Here’s my appointment making cheat sheet! Follow this guidance and you can’t go far wrong when setting up appointments.

STEP 1 – Qualification Is Key

Make sure the prospects that you call are qualified leads

STEP 2 – Do Your Homework

Before you call, check out their company website and find out some information about them. Be prepared.

STEP 3 – Set Your Objectives For The Call

Now you might think this is obvious i.e set up an appointment. But what about your secondary objectives if an appointment is not set? Could it be to gather further info? To find out if they are using someone already? This is really important.

STEP 4 – Tone Down The Smile And Dial

When you open your call tone down the enthusiasm initially until you’ve got something to be enthusiastic about. All sales calls sound the same and if you sound like a “smile and dialler” your prospects barriers will go up “Not another cold caller!”

STEP 5 – Have A Well Planned Not Canned Script

Know how you are going to open your call and how you are going to ask for the appointment and so on.

Don’t be too rigid with a script though because if you get thrown off the script you may get into trouble!

STEP 6 – Sell The Appointment

Don’t sell your products and services just sell the appointment and why you should get together.

STEP 7 – If You Are Faced With Any Objections Then…

State that’s why you need to get together.

“Tell me about your services now…”

You reply with:

“All of our services are completely bespoke John that’s why we need to get together so I can understand about your business and then I can recommend which one of our services will be best for you. Would next Wednesday at 2pm be ok for you?”

STEP 8 – CEMENT Your Appointment

So the prospect has said yes to an appointment. Don’t just rush off the phone in excitement. Instead make sure that you confirm all of the details with the client.

CEMENT stands for:

Confirm the details
Explain what will take place in the meeting
Many thanks
Exonerate – tell them they are making a good decision and the reasons why
Numbers – provide some benefits to the client
Terminate the call with tact

STEP 9 – CONFIRM Your Appointment Just Before

A couple of days before the appointment call or email to confirm that all is still ok.

#####

So there you have the appointment making cheat sheet!

You don’t need any fancy techniques to be a success at setting up appointments – you just need a proven approach. Follow my appointment making cheat sheet and you’ll start to see some real improvement in your prospecting.

Happy Appointment Making!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Sean McPheat is the Sales Jedi! Follow his daily tips at MTD Sales Blog

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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Why?

Well, that’s simple – it improves your focus and gives you a goal for your interaction.

So whether you’re making a cold call or meeting a prospect for the first time you need to think about putting some objectives down like:

* What do I want to achieve in this call/meeting?

* If I do not achieve my primary objective, what will I go for then?

Let’s go through a quick example:

* What do I want to achieve in this sales meeting?

Fact find and gain pain/information from the prospect so I can put a proposal together.

* What outcome do I want?

1. Have all of my questions answered so I am clear as to what they want.

2. Position our company as the market leaders

3. Set up another meeting to return with the proposal

* What actions do I want to happen at the end of the call/meeting?

Set up another meeting for 1 weeks time to return with my ideas and proposal

* How will I know if I’m successful?

Sufficient information gathered from the prospect so I can put the proposal together and dates booked in the diary and confirmed

* If I do not achieve my primary objective, what will I go for then?

1. Obtain competitor information of who they are currently using

2. Find out information about who the decision makers are

3. Find out when their existing supplier contract ends

That was a simplified idea but I hope you get the point!

Setting sales objectives is so critical for your sales career. You need to set them for everything!

When you do you will find that your focus and sales improve dramatically!

Happy Sales Objective Setting!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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“Dear Sean – thank you so much for your wonderful sales blog. My Sales Manager is always going on at me about my lack of after-sales follow up activity and I am trying to improve. Are there any other areas that I should be looking out for in addition to this? Thanks again Ian King”

My thoughts:

Lacking an effective follow up process is a killer in sales. There is so much money left on the table due to this not being done that it can be scary!

There are other areas to avoid too.

Here are my top 5 mistakes to avoid in perfecting your post-sale activity:

1. No effective follow up sales process

2. Going for big deals all of the time

3. Not viewing current clients as prospects

4. Not looking out for trends in your client’s industry that can be an “in” with your clients

5. Being afraid to ask for more business

You’ve done the hard work in getting the client and as long as they are happy clients then there is gold in them there hills! As long as your post sales activity enables this of course!

