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Add simple marketing prior to your prospecting calls and watch your results soar
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 07 Oct 2009 0 comments
By Michael Caron, President, Northbound Learning   

Would you like a simple, inexpensive way to increase the number of meetings booked from your prospecting call efforts by 50% or more? I know—that’s like asking if you’d like to pay less in taxes. Of course!

The secret is to get a “marketing letter” into your prospect’s hands prior to your first phone call. While this sounds incredibly simple, it’s rarely done and will raise your prospecting success dramatically. There are several reasons why this works far better than making your first point of contact a phone call by itself:

It gives you a better opportunity to create your C.B.R. (Compelling Business Reason). You must build a case for your prospect to give you a few minutes of their precious and limited time. A carefully written letter will lay the groundwork of reasons for your prospect to engage in a conversation with you when you connect by voice. Your letter should include the 3 major benefits you may be able to bring to their organization, a quantifiable testimonial of results from other customers and a request to have a brief conversation. When your prospect has time to consider what the benefits of the conversation might be in advance, your chances of engaging them when you call will jump.

It allows you to schedule the call. The biggest dislike of people on the receiving end of a prospecting call is that it interrupts whatever they were working on. One way of minimizing this frustration is to let them know in your letter what day and time you’re going to be calling. Something like, “I’ll call you on Tuesday, February 9 at 9:15 to get a better understanding of some of your goals and challenges.” Allow them the opportunity to choose a time that works better for them if necessary. “If this date or time doesn’t work, could you kindly leave a message with a better one?” This shows that you respect their time. I recently used this letter technique with a billion dollar IT company. I sent my letter to the C.E.O. and on the precise day and time noted in the marketing letter, I called. After a couple of rings, I was greeted with, “Good Morning Michael. I was expecting your call.” Although this kind of response is not common, what is very common with sales reps who adopt this system is that by the time they connect with the prospect, he or she is far more receptive than if a call were made without the marketing letter.

It’s best to send a letter by snail mail. I can hear the groans already. “Snail mail? We live in an instant message world. Why would I ever resort to communication technology that’s in the Dark Ages?” Because electronic communication is so prevalent today, receiving something by regular mail is in fact more impactful. Additionally, email addresses are often difficult to get while mailing addresses are easily available. It also gives you the opportunity to enclose something of value such as a ad specialty or as simple as a coffee card. You will be amazed at how many prospects will remember you and your letter at the time of the call because of an inexpensive token. If you do your math to determine your R.O.I., you’ll see that spending a little time and money on strategic marketing to your prospects pays huge dividends.

Dealing With Difficult People
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 21 Sep 2009 0 comments
By Len D’Innocenzo, CEO, CRKInteractive

Unless you work on a deserted island, dealing with people is a fact of life. The better you are at it, the easier it will be to get along—on and off the job.

No matter how even tempered you are, you probably know one or two people whose behavior put your good nature to the test. If these people happen to be colleagues, superiors, subordinates or customers and clients with whom you must deal on a daily basis, your ability to handle them will be critical to your success.

Dealing with difficult people begins with identifying and naming the behaviors that trigger a strong reaction in you. The more you learn about difficult people, the better you understand and deal with them. Even if you don’t end up liking a person, getting to know him or her can lessen the feelings of tension. Understanding where they’re coming from and what makes them tick is an excellent way of dealing with difficult people.
Lets examine two types of difficult people that you will have to deal with in your career. While some of the situations may not have happened to you personally, we know that they do occur. Reviewing each of these fictitious difficult people will prepare you for the real encounter.

Barry the Backstabber

Barry the Backstabber is someone who betrays your trust, and such a person can be deadly to your career or your success with a client project. Whether his motives stem from insecurity or ruthless ambition, Barry the Backstabber stands ready, and willing to make you look bad.

Unfortunately, Barry the Backstabber may not always be easy to identify, unless he already has a reputation. But there are clues that should make you wary. Is Barry the Backstabber someone you’ve never been close to, but all of a sudden he is pouring on the charm trying to be your best friend? Is he asking you a lot of personal questions? Have you heard through the grapevine that he is trying to find out about you through others? These are signs that Barry the Backstabber is gathering intelligence—possibly to use against you.

Dealing with Barry The Backstabber A good rule of thumb is to be especially careful about what you say to people when you first meet. The trick is to be friendly and cordial without spilling your guts and revealing your innermost feelings to people you really don’t know yet.

To Barry the Backstabber, even an innocent comment like “I’d like to live in Chicago someday” could be used to try to make people believe that you are uncommitted to the company and planning to move away. Barry the Backstabber may be trying to climb the corporate ladder, and if he perceives you as a threat he’ll seize any opportunity to discredit you.

No matter how good a judge of character or sincerity you think you are, the best defense against Barry the Backstabber is not to say too much. Avoid revealing your career or family plans, personal problems, gripes, or pet peeves to anybody in your office.

