Yes I do, in fact – Don’t cold call! Not unless you are selling in a way that is radically different or fundamentally better than everyone else.

Then maybe you stand a chance, but the odds are stacked heavily against you. I couldn’t tell you the last time a cold caller cut-through and engaged me emotionally over the phone. In fact, I dare say I have never purchased something from a cold caller.

Why most cold calling is a waste of time

Many companies are selling the same thing in the same way – which means they get the same result – “I’m not interested” – Clunk!With the proliferation of the internet and the information explosion, your customers are savvier, more connected and they have less available time than ever. That means cold callers are finding it more challenging, (if not impossible) to cut-through successfully and engage people that are whiling to share their time and hopefully eventually buy.

Align your Values

If you value your time and don’t like being intruded upon – then perhaps cold calling is not the best strategy, because there is a good chance that your best customers feel the same way. Put your customer hat on for a second: When was the last time you were stimulated to buy from a cold call? How do cold callers make you feel? Perhaps manipulated and encroached on. Why would ‘your’ customers feel any different? What’s important to your customers should be important to you. If it’s not – you need to find ways to make it so.

Before you make your next cold call, go and ask your best customers how they feel about being contacted in this manner. If their response is positive, then at least you know your strategy has potential and you can refine accordingly. Your customer may be able to give you insights into what works or definitely won’t work. If their responses are mostly negative then perhaps you need to rethink your approach.

What works?

It’s not all bad. There is always room for innovation if you dare to look for areas of improvement and explore gaps that allow you to develop a unique selling point. If cold calling is a part of your sales role – then have fun with it. Don’t blatantly sell things in laconic and predictable ways. Cold calling is tough enough as it is, so if you don’t enjoy it – you won’t stick at it long enough to develop best practices. I can also guarantee you that if you don’t enjoy cold calling – neither will the people you are contacting. Come-up with new and exciting ways to play whilst you work, like cold calling in teams and creating a theme with a structured approach. Also give your customers an opportunity to buy-in and share your enthusiasm for what you are selling, quickly. This takes some passion for what you’re selling and how you sell it.

And remember, always; communicate with the customer in benefit terms. There must be a strong, if not resounding, WIFM! (What’s In It For Me?)

If there’s ‘nothing’ this makes your call, like so many other cold calls, not only a waste of your customer’s time but your own.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan       Sales Training  ∙  Sales Coaching  ∙   Sales Seminars ∙  Sales Book

Assembling a ‘dream team’ sales force is not as difficult as you may first think. I’ve known of businesses reaching great heights through the salesmanship of only a few sales-guns!

Before creating a ‘dream team’ you need to have at least one exceptional salesperson you can model. Someone has to go there first!  Whether this person is the company founder, (if sales savvy,) or a senior leader, there must be a working best-practice sales-process you can model and replicate.

Once you have a high performing salesperson to model; their core characteristics, behaviours, and activities, then form the blueprint (DNA) of your ‘dream team’. Keeping in-mind, that it’s ok to have varying personalities in the same team, this enables your team to demonstrate versatility and engage a diverse customer base. You don’t need to ‘literally’ clone sales team members to replicate successfully, but they must all have at the very least, what I call:

The C-FACTOR:

Charisma & Confidence: Personality is paramount in sales! The energy and enthusiasm you demonstrate towards your customers is very important. Equally so, is your ability to positively connect with and engage people and make them feel important.  There is a lot to be said for confidence in any area of life. In sales, if you’re not confident you will struggle to manifest the most important element in sales: Trust! Customers will sense (and fear) your lack of confidence in either your own selling ability or in what you are selling. When your customers feel fear this makes it almost impossible to build their trust and lead them successfully through your sales-process.

Commonality & Cohesion: We naturally sell to and buy from people we like or share a likeness with. The old cliché: “People buy from friends – not salespeople”, is so true. We naturally trust people that validate who we are, i.e. our beliefs, values and opinions. And we go to great lengths to surround ourselves with liked-minded people, this also includes salespeople. The most successful sales teams I’ve been involved with share their ideas and opinions constructively and work towards common goals.

Competence & Commitment: You have to know your stuff! Invariably, competence derives from taking a genuine interest in what you are doing and a commitment to stick with it long enough until you’re good at it, more so, great at it! You can look the part and talk it up with the best of them, but if you consistently let people down and drop the ball, it’s only a matter of time before your incompetence catches-up with you. 

Successful sales teams can have different personalities and opinions and even contrasting communication styles – but they all must have The C-FACTOR! Each salesperson should also align with and live by a core set of values.

 This makes setting-up and developing the right sales culture critical, particularly when creating a ‘dream team’ sales force.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan                        Sales Training  ∙   Sales Book ∙  Sales Coach

The short answer to this question is a resounding NO! Not unless you enjoy paying your lawyers to dispute unfair dismissal cases.

 A sales manager, or more appropriately, ‘sales leader’ is a key leadership role in any sales driven organisation. That means sacking your sales leader, more often than not, also means bleeding intellectual property (IP) to your key competitors. Moreover, an emotionally charged ex-sales leader may even take some of your sales team and clients with them. Ouch!