Happy Selling

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
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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And some of the things that I’ve heard have left me speechless to say the least. Now a well known former president of the USA was well known for getting his words mixed up so I thought I’d write down 7 of the best sales bloopers I’ve heard “George Bush Stye!”

1. “No problem Mr Prospect. We can supply that product at a 100% discount which makes it also most free. You can then pay for your next order in a months time” (Discount everything and it’s still not free? Definately from the Bush school of Mathematics)

2. “Good Morning James, I’ve had a snoop around on your website before coming here today and what you’ve done in terms of building the business is just very inspiring. I’ve also done a search on Google and found out what you’re planning in China too” REPLY: “Not guilty bud, my name is Tim and I’m just a pleb in accounts” (Mistaken identity at it’s best!)

3. “We’ve been going for 12 years and have got 46 staff. Our turnover is a little over £500,000 a year”
REPLY: “Only 500k and 46 staff? What do you pay them in? Fresh air?” (The salesman got it wrong and it should have been £5 million!)

4. “I’m new in this sales role so please be gentle with me. I’ll make sure that I’ll do you” REPLY “Do you?” SP “Sorry, I meant I’ll do a good job for you” (I think he was right the first time!)

5. “I appreciate the position that you’re in. If I were in your shoes I wouldn’t want to be spending a lot of money on our products either” (I think that totally came out wrong!)

6. “Thanks for seeing me today, I really appeciate you taking the time to see me. If we could be finished by 12 that would be great as I’m seeing XYZ at 12:30 across the City” REPLY “You don’t appreciate my time that much then?” (Oops! Beam me up Scotty)

7. “If I can just go through what we offer and what we do and then I’ll ask you some questions about what you need and whether we can help” (Oh dear and yes, there are still sales people who “show up and throw up” over the prospect!)

Happy Selling

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

MTD Sales Blog – The web’s #1 sales blog

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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In a word – NO.

I was speaking at a conference 2 weeks ago and afterwards I was approached by a sales person who had travelled over 1,000 miles to be there! He asked me what the secret was to close every sale.

Now whilst this question was admirable it was also ridiculous. Now while you should have the mindset that you’ll close every sale you need to be realistic and also know that you’ll lose some too.

Here are 5 reasons why you cannot close every sale:

REASON 1 – Because sometimes you need to qualify your prospect out

Sometimes you need to walk away from a deal. You need to qualify them in as a viable prospect or you need to qualify them out so you do not waste your time.

So you can’t close every sale.

REASON 2 – It’s a LOSE-WIN deal

Some prospects will take the shirt off your back if you’ll let them. Always make sure that it’s a WIN-WIN in you deals. Both parties should feel that they have got the better end of the deal.

If they haggle your margins down to nothing and you feel beat up and they play stupid games with you them think seriously whether you want them as a client.

So you can’t close every sale.

REASON 3 – Different wants

During your sales interactions you might just find out that they have different wants to what you can provide. Don’t try to persuade them to take your product or service if it’s not the right thing to do, that’s not closing that’s conning.

So you can’t close every sale.

REASON 4 – You screwed up!

So you said the wrong thing, you had a bad day or you didn’t connect with the prospect. That’s life!

But don’t beat yourself up about it. Learn from it and move on.

I remember going 3 weeks without seeing any prospects once due to a public speaking tour I was giving aorund the world. The first two times I met with a prospect after a 3 week lay off were so rusty it was unbelievable! I lost both of them too because I did not do my homework. So I screwed up.

But what did I do?

I got back to basics, learned from what I did during those 2 meetings and got back to what I always do and I won the next 9 pieces of work. See, even the best screw up! (I’m getting a big head in my old age!)

So you can’t close every sale.

REASON 5 – The Ozone layer costs you deals

Ok, so it’s not really the ozone layer but some of your prospects will go into a deal with the authority to do the deal and then for some reason the funds get pulled or they go in a different direction.

So what does the prospect tell you?

Sometimes they are not straight with you. Sometimes they come out with all kinds of excuses.

“The project is on hold…”
“Due to the economic climate…”
“The timing is now bad for us…”
“The Ozone Layer is too thin…”

Ok, so that last one is a joke but my point is that they’ll come out with all kinds of excuses!

