by Marta Malyk | Nov 7, 2022 | Best Sales Practices, Cold Calling, Cold Calling Success, Cold Calling Tips, Sales, Sales process, Sales Prospecting
A quiz for you:
Communicating your expertise and product knowledge to your prospect leads to a successful sale:
1/ True
2/ False
I came across this question in a session with a world-class expert in the Sandler selling method. This is one that can spark a lot of debate.
I’m aware that many salespeople are trained to be product experts. In fact, product or service training may be the lion’s share of the formal training that they receive from their company. Often, salespeople are coached to share their knowledge in order to establish their expertise with a prospect. This might be because the business perceives that the offering is so differentiated that once a prospect fully understands it they will jump at the opportunity. So, an encyclopedic knowledge of the offering and the ability to communicate it is often perceived as a major sales success factor for a salesperson.
However, consider the problems that could arise with this approach. What if we miss something critical because we are so busy “communicating” about our offering? When we first meet with a prospect, I believe it’s important to let the prospect communicate with us. What are their current issues? Why are they even talking to us about our offering? What problems are they trying to solve? If we move into “presentation mode” without knowing the answers to these questions, we risk losing the prospect’s attention by not addressing their core concerns. In order to get at these concerns, we need to take the time to ask the right questions and then engage in active listening so that the prospect can communicate with us and so that we can internalize what they are saying. We need a two-way conversation and, particularly early in the discussion, it’s ideal if the prospect does most of the talking. This is where we learn what we need to know in order to confirm if they are a good fit for our solution and then close the sale.
So what’s my answer to this question?
False: I’ve concluded that product knowledge and expertise aren’t enough to close the sale.
My recommendations:
- Avoid getting into the “nuts and bolts” of a product presentation immediately with a prospect.
- Slow down and take the time to get to know prospects in order to learn what motivates them.
When you truly understand their situation, you can then start to use your understanding of your offering to highlight how your solution will make a real difference for them. In my experience, taking this approach will improve the likelihood of a successful outcome.
At One of a Kind Sales, we love to sell and are lifelong learners when it comes to selling. Cold calling is our specialty. If your business needs help with getting appointments with qualified prospects, give us a call at 908-879-2911.
by Marta Malyk | Oct 24, 2022 | Best Sales Practices, Closing Sales, Sales efficiency, Sales process, Sales productivity
As business owners, we all want to grow by winning new clients. But many of us find it difficult to “convert” new opportunities into paying clients. This leads to frustration.
In my 20+ years of experience as a sales professional, I’ve observed that many business owners meet prospects and then immediately move forward to “sell” without taking a pause and assessing what needs to happen next. They don’t actively manage the selling process. There are four actions you can take to help increase your sales efficiency.
Step 1—Talk to the Real Decision Maker
There is nothing more frustrating than discovering that you’ve walked through an entire sales process only to discover that your prospect needs to bring in another party who will ultimately make the decision. The step of confirming that your contact is the real decision maker is often overlooked. We get excited over the prospect of new business with a long-sought company and it’s easy to assume that our contact holds more power than they do.
Make sure you explore the company’s decision-making process with the person who is your contact. Be prepared to say you can only go so far in the process without having the ultimate decision makers involved. Your likelihood of getting to a commitment is greater when you speak directly to the decision maker(s).
Questions you can ask to move this along are:
- What is the decision-making process for services or products like mine?
- Who else will be part of the decision making?
- Are there other major stakeholders who would be involved in the decision?
Step 2—Ensure Your Solution is Relevant
It’s better to learn quickly if there is no current opportunity with a target company rather than to invest your time selling to someone who doesn’t need or value the solution you offer. Once you confirm that you have a relevant solution, take time to understand how the problem has impacted their business. This allows you to adjust your discussion to speak directly to their experiences. It may feel unnatural to not push to a close immediately upon confirming their need. But if you invest your time in this dialogue, your prospects may actually sell themselves. They are reminding themselves why they should be talking to you. And they realize that you are listening to them. This makes them more amenable to moving forward.