 Chopping and changing leadership always creates instability and uncertainly amongst the rest of the team. You will also find developing forward momentum difficult to achieve when you are rehiring for the same position, periodically. The cost associated with doing so is also prohibitive for most businesses. So rather than hiring and firing on an ad-hoc basis – your precious money, time, and energy is far better spent put towards developing the right sales leader and creating a foundation of support to enable them to grow with the business over the long-term.

New sales leader:

This person will need at least six to twelve months to fit into the culture and develop the change required to create and sustain their success. Don’t expect miracles overnight. Seldom is real change made swiftly, nor do results come easily when you really need them. Take your time finding a proven sales leader and once hired, give them the opportunity to adapt and build confidence in their role. This may require some lower sales months in the initial phase that you will need to budget for in advance.

Existing sales leader:

A proven method to stimulate an underperforming sales leader (you see potential in) is to provide them with as much support as possible. Not just a pat on the back and the odd bit of encouragement. I mean, planning and collaborating regularly and making sure the communication lines are always open. In the end, it’s always about the team, and if the sales leader is struggling, usually so too is the business. Wiping your hands of your sales leader and leaving them to their own devices when times are tough is ill advised.

Some may respond: “Well that’s what I pay them to do! If she doesn’t make the numbers, I will find someone who can!” That’s the old school carrot and stick leadership approach, it doesn’t work anymore, and neither does yelling and screaming at staff members to inspire them to action.

Some of the most powerful relationships I know of in business, are when the CEO and sales leader are totally aligned and working towards the same goals. When this type of synergy and confidence is formed – one or two poor sales months then forms part of a grander plan.

In the end prevention is always better than cure, so before you hire a sales leader ensure you follow a thorough recruitment process.

Don’t rush it. Listen to your gut and makes sure you engage a proven leader that fits the culture and adds value to your long-term strategy.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan                  Sales Training  ∙  Sales Book ∙  Sales Coach

Spotting time wasters is a critical initial step in your sales-process. It’s in the knowing how to weed out and manage non-relevant customers, that frees up your time to focus on real customers!

I refer to “time wasters” as “crazy customers!” That’s a little bit tongue in cheek I know, but after 15 years of professional selling, I’ve seen more than my fair share of “crazy customers”.

So what is a “crazy customer”? It’s a customer that appears to be in the market for your product or service. They may have even gone to the trouble of seeking you out and contacting you – but in the end, they will never buy from you. What’s even crazier is they may even buy a similar, (if not identical) offering to yours, and do so at a more expensive price. Why? Because they’re crazy of course! At least that’s what the salesperson believes.

So how do you spot the “crazies”? Sadly, for too many businesses their sales pipelines are full of prospects and customers that seemingly demonstrate strange, mysterious and unpredictable behaviours. This type of customer conduct perplexes salespeople no-end, and is also one of the contributing forces behind the ever present 80/20 principle, that suggests 80% of your business derives from 20% of your customers.

This magical ratio also applies to salespeople, particularly the ones that end-up spending most of their time with customers that never buy. This reduces the time and energy available to invest in customers that are ready, willing and able to buy now! As a result, this limits the amount of value the salesperson is able to create per customer and their capacity to develop meaningful relationships with real customers.

Here are three tips to help you quickly spot and manage those “crazy customers”:

1. Know exactly who your customer is.
If your business doesn’t have a clearly defined ‘customer definition’ – create one today! If your salespeople are vague on whom your customer really is this makes spotting them a costly challenge.Most sales-messages are too diluted pointed at perceived target markets that are too broad. I like to simplify things and ask the key people in the business: “Where does 80% of the profit derive from?” or: “Who are your best customers and why?” The answers will tell me exactly who the customer really is. I’m not interested in ideal customers in three years from now (that conversation can come later), I want to know what’s happening in the business right now. This piece of insight is your best starting point.

 2. Understand what really motivates your customers.
Why should a customer buy from you today, as opposed to tomorrow, or never? What’s important to you may not be important to your best customers. Take your best customers out for a coffee and ask them what’s important to them. You should find their responses similar. Once you know what’s important, have the courage to make your business, the way you communicate, and sell – all about them!

 3. Have a front-end qualification process.
Once you know who your customers are and what’s important to them – this makes finding more of them a lot easier. I always encourage salespeople to lead the right customers through an established sales-process. This starts with a qualification technique to help you cut-through to your ‘real’ customers.

A simple conversation is all that’s required to help determine whether or not the prospect qualifies and has the potential to be a best customer: 

Q: What problem do you need solved?
Q: What is the ultimate outcome you would like me to help you create?
Q: Do you have X budget allocated?
Q: When would you like to take order?

The answers should then be cues that trigger the salesperson to lead the prospect in the right direction; either to the next step in the sales process or to the door if they are indeed “crazy”?

 The quickest and surest way to get a salesperson to identify genuine opportunities is to provide them with as much focussed information on the ‘real’ customer as possible, including: a customer-centric USP and the customers buying fears, frustrations and aspirations. Your salespeople are then empowered with the information they need to determine if they are speaking with the right customer, or not. This makes weeding out your time wasters an intuitive and efficient task.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan                       Sales Training  ∙   Sales Book ∙  Sales Coach