People respond much better to a phone call than they do to a lot of other sales devices. Not only is a phone call much more personalised than, say, an email or a Facebook wall post, but it gives you an opportunity to tailor your speech to what the customer wants to hear, and gives you an opportunity to overcome their objections.

However, as powerful a technique as the phone call is, it also provides you with considerably more opportunity to alienate your clients that you get with most other sales techniques. Follow these three techniques to optimise your results when calling clients over the phone.

Bypass the Guards

As they say in sales, timing is everything. This is true in the most literal sense when you’re dealing with telephone marketing. The time of the day that you call can make or break you chances of success.

If you are calling a new client while they’re at work, you run the risk of getting stopped by gatekeepers, particularly if they’re a busy professional or manager. Gatekeepers are the secretaries and administrative personnel who surround your potential client or partner, and insist on taking a message. Bypass them by calling after before 9 am or after 5 pm. They’ll have gone home, leaving your client to take calls for themself.

Avoid Calling Your Clients at Home

Lastly, you run a risky gambit by calling people at home after work. People’s schedules vary widely, and you can never be sure that you’re calling at an appropriate time when you reach someone at home during the week. Calling a client during dinner or while they’re unwinding later is one sure fire to ruin the relationship. Unless it’s an emergency, save it for the daytime or the weekend.

Always Smile

Its sounds silly, but make sure that you’re happy while you’re talking to your clients. You can project confidence and enthusiasm through the telephone, and a lot of this is controlled by whether you’re smiling and thinking enthusiastically about building the relationship or selling your product.

On this same note, make sure to sound professional. Even more so than in face-to-face conversation, you can’t rely on pauses like “um” and “uh” to break up your sentences in a telephone call, and you must remember to be polite, and fill your speech with “thank you” and other words of consideration.

By following these few simple tips, you can improve your existing client relationships, and build new ones, over the telephone.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

While the elevator pitch isn’t actually used in elevators (although it could be), the name alludes to the fact that it should ideally take about the same amount of time as a typical elevator ride.

The basic idea of the elevator pitch is to give potential customers an idea of what your business does, why it does it better than your competitors, and how you can translate your past successes into future benefits for them.

Keep it Updated

It’s essential to keep your elevator pitch updated as your business changes, and as your role within your business changes. You wouldn’t air the same commercials year in and year out, would you? Neither should you use the same sales pitch to clients from year to year.

Related to this is the importance of tailoring your speech to different groups of customers. While one subset of customers may care more about the potential cost savings afforded by your product or service, another group may be much more concerned with effectiveness, quick delivery, or any other aspect of your business. Stress the parts of your business that are most likely to appeal to the customer you are currently pitching to.

Nail the Delivery

Like with any kind of face-to-face sales, the key to your elevator pitch is in the delivery. You only really have one chance to delivery your pitch perfectly, which means that you have to understand your customer and understand what they are looking for.

Even more importantly, you have to make your pitch relevant and exciting. Open with an appeal to emotion, with a surprising statistic, or with anything that will catch your potential client’s attention and get him engaged. Once you’ve done this, you  can move into statistics, or the nuts and bolts of what benefits they stand to gain by using your product or service.

Above all, be confident. If you aren’t 110% sure of your product, then nobody else will be either.

Keep your elevator pitch relevant and updated, and when you get a chance to use, make sure that your delivery is perfect. In this way, you can make sure that when you get a chance to speak with a potential customer, you can bring them in every time.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

Make or Break

Never forget that, more than any other type of sales, face to face selling is a make or break opportunity. People are busy, they have short attention spans, and typically they aren’t very interested in what you’re selling, at least initially. Which is all the more reason that it is absolutely essential to open strong and close quickly.

Capture Their Attention

Once you get the first few seconds of someone’s attention, you can easily build from there. But getting the first few seconds is the tough part – how do you get someone to take a break from their busy life and listen to what you have to say? By making a creating appeal to their emotions, or by offering them a deal! Even the busiest among us are always looking for a way to save a couple of quid, so give them a chance to do just that.

Create Urgency

Along with being make-or-break, face to face selling needs to move along quickly. As opposed to internet-based sales, where you bring in your customer slowly with free information before offering them an opportunity to buy, face-to-face sales need to close quickly.

If your customer walks away without making a purchase, you will likely never hear from them again. So build urgency in whatever manner you can. Stress that there is only a limited amount of your product left, or that the offer you’re giving them will not be good forever.

However, here you must be careful to steer away from hackneyed phrases like “limited time offer,” and “only available for a short time.” People are so accustomed to these phrases being thrown around that they won’t believe you even if you’re telling the truth, and you’ll damage your credibility by looking like a pushy, amateur, salesman.

In today’s age of faceless promotion and internet marketing, face-to-face sales are more effective than ever. However, the key to effective in-person selling is understanding that your customers are busy, making a powerful appeal, giving them an offer, creating urgency, and closing deal without coming off as pushy or annoying. Sounds like a tall order, but the only way to get better at it is by practising.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

There are, fortunately, a few things you can do to ensure that you don’t find yoruself in the midst of a price war. Today I’ll share three.