Ask the following questions:
- How has this problem affected your business? And for how long?
- What resources has this problem consumed? What did it cost you?
- What have you already done to address it?
Step 3—Seek Confirmation Along the Way
Throughout the discussion, make sure that you are getting mini buy-ins. Check for agreement at key points, ideally using open-ended questions. Don’t wait until the end of your presentation to ask their opinion. This way, you’ll be able to assess your prospect’s level of engagement, confirm their interest, and address potential objections as they occur. Moreover, this approach will ensure that this is a two-way conversation.
Use these prompting questions:
- How consistent is this with what you experienced?
- What are your thoughts on this?
- How does this sound to you?
Step 4—Let Your Personality Shine Through
Throughout the engagement, never forget that “people buy from other people.” Let your personality shine through! If you are staying true to steps 1 though 3, your empathy for their situation will be apparent and you’ll build credibility and trust. Ultimately, you want your prospects to feel good and look forward to working with you.
Getting to the Close
Using this approach, the natural outcome of a discussion between you and your prospect is to move to a proposal.
- You are talking to the right person.
- You know they have a problem that you can solve.
- They’ve validated for themselves that they have this need.
- They know that you have a deep understanding of their situation.
By the time you get to this point, your prospect should have reached the unavoidable conclusion that your solution is just what their business needs.
Here’s the final piece of “magic”—if you’ve taken these steps, once you are ready to close, you can simply ask, “What would you like to happen next?”
When you get your next opportunity, take a step back, consider this guidance, and see what happens.
If your business is facing sales-related challenges, please reach out to us at 908-879-2911. At One of a Kind Sales, we are experts in sales and we particularly love cold calling. We look forward to speaking with you!
This article, written by Nancy Calabrese of One of a Kind Sales, originally appeared in The Bottom Line, No. 3: 2022, the quarterly newsletter of NJAWBO, New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners.
by Marta Malyk | Oct 11, 2022 | Cold Calling, Cold Calling Success, Cold Calling Tips, Sales Prospecting
A couple of weeks ago, I attended Outbound 2022 in Atlanta. Outbound is self-described as “the biggest, baddest conference in the Sales Profession.” Outbound is unique because it’s the only conference focused exclusively on “sales prospecting, pipeline, and productivity.” I always make it a point to attend.
Continuing Education
Some people are amazed that I would take time away from my business to go to a conference with other salespeople. But in my view, I’m not taking time away from my business, I’m investing time in my business because, as the owner of a business whose primary focus is outbound cold calling, attending Outbound is continuing education for me.
A conference like Outbound gives me the opportunity to be surrounded by and interact with individuals who believe in outbound activities. These are people who strive to be the best professional salespeople every day. While there, I’m able to explore new ideas and develop relationships that have led to growth for my own business. My experience at Outbound allows me to be a better leader of my own organization and inspire my team to do their best job.
I also invest in my own people. We have weekly Sandler training attended not only by my sales specialists but my admin team as well. As a result, my admin team has a deeper understanding of our business and they have become better communicators as a result. This investment pays off with greater efficiency and productivity for my business.
My Love of Learning
If you’ve followed my blog and my social posts for any length of time, you’ll know that I have a strong thirst for learning. Attending Outbound helps satisfy that need. But another way that I address this is through my Conversational Selling podcast. A recent conversation with my colleague Liz Wendling, President of Liz Wendling Business Consulting and Sales Coaching left me considering her wise words: “Selling is the only way to stay in business.” Given the truth of this statement, the need for good sales skills is inexhaustible. One of a Kind Sales will continue to hone these skills to meet the needs of our clients.
At One of a Kind Sales, we love to sell and cold calling is our specialty. If your business needs help with this, give us a call at 908-879-2911.
by Marta Malyk | Sep 26, 2022 | Best Sales Practices, Leadership, Sales Prospecting Success, Sales Training
Recently, I had a discussion with a sales leader who told me that she believes her success – and that of her team – is primarily determined by the sales compensation plan. While this may play a strong role, in my experience, sales leaders need to engage in three critical activities beyond compensation and incentives to be effective. These include: having good goals and metrics; hiring and retaining the right sales team members; and providing ongoing coaching, training, and mentoring to the team.
