How refreshing would it be if a cold caller just said those immortal words “Yes, Mr Prospect this is a sales call” right up front?

Well, a lot of cold callers are using this technique and are getting some great results.

Here’s why:

It generates instant rapport
In a world where a lot of cold callers are saying almost anything to try and trick and lie their way to get to talk to you, this kind of approach is unusual and hence it causes a reaction from the prospect.

It’s new and refreshing!
Your prospects are receiving a ton of calls each month so when something “out of the blue” comes up they are more likely to say “you know what? go for it!”

It’s honest
Yes, you do want to close a sale and yes, this is a sales call. You are not being underhanded, you are not trying to mask anything and some of your prospects will love this.

Of course, like with anything there will those prospects who still put the phone down on you but you’ll get that no matter what.

So just try something a little but different and gauge your results. In some industries it works like a dream!

Happy cold calling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The Sales Jedi
MTD Sales Blog

MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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If you’re a subscriber to the “under promise and over deliver” philosophy then you’ll probably not survive in sales for too long.

I’ve read so many books that say you must under promise and then over deliver and I just shake my head at every single one!

Here’s why:

1. If you under promise you’ll most likely not win the business in the first place because prospects today want to be “surprised” and “excited” by what you offer

2. The modern day buyer can sniff out when you’re not “offering the best you can”

3. You should accurately promise and then try your very best to over deliver far above that promise

4. Your clients and prospects have very high expectations so you continually need to raise the bar

5. The modern day buyer is fully aware of the under promise and over deliver approach so they will know when you’re trying it on!

Overall, we need to raise the standards of sales professionalism worldwide. By “under promising” means we are not doing the best possible job we can for our clients.

Instead, we need to work with our prospects and clients to accurately determine what we can do and then strive to over deliver on that promise.

Happy selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The Sales Jedi
MTD Sales Blog

MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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You know the situation…

You’ve met with the prospect, they seem to “love your ideas and proposals” and then everytime you call them for a second meeting they say “I’ve been really busy and my plate is full, can you call back in a couple of weeks time?”

So you call again in a months time and then they do exactly the same!

So how can you overcome Full Plate Syndrome?

Well, in my opinion if this happens to you then you did not provide sufficient value that made the purchase a MUST have for the prospect.

Either that or the project is now dead and the prospect does not have the guts to tell you.

Let’s put it this way – if your proposal was offering free fifity pound notes and during the second meeting you’d actually be taking a briefcase full of the things, do you think that the prospect would still “have a full plate” and be very busy?

Nope!

I’d bet that they’d meet you the same day you called or tomorrow at worse!

Why?

Well, that’s because they couldn’t possibly turn down an opportunity like that and that’s exactly what you must do when you sell.

You’ve got to make your offer so compelling that they simply CANNOT turn you down.

So my question to you is this?

Does your offer create so much value that your prospects would just be stupid to turn you down? Have a look through what you offer and ask yourself the “so what?” question at every benefit and feature. What will make them stand out?

This will magically make their “full plate” go away and they’ll be beating down your door to meet with you!

Happy Selling

Sean

Sean McPheat
The Sales Jedi
MTD Sales Blog

MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

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You’ve probably heard a million times over that the most important part of an advert is it’s headline.

Why?

Well, that’s because it grabs your attention and makes you want to read on further!

Well, the same can be said for your openings in what you say and the headlines that you write in your prosposals and emails.

It is so important that you get this right because your first impression, the first thing out your mouth, that headline you write in your proposal and the subject topic you write in that email will either make the prospect want more or will turn them off.

So work on your openings. Write down 10 different openings to get that prospect to come in to your trade stand, create some openings for your cold calls, create some headlines for when you reply to enquiries via email.

And make sure they grab the attention of your prospect if you want them to make a grab for their purse strings!

Happy selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Blog
MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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“Sales Velocity” - it’s a new buzzword in town and I’ve just commented on another decent sales blog at Sales Excellence about the very subject.

So what actually do we mean by sales velocity?

Well, it’s how long the sales cycle is for your particualr product or service.

In other words “How quick do you close a sale?”

Now a lot of sales training books and the techniques that you read about always talk about generating new leads, farming your existing accounts etc to build sales but an often overlooked area is that of increasing how quickly you MAKE your sales.

It makes plain out common sense that if on average it takes you 11 days to win a piece of business that if you can reduce this down to 7 or 8 days then you’ll have more time free to prospect and sell.

