment. But what if they then reply, “You just caught me at a really busy time for me. I’m just swamped at the moment”? Well, here’s how you handle that.
Just as in my example last week of how to respond when they give you the response that they’re too busy right that moment for the second time; ask them when would be a good time for you to call back. They will have to give you some period of time if they are using this response. A week or two, or maybe a month perhaps. Since I call sales managers, I get the, “Call me after the end of quarter” a lot. Ask them, “Do you have your calendar handy? Why don’t we go ahead and put something down. Let’s see today is July 18th and you want me to call after the end of the month. How about Wednesday, August 8th at 10:00 AM?” (Since you got them at whatever day and time this time, you might as well use the same again.) Now that you’ve got a time on the calendar for a call back, take one more crack at something more immediate with something like, “Hey, do you mind if I ask what’s got you so busy between now and the end of the month?” (By the way, this must be delivered with sincerity in your voice.) If they give you any reason at all that you can say the following, do it! “You know, that’s exactly why I think we should get together right now, as I can help you with what’s got you so busy. How is Tuesday at 2:00?” Once again, you’ve got to deliver this with sincerity and you better be right.
One last thing. Let’s assume that you have to go with the former approach and call them back on August 8th. Here’s what you say. “Good morning Bob. This is Barry Caponi from the Caponi Performance Group again. Back on July 18th, you suggested that I call you this morning to set an appointment for us to get together. Would you be available Tuesday at 2:00?” Most likely they’ll not remember the reason for the call and ask you to remind them. Just launch right back into your script. “Oh, I’m sorry! The reason I had specifically called you that day was… Would Tuesday at 2:00 work for you?”
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
Comments: 1
|
|
 |