Goals and Metrics
Understanding how your team is performing relative to expectations is critical to identifying where the focus needs to be placed. We’re all familiar with the acronym “SMART” when it comes to defining your goals. Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timebound. As an example of a SMART goal, at One of a Kind Sales, we require each sales team member to make 20 calls per hour.
In addition, a good CRM is critical to tracking performance goals versus metrics. While a CRM may be an investment for your organization, being able to easily track performance gives you the opportunity to assess and make adjustments as needed.
The Right Team
Working with team members who have a passion for their work is important. As a sales leader, you need to be able to assess whether an individual demonstrates that passion and is a good fit for your team. For example, at One of a Kind Sales, we value sales training and coaching. Our team members need to love learning and have a desire to continuously improve their sales skills. We also value sharing key learnings based on experiences with prospects as well as sharing success stories. We look for that willingness to share in our candidates.
Sales Training
Once you have the right team, keeping the team ‘on point’ with strong sales skills is critical. By investing in ongoing sales training, you strengthen the capabilities of your sales team and improve their ability to reach and potentially exceed sales goals. If individuals are identified as underperformers, sales training and coaching may help them correct their course. If not, it’s important to determine whether or not they should be in that role. In addition, when your team sees that you are investing in their skills, it demonstrates that you are interested in their personal development and increases their commitment to the job.
At One of a Kind Sales, we love selling and we are experts at cold calling, in particular. If you would like to discuss how we can help you and your team please contact us at 908-879-2911.
by Marta Malyk | Aug 29, 2022 | Cold Calling, Sales Prospecting, Sales Prospecting Success
When seeking more qualified appointments for their sales team, many businesses outsource to an appointment setting service. These services focus on the “pre-sales” process, which includes implementing professional telemarketing campaigns designed to prospect from a list to set up appointments. One of a Kind Sales provides this service to a variety of industries and has made thousands of calls on behalf of its clients. We’ve found that there is one common misperception that some of our prospective clients come to us with. This is the belief that a professional outbound prospecting and appointment setting campaign will work “like magic,” and that appointments will appear almost instantaneously.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Just as a new sales representative needs time to gain momentum, so do outbound telemarketing campaigns. Depending on the source, a new salesperson can take between 6 to 9 months to become fully effective. Similarly, an outbound telemarketing campaign also needs ramp-up time to optimize.
We believe it is important for our clients to have the right expectations about our services. We are not a “magic bullet”, but our services are key to a robust strategy to drive sales conversions for any organization. Outsourcing the “pre-sales” process allows for an organization’s sales team to focus on the best opportunities for conversion and can result in more growth for the business.
What you need to know
It’s important to understand that when you’re working with a professional outbound sales team, the objective is to get well-qualified appointments. This means that the appointments that we arrange are with prospects who have an expressed need for the solution you offer. This increases the likelihood that your team will be able to close the sale.
Engaging a professional outbound sales team is not a short-term commitment. You should commit to working with a professional service like ours for at least a minimum of 6 months. All campaigns take time to optimize and show results.
With an average telemarketing conversion rate of 2-4% from a purchased list (source: businessdatalist.com), we make hundreds of calls a week on behalf of our clients. We take pride in the fact that our year-to-date conversion rate is 7% – significantly better than the industry average. In fact, we are consistently better than average on a monthly basis, ranging between 6% and 9%.
Our professional outbound sales team is particularly skilled at quickly establishing good relationships with prospects right from the start. If there is no immediate need for your solution, we make sure that we “earn the right” to re-contact that prospect at the end of 90 days to inquire again.
At One of a Kind Sales, we love cold calling! If you would like to learn more about our services or if you are considering outsourcing the pre-sales process to support your sales team, reach out to us at 908-879-2911.
