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.
by Marta Malyk | Aug 15, 2022 | Advice, Best Sales Practices, handling objections, Sales Tips, Sales Training
For many inexperienced salespeople, the first thing they think about when it comes to selling a product or service is the fact that they will hear objections. They dread the word “no” and try to avoid objections even when they can clearly see that they exist. They view objections as a minefield which must be avoided. They plow ahead with their pitch hoping they’ll say some magic words that will make them evaporate. Unfortunately, they most often experience the unaddressed concerns rising up at some point and ‘tanking’ the sale.
Our One of a Kind sales team has completed thousands of cold calls. And there is no doubt that salespeople will hear the word “no” many times. But in our experience, we find it best to acknowledge a prospect’s objections and quickly determine whether they can be overcome. When you can overcome them, you can proceed with a greater likelihood of success. If you can’t, you then move on to another prospect quickly.
Disrupt the Pattern
Cold calls have a typical flow. The way this happens may vary but at the end of a preliminary introduction, our team members may say something like, “how does that sound to you?” It is at this point when the prospect might say, “I’m fine – I don’t need anything.” That is a “no.” The prospect’s expectation is that the salesperson will say “thanks for your time” and end the call. This is the normal “pattern” of a sales call. But our professional selling team is prepared with rebuttals that disrupt the typical pattern.
Prepare “Rebuttals”
A disruptive response to a “no” might be, “Wow, how did you manage to avoid this problem?” What this approach does is keep the conversation going. Follow up questions could be: “Can you tell me how you did that?” or “How long did that take?” Followed by “I guess you must be hitting your revenue target then.” Moving further with “Would you like to improve that performance?”
You’ve read before that we believe in using scripts because they help us internalize our messaging. Because we prepare in advance, we have an arsenal of rebuttals at the ready. So, when the “no” happens, while it may be disconcerting, we don’t have to “figure out” what to say next.
Three Times is Enough
We adopt approach of using three rebuttals to a “no.” The rebuttals are statements we’ve prepared in advance (incorporated into our script) based on the objections we anticipate. Once we’ve had three unsuccessful attempts at this, we know it’s time to move on. We conclude the interaction, and we actually ask for a referral. For example, we’ll say, “it’s clear we can’t help you today, but perhaps we can in the future. Is there anyone else in your sphere of influence who might be able to benefit from our services?” You’d be surprised – we do get referrals in this way!
At One of a Kind Sales, we are sales experts, and we love cold calling! If you need help taking your sales team to the next level, give us a call at 908-879-2911 to learn how we can help.
by Marta Malyk | Aug 1, 2022 | Advice, Best Sales Practices, Cold Call ROI, Cold Calling Success, Cold Calling Tips, Sales Tips, Sales Training
One of the most challenging parts of selling is cold calling. Like all of us, salespeople dislike rejection and don’t want to hear the word “no.” And many have never been trained how to do cold calling. As a result, many salespeople find cold calling intimidating. Aside from the fear of rejection, there is a concern that they are “interrupting” someone to make a pitch. But as professional salespeople, they need to keep in mind that the person on the other end of the call may have a need for the potential solution they offer. If the prospect sees that value in having their problem solved, it is well worth the interruption.
In a recent Zoom Info article, cold calling was deemed “very to extremely effective” by almost 30% of professional salespeople. Also, it was reported that almost 70% of buyers accept cold calls. Given these statistics, it’s clear that cold calling presents a real opportunity to prospect for new business. In our experience as professional cold callers, once our callers reach their targeted prospects, most of them get the opportunity to make their initial case without the call terminating before that point.
What goes into making cold calling more effective? I believe preparation is critical to success. Below are just some of the steps we take to make our cold calling as efficient as it can be.
- The call list should be targeted to the segment you are pursuing. This ensures that your offering is relevant to the prospects you are pursuing.
- Develop a script that lays out what you want to communicate. Don’t repeat the script word for word. Use it to internalize your message. This prepares you to be able to say exactly what you want to say the moment you get the opportunity to connect. You’ll only have seconds to make an impression.
- Check your mindset. Think of yourself as an equal to the prospect you want to connect with. Remember they have a problem, and you have a solution.
- Make sure the purpose of your call is clear to the prospect, so they understand how what you are calling about is relevant to their business.