So how can you do this?

Well, firstly you need to get together as a sales team and map out your sales process.

List and draw up every single activity in your sales process and for each stage put down the best case and worse case time period that it should take.

Now, after you have done this you need to add up all of the best and worse case time periods so you’ll get a range like:

WORSE CASE – 33 DAYS
BEST CASE – 2 DAYS
AVERAGE – 10 DAYS

Now find out who is the best performing sales person at each stage of the sales process and work out what they do and how they do it. Map this out across the sales process map in some way or link to it via another document.

And then go to work on implementing what they do and how they do it. Keep evaluating and measuring how long each stage takes to see the impact.

It will make a huge impact on your sales.

So going forward look at your sales velocity figures as well as your ratios and your activity.

By increasing your sales velocity you will free up a lot more time to sell which in turn will lead to more sales naturally!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Blog
MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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“But I’m doing everything the same Sean and my figures are awful, I’m in a sales slump – help!”

Sometimes don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you’re in a slump when you’re not.

Sometimes it’s just the simple law of averages catching up with you.

Here’s what I mean.

Your overall closing ratio is 20%. So you win 1 in 5 deals.

Now assume you’re on a hot streak and your closing ratio goes to 80% during the next 30 sales presentations. You’re over the moon!

But then you’re figures take a dive and you get all worried – you couldn’t “close” a barn door!

So what’s up?

Well, to sustain a closing average of 80% over the long run is not realistic. Sure, it might go up from 20 to 30 or even 40% but not to 80% so the law of averages kick in and say:
“Hey, you’re due some no sales” and you go through a “slump”

Note how I say “slump” because you are not in a slump.

So what do you do? Well, you tinker with your technique and approach and that just makes your figures worse when all that was happening was your averages catching up with you.

Simple as that!

So my takeaway lesson is this:

Make sure you analyse your figures closely. Understand the dynamics of your business so when you get the “highs” and the “lows” you understand what it means. Make sure you don’t knee jerk into changing your methods when there is no need.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Blog
The Sales Jedi

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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Watching the UK version of Hell’s Kitchen last night, Marco Pierre White came out with a quote that he said came from Attila The Hun:

“It is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail”

Now I don’t know whether that saying actually came from Attila The Hun but it’s an interesting one isn’t it?

It assumes that the competition must fail AS WELL as him succeeding.

Now you have to be careful when bashing the competition in-front of your prospects because you not only discredit them but you also discredit the industry you are in when you go into bashing mode!

So your prospect had a faulty set of widgets from ABC. You say ABC are useless etc. The prospect then has reservations about getting widgets from anyone now nevermind from ABC!

You need to defend the widget industry and the competition and then put a positive slant on why the prospect should choose you.

Here’s what I mean:

“I’m sorry you had a bad experience with ABC company Mr Prospect. I’ve never heard of their widgets letting anyone down before so I’m really surprised with that. It might have been something to do with the fact that they still use the XYZ convertors on their widgets which although still very robust are a little outdated. We replaced the XYZ convertors on our widgets with modern MM2 convertors…”

So, make sure you bash the competition in the right!

Let’s call it indirect bashing!

Happy Bashing!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Blog
MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

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Yeah, yeah, yeah – recession this, tough economy that…..I’m sick of hearing it and I bet you are too!

Now whether you think the “recession” is real or not we need to face the facts and admit that a lot of our prospects and clients are scared shitless!

So what can we do to make more sales in this tough economy?

Pray? Win the lottery? Whack our prospects over the head and threaten that Joe Pesci will come and get them?

Ah ok then, here are 5 quick sales tips for a tough economy:

1. Have a strategy in place for longer sales cycles

Stalling, delaying, call it whatever but sales cycles are longer in a tough economy.

Question: what are you doing to manage the prospect during the lag time? I don’t mean just bombarding them with emails or calls – that’s just counter productive. But instead, how are you adding value to them in the meantime before they make the logical choice and choose you?

2. Farm your existing accounts

I came across some research research from Accentures “The Point” Volume 4, Issue 4.

Basically it said:

20% of customers provide 80% of margin
85% of margin comes from only 4 products
More than 50% of the customer base uses only one or two product

You say you’re farming your existing accounts, but are you really?

Work them harder and have a strategy in place for this.

3. Have a response for econojections

Now don’t steal my phrasiology there! I came up with that!