So you can’t close every sale.

In Summary

You win some, you lose some. That’s sales.

If you win – great! Learn from the experience for next time and celebrate! Even if it’s a BIG internal pat yourself on the back!

If you lose – great! Find out why and become stronger for next time. It will make you into a better sales person.

Oh – before I go – have you got a question for me that you’d like me to answer in the blog?

I’ll keep your name and company confidential. If you do PLEASE CLICK HERE

Happy Selling!

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
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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Faced with an objection?

Always ask “What do you mean by that?”

PROSPECT
“It’s just too much money”

YOU
“What do you mean by that?”

PROSPECT
“I just haven’t got enough money left over from wages this month to fund this piece of kit?”

YOU
“What could you afford this month?”

PROSPECT
“About £100″

YOU
“And you could pay the remaining £60 next month?”

PROSPECT
“Oh yeah. No problem”

YOU
“Ok, let’s do that then….”

You need to qualify what the objection really means.

In this example, “Too much money” did not mean that the prospect could not afford it. Instead it meant “I can’t afford to competely pay for it this month”

So many sales people just hear “It’s too big” “It’s too much” “The time is not right” and then don’t question what they mean by it.

So many sales are lost with this approach.

I remember hearing a story about an elderly lady shopping for a new wardrobe in a well known furniture store.

The sales assistant showed her a lovely unit and she fell in love with it.

“It’s just too big” she said

“Ok, no problem – here are some smaller ones over here” replied the sales assistant

So they noth went over to look at some smaller wardrobes that were a lot less expensive too.

“I’ll think about it” said the lady

One week later the lady came back in to the store to purchase the smaller unit but this time the manager of the store helped her.

“I’ve come in for that unit over there” she said

“No problem, let’s sit down and complete the paperwork” said the manager

“It’s a pitty that I couldn’t have that bigger one over there. You see, I came in to buy that unit last week but it’s too big”

“Oh, what do you mean by too big” asked the MTD trained store manager!

“Well, I can’t fit it flatpacked into my car and it would love lovely in my bedroom”

“That’s no problem at all – we’ll deliver it to your door!” said the manager

Kerching! A sale, an upsell and a satisfied customer.

The first sales person heard “It’s too big” and assumed it was too big for her bedroom. The second sales person asked what she meant by “It’s too big” and found out it was too big for her car!

So my ULTRA IMPORTANT lesson for you is this…

ASK “WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY…?”

It will get you a lot more sales!

Happy Asking!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

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And that new kid on the block is called Social Media.

Now as cold calling is becoming more and more difficult and hunting out prospects is becoming harder than ever before, you need to look at alternative and modern ways to build your network and to help turn strangers into friends and friends into clients.

Basically, you need to hang where they hang out.

Historically that would have been at trade shows, networking events, seminars and breakfast clubs and whilst these are still effective, there are more cost and time efficient methods of joining in with the crowd from the comfort of your own home or office.

And this is why social media is becoming a BIG PLAYER. It’s the modern day version of the network club.

So let me give you just three social media sites that I’m getting a lot of business from. If I were you, I’d join in too!

1.TWITTER

Twitter is becoming the “new facebook”.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based.

Follow me and see what it’s all about. Be warned it’s addictive!

http://www.twitter.com/seanmcpheat

2. LINKEDIN

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site and the beauty of this site is that you can start your own discussion groups too that can position yourself as an authority in your industry.

Join my network at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/seanmcpheat

Soon you can build up a valuable prospect base and position yourself as “THE” person to turn to in your field.

3. FACEBOOK

Love it or loathe it but Facebook has brought me in a lot of money.

But make sure you use it in the right way. If it’s for business, then make sure that you haven’t got some pictures of you naked on a stag do! Make it personal but professional.

I’ve only been part of Facebook for a couple of months but have already got 1,200 friends.

Want to be my friend? Pretty please?!

Click here: JOIN MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS

SUMMARY

I’ll leave how to use each of these social media sites to another blog post. But for now come on in the water’s lovely!

Happy Selling

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
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…

It’s just human nature to act that way.