First, make sure you dress to impress. The better you look, the more your client or prospect will respect you and what you have to say. The sloppier you look the less they’ll trust you and, sadly, the less they’ll think of your product. You have to look as though you feel as valuable as you want your prospects to believe you are.

Next, you’ll want to avoid using phrases that give your prospect the impression that discounts may be available. Avoid phrases like “retail price” or “rack price.” The average consumer knows that there is a significant markup between manufacturer and retail stores/salesperson. They may not know what that markup is but they do know it leaves room for negotiation and will want to know why you can’t give them your wholesale price. Don’t put the thought into your prospect’s mind.

Finally, you need to carefully consider whether you want to offer a discount at all. If you’re trying to land a large account, for example, and offer a discount the prospect will never forget that you were able to do so. For the duration of your business relationship he will expect you to continue offering discounts (or will believe that by merely pushing you to do so you’ll find a way to get him one). Is that the type of unprofitable relationship you want to build with your clients?

Think carefully before you begin your sales presentation. The actions you take and the words you speak will dictate whether or not your client believes your price is reasonable or whether or not he believes you’re trying to overcharge him. Make sure you lead your prospects down the right path.

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

I have found in business there are three main types of objection and five ways in which you can react or respond to those objections once you identify them.

Let’s start by looking at the three main types of objection. They are:

• Openly expressed – in which the individual tells you exactly what his problem is;
• Inferred or implied – in which a person lets you know that there is a problem but does not necessarily tell you what that problem is; and
• Disguised or hidden – in which a person does not let on that there is a problem at all or attempts to hide his discomfort.

When faced with these objections you can take one of five actions:

• You can attempt to pre-empt the objection by perceiving what it might be in advance and addressing it;
• You can ask the individual in question what the problem is and ask follow up questions until you are clear on the issues and can formulate a response;
• You can agree with the objection and then counter with your own;
• You can simply address the objection by providing answers that solve the problem; or
• You can accept that the sale is dead and end your meeting. Move on to someone who will have more interest in you and your products.

It’s up to you, as the salesperson, to recognize the objection and react. You can not, especially in the case of a disguised objection, act as though you are completely unaware. Make the right choice and you’ll gain a loyal customer. Make the wrong choice and you may as well go back to your desk and start cold calling again.

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

They don’t trust you.

The average buyer has been burnt by a company or product at least once or twice. If they fear you’ll take advantage of them or that your product may not be as good as you claim they may walk away even though they really want what you’re selling. Make sure you use testimonials in your sales pitch and offer a great money back guarantee. These things make buyers feel more comfortable.

They have no incentive to act.

Someone may be interested in what you have to offer but not really have any incentive to take immediate action. There’s simply no hurry and they will eventually get caught up in everyday life and forget about you. Put a timelimit on your discount or deal. These timelimits often inspire people to take immediate action because they don’t want to lose out on saving money.

They don’t have any money.

Some people really don’t have money, but the majority of people have money but also have plans to spend it on something else. Your job is to make your product so appealing they’ll want to buy your first. Make sure they know exactly how it will change their lives, eliminate their problems, or simplify their processes. Move your product to the top of their shopping lists.

They don’t need your product.

There’s a huge difference between “want” and “need.” Only the most frugal shopper is firm about purchasing things he “needs” and never buys things he “wants.” When someone says they don’t need what they have to offer you should immediately wonder if that’s true, or if he simply doesn’t want it. What can you do to make him want what you have?

Being successful in sales is about overcoming objections. Find a way to work around these and you’ll be well on your way to fulfilling your sales quota!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant - Internet Marketing Consultant - Sales Expert

It’s impossible to overcome objections.

Now before you start getting upset with me over this theory, let me explain. What I mean is that we spend too much time asking ourselves “How can I get past this objection?” when what we should really be asking ourselves is “How can I help my prospect get past his objections?”

The objection is not yours – it belongs to your prospect. That’s a very important distinction. An objection does not necessarily mean your prospect isn’t interested in your product or service. In many cases it merely means he or she needs more information.

Take a look at a few common objections:

• The price seems high so I think I’ll shop around first.
• I would like to see some more information before I make a decision.
• I’d like some time to think about this.
• This is a bad time for us to make a commitment.
• We have no money in our budget for this right now.

These objections are certainly much different than hearing, “I’m not interested. Please stop calling me.”

There are ways to work around all sorts of objections, and more often than not an objection, while true, is also a method prospects use to protect themselves. They’ve probably heard from dozens of vendors and don’t feel as though you’re any more trustworthy than the last. It’s your job to determine if the objection they are presenting to you is real or merely defensive.

For example, if a prospect says that he doesn’t have the money in his budget, you might follow up by asking him how much he thinks your product costs. You might also ask him to clarify whether or not he has no budget now, or if he never has or plans to have a budget for this type of product. Perhaps he’s really only concerned that your product is worthless and he’d be wasting his money.

These are all concerns your prospect owns. It’s your job to merely show him that his concern is unwarranted. If he’s really interested and does have a budgetary concern, arrange to follow up later. If he continues to put you off with excuses, move on to the next prospect instead of wasting your time.

You’re going to run into objections every day. The trick is to avoid personalizing them so that you can help others. You should already be convinced your product is the best. Simply help your clients to realize the same thing!

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat

Telephone 0800 849 6732