You know that your prospects will use the economy as an excuse not to do business with you so you should use the economy AS AN excuse to do business with you!

Have a response ready and test it and test it and refine it and then test it some more until you nail the response that get’s you the best response.

4. Don’t you use any econojections either!

“My sales figures are down, it’s the economy”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of not selling hard enough or churning out the activity in a tough market and blaming it on the economy.

Sure, your figures might not be as good as they once were but are you still putting the effort in? Don’t use this as an excuse.

5. What have you got up your sleeve?

As a salesperson in a tough economy you’ll most likely be asked for a discount at some point throughout the sales process.

So how are you going to respond to this?

You’ll need to have something up your sleeve or be crystal clear on what you’ll “give” and what you’ll “want” in return.

Practice responding to this kind of demand.

So there you have it!

5 quick sales tips for a tough economy.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The Sales Jedi
MTD Sales Blog

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

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So you’ve arrived 30 minutes early and you’re sitting in your car ready to go in and visit a prospect and you’ve made the cardinal sin and have not done any sales preparation for this meeting!

Shame on you!

So you might have briefly scanned their website but that’s just about it.

Well, here are 5 areas to prepare for the sale now so it will give you more focus:

LAST MINUTE SALES PREPARATION TACTIC # 1
1. Know your objectives

What do you want to get out of this meeting?

Is it to qualify the prospect for a proposal?

Is it to identify the real decision maker?

Is it a fact finding mission?

Have a crystal clear objective in your mind so it will give you some focus.

LAST MINUTE SALES PREPARATION TACTIC # 2
2. What’s your secondary objective?

So your most wanted outcome does not fly…

What are you going to do then?

What’s your secondary objective?

To find out who they are using and why?

To find out their buying process?

To uncover some weaknesses in the supplier they are already using?

Have something up your sleeve!

LAST MINUTE SALES PREPARATION TACTIC # 3
3. Pull out the problems

One of the biggest mistakes that under-prepared salespeople make is that they rush it so much that they just “turn up and throw up” over the prospect.

They PUSH the benefits and features of their products and services instead of PULLING out the problems first and ONLY THEN solving the problem.

Don’t make this mistake!

With the limited time you have available jot down some questions that will pull out the problems from the prospect and unearth their pain.

……..and then you can solve the problem!

LAST MINUTE SALES PREPARATION TACTIC # 4
4. Objections!

You know what’s coming!

So take a little time to get centred and go over how you will handle them.

Will you frontload them in your talk?

Will you handle them when they just come up?

If they ask for discount what will your strategy be?

Be prepared! You know objections are out there!

LAST MINUTE SALES PREPARATION TACTIC # 5
5. Mindset if the key to success

Salespeople in a hurry act as though the prospect is “just another prospect”

You need to act as though they are the last prospect you’ll ever have!

That means that you need to get the thought of the commission out of your head and just focus on helping them.

When you strip out sales to it’s core it’s about solving problems and helping people.

So just think about this for a moment and come from this angle when talking to the prospect.

Okay, it’s time to sell!

(But next time do a more thorough job on your sales preparation……please!)

Happy Sales Preparation!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The Sales Jedi
MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

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There are hundreds, no thousands of people roaming the streets today and calling themselves sales professionals!

And yes, don’t get me wrong there are some out there but in all of my travels around the world and having come into contact, trained and witnessed literally thousands of sales people in action, there are a lot of sales professionals who would be done under the trades description act if they indeed did call themselves a sales pro!

I really think there are some defining factors that make it easy to tell the difference between a “salesman” and an incredible “sales professional.”

So how can you tell an amateur from a professional?

Here are 10 thoughts to get the ball rolling:

1. Amateurs are nothing but order takers. They don’t actually HAVE to sell.

2. A sales professional has clear objectives and knows what outcome they want to achieve at each stage of the sales process.

3. Amateurs “wing it”

4. A sales professional has a plan and a proven method for success

5. True sales professionals are always well prepared for any situation. They can adapt their presentation at a moments notice and still achieve their goals

6. Sales professionals are viewed by their clients as trusted advisors

7. Amateurs talk too much

8. Amateurs think about the commission more than the need to help the next prospect

9. Sales professionals analyse their numbers, understand their numbers and refine and modify
their approach

10. Amateurs don’t listen to sales improvement cd’s or improve their knowledge

So, how many of those do you do?

Are you a pro?

Or are you “The diet coke of sales professionals?”

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Blog
MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…