And in this “bad news” economy that we are sick to the back teeth of hearing of, a lot of companies are battening down the hatches and are going into survival mode (i.e avoid pain at all costs) as opposed to going into thrive mode (i.e gain pleasure)

So this provides an opportunity for you.

Here’s a quick exercise for you to complete:

1. Write down all of the benefits that your product or service solves

2. Next, re-engineer those benefits into pain! What I mean by this is that you should write down what your prospect’s situation would be if they don’t use your product or service

3. Next, write down 5-10 pain inducing questions that you can ask to elicit pain and problems during your sales interactions

4. After they expose their pain you can then solve their problem!

An example;

You sell a fax machine that is integrated onto your prospect’s desktop.

Benefits:
- You don’t have to leave your desk when sending a fax

- It costs as much as sending an email

- It’s kinder to the environment

Reverse Engineer The Benefits:
- By leaving your desk you spend 5-15 minutes at the fax machine and this wastes time, effort and focus

- It costs 40p per fax

- It wastes paper

Questions You Could Ask To Induce Pain:
- Do you know how many faxes are sent in your office each week?

- Do you know how long it roughly takes to send a fax?

- (then you’d discuss the 5-15 minutes x the number of faxes sent each week to get a ball park figure in terms of time lost)

- (you can also do the same with the volume x cost)

- I noticed that you are a “green employer” – do you know how much paper is being wasted with the 544 faxes you said you send each week? On average it’s a minimum of 3 pages per fax etc

I hope you get the idea?

It’s just a neat little tip to get you to reverse engineer the benefits into pain inducing questions to elicit the pain.

And then of course, we all know what will provide a solution to the pain don’t we!!!????

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
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…

And the lesson I’ve got for you today is that you always need to be prepared for the unexpected and have a PLAN B and C and D etc up your sleeve.

Here’s what happened:

I was told for the past 3 weeks just to bring a memory stick with my Powerpoint Presentation on it because they will supply the laptop and projector.

LESSON! – EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

I know from past experience never to rely on other people’s kit! So I took my own laptop, printed off colour copies of my slides and took my own projector.

Low and behold, the laptop they had did not work and the hotel’s projector had broken down from the previous day!

I was called in to deliver my presentation, memory stick in hand only for them to say “We’ve had a slight glitch I’m afraid, it’s caused havoc with the other suppliers we’ve seen today but you’re all in the same boat! We haven’t got a laptop and no projector – sorry”

Unflustered, I reached into my bag and got out 5 copies of the presentation in bound booklet format.

“Not to worry. I’ve brought my own laptop and projector and these are the slides of the presentation too so you can scribble all over them as I talk. Let me get my projector out of the car”

They were mightily impressed.

You see, you need to prepared incase things do not work out the way you want. What would I have done if I had not brought my laptop with me? What about the projector? And the notes?

I had all of my bases covered so make sure you do too EVER SINGLE TIME!

Happy Contingency Planning!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
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…

And of course there are ways to gain an advantage but in my book nothing can win over a genuine, caring and selfless sales person whose only interest is in helping you out.

Here’s an example of what I mean;

Last night a sales rep from Hillary’s Blinds came around our house to meet with us to discuss “kitting out” about 6 windows with various variations of blinds.

I got the usual “pep talk” from Donna, my wife, who told me to go easy on him!

So, there we sat going through samples, different types of blinds – you name it! (and at the same time I was trying to watch Brazil v Italy over his shoulder on Sky Sports!)

I was looking out for any sales tricks, what approach he was using – you name it and I look for it when I’m being sold to.

And that’s the thing with this chap. I was not being SOLD TO. Instead he was helping me to buy.

He was caring, he was genuine and kind. He was a trusted advisor in his field and knew his stuff inside out.

To cut a long story short it was actually a pleasurable 2 hours even if I did miss Robinho’s wonder goal! We were a couple of grand lighter in the pocket but both of us were happy with the deal and that’s what it’s all about.

Will I recommend this guy?

You bet.

What did he do that was special?

Nothing really. He just cared and listened exactly to what we wanted.

He was a SUPERB LISTENER.

More often then not, all you need to master are the basics to exceed your sales targets. You need to become a master of the doing the basics extraordinarily well – day in and day out.

That’s the key to modern day selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
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…