- Remember this is a dialogue. Let the prospect speak. This is when you’ll learn whether there is an opportunity for your solution now.
- Every time you speak to the prospect remember you are establishing a relationship – one that will earn you the right to speak to them again, whether for a follow up appointment if there is a current opportunity, or for a check-in several months from now if there isn’t a current need.
If your team can incorporate this approach, it can help take cold calling outreach to the next level and bring in new opportunities for growth.
At One of a Kind Sales, we love cold calling! If you need help implementing cold calling within your sales team, give us a call at 908-879-2911 to learn how we can help.
by Marta Malyk | Jul 18, 2022 | Advice, Best Sales Practices, Closing Sales, Sales Tips, Sales Training
Closing new business is the main objective of professional salespeople. Everyone knows sales is a challenging career. To outsiders who know little about sales, closing new business seems to be the hardest part- a mysterious technique that is often unsuccessful. But believe it or not, we’ve seen that closing can be easy if you’ve paved the way with your prospect by taking the right steps. Closing should be a natural outcome of a discussion between you and your prospect. By the time you get to the close, your prospect has reached the unavoidable conclusion that your solution is just what their business needs. The “hard work” of sales lies in taking the right steps throughout the process that result in an easy close.
What Makes Closing Easier?
First, be sure you are addressing the real decision maker. There is nothing more frustrating than discovering that you’ve walked through an entire sales process only to find that the person you’ve developed a relationship with needs to bring in another party who will ultimately make the decision.
Confirm that your prospect’s problem can be addressed by your solution. Take time to fully understand how the problem has impacted their business, what stress it has caused, what resources it has consumed, and what they’ve already done to address it. This allows you to adjust your script to speak directly to their challenges and their experiences.
Make sure that you are getting mini ‘buy-ins’ as you are progressing through the sales process. Do this by ensuring that this is a two-way conversation. Check for agreement at key points in the discussion. You’ll be able to assess your prospect’s level of engagement, confirm their level of interest, and address potential objections.
Above all, throughout the engagement, never forget that “people buy from other people”. Make sure that your prospect feels good about connecting with you and is looking forward to working with you.
If you’ve taken these steps, once you are ready to close, you can simply ask: “What would you like to happen next?”
At One of a Kind Sales, we are sales experts. We provide services that help qualify leads, improve sales performance, and close more business. Want to learn more? Give us a call at 908-879-2911.
by Marta Malyk | Jul 4, 2022 | Best Sales Practices, Cold Calling, Cold Calling Success, Cold Calling Tips, Sales Prospecting, Sales Tips
Have you had the experience of meeting with a prospect and gradually discovering that the “ideal” prospect is not ideal at all? Afterwards, you may feel like you’ve wasted your time and energy.
If you’re leading a sales team who has been experiencing this, not only is it frustrating, but it can also turn out to be quite costly. Time spent meeting with the wrong people could have been spent in a more focused and profitable way. And if this happens often enough it can bring down team morale.
There are steps you can take to ensure that this never happens. But it involves something that may be the hardest part of sales – picking up the phone to qualify leads and confirm that they are true prospects. Salespeople often tell me that this is something that they avoid. It is much easier to have a conversation with a warm lead than to do a cold call.
A Strong Pre-Sales Process
At One of a Kind Sales, we know that cold calling is a key component of pre-sales. It’s the prospecting “legwork” that must be done to get a list of qualified leads. All things being equal, when a sales team is working with a list of qualified leads, they’ll have better success because they are meeting with the right people.
A strong pre-sales process uses multiple methods to build a list for the sales team to target. The process includes activities such as prospecting via social media and email, and cold calling.
Our experience is that cold calling is a critical component in the pre-sales process. Ultimately a well-executed cold calling campaign ensures that the sales team’s appointments are with the right people.
Our Recommendations
- Implement a strong pre-sales process within your organization to build a qualified list of prospects that your sales team can pursue.
- Alternatively, consider outsourcing the lead qualification process.
Remember, a sales team working with a list of truly qualified leads will result in shorter sales process and faster revenue growth.
At One of a Kind Sales, we love cold calling! If your sales team needs help implementing a pre-sales process or you would like to outsource cold calling for your sales team, reach out to us at 908-879-2911.