Society may be learning to be more tolerant these days, but that doesn’t mean your company or client has. Remember TMI—Too Much Information—can be harmful to you.

If Barry the Backstabber is a client you need to be especially careful about what you say. Barry has his own agenda and may have it in for you or your company. He may be looking to find a way slow down your project. Even worse, he may be trying to sabotage the project altogether. A good rule of thumb is remind Barry the Backstabber that your there to do a job for his company. You’re working for them.

Mike the Manipulator

Mike the Manipulator gets others to do his job for them through trickery, charm, or by eliciting sympathy. And the slickest part is that you won’t realize you’ve been conned into doing his job or anything else he wants until it’s too late.

Mike the Manipulator starts by engaging you in friendly, casual conversation. As an afterthought, he says, “By the way, could you do me a favor?” or “I wonder if you could help me out with something. I’m really tied up with a project and you’re so good at writing letters (or organization, or filing, or research, or whatever the necessary task he wants you to do for him happens to be).”

This smooth talker may conceal his request as an opportunity for you to take on more responsibility and show what you can do. Not that he plans to give you any credit for doing his work.

Another maneuver might be to tell you how swamped he is and, wouldn’t it be great if someone would help him finish this project so he could leave the office and have dinner with his family for a change.

Dealing with Mike the Manipulator Mike the Manipulator’s goal is for others to do his job. What do you say in response to his tricky maneuvers? Some possible replies:

  1. I’d be glad to help you, but I’ll have to check with my boss first. He has me on an important project
  2. I’d love to help, but I’m straight out today, myself. If I get some free time, I’ll let you know. But it looks like I’ll be working late tonight like you!
  3. I’m willing to help you tonight if you can stay late tomorrow and help me.
Since Mike the Manipulator’s goal is to get something for nothing, he’ll probably steer clear of you in the future. If he is truly sincere (and everyone will need help at some time) then this last approach will let you know he is willing to help you in return.

If Mike the Manipulator is a client, watch out for nibbling during a negotiation or extra items outside of the scope of work. Mike is famous for requesting just “one more thing” he needs to make a deal happen. He’s looking for something extra and usually doesn’t want to pay anything for it. Refer Mike back to the statement of work or to company policy. If nibbling is one of Mike’s negotiating tactics—don’t make a concession without getting something in return. You want to negotiate with a win-win strategy.

Len D’Innocenzo is a co-founder of CRKInteractive, a US-based provider of cutting-edge performance development programs for over 20 years. Northbound Learning has an exclusive Canadian partnership with CRK.

Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese (Part 2)
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 03 Mar 2008 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Mr. Big Cheese

Last time, we discussed part one of a strategy for connecting to high level decision makers, or who we affectionately call, Mr. Big Cheese.  In this section, we’ll pick up at the point where Mr. Big Cheese has received your carefully written, benefits-oriented letter and you’re ready to make the phone call on precisely the date and time you promised in the letter.

Making the call

You are probably a little nervous and that’s good as it keeps you on your toes.  When you call, one of two things will happen: you will be put through to Mr. Big Cheese live or you will reach his voicemail.  We will cover what to do in each case.  Before you get put through to Mr. Big Cheese, however, you may be faced with a gatekeeper.  Because of your letter which clearly stated that you would be calling at this precise time, you can honestly and confidently state to the gatekeeper that Mr. Big Cheese is expecting your call.

He answered.  What now?

If you do get through to Mr. Big Cheese, what next?  At this point, say something like, “Mr. Big Cheese?  It’s Michael calling from Northbound Learning.  Is this a bad time?”  If there’s one area that I receive push back on when teaching the Mr. Big Cheese program to salespeople, it’s the use of the question “Is this a bad time”.  People say, “Why would you ask that?  That’s giving them a perfect opportunity to say ‘Yes, it’s a bad time!’”  The fact is that in the life of a busy executive, any sales call that takes them away from their endless to-do list is probably a bad time.  That being said, asking them if it’s a bad time shows consideration for their time and most often, invokes a positive response.  In my own personal experience and the experience of Northbound clients, you will usually be met with something like, “No, it’s OK but try to be quick” or “It depends. What is this about?”.  Frequently, the question will produce a chuckle from the prospect with something like, “It’s always a bad time but go ahead!”  Try it and I know you will be surprised with how well it works.  Follow this up with “Thanks.  I’ll try to be brief,” which also shows respect for Mr. Cheese’s valuable time.

Aim for a two-way conversation

Once you’ve received permission to have some of Mr. Cheese’s time, you’re ready to get to the core of the matter.  Your goal is to get Mr. Big Cheese talking and have a two-way conversation.  Roll into something like, “I’m following up on the letter that I sent you last week.  Did you receive it?”  If they say that they did receive it, you simply ask, “What did you think?”  And then shut up, which is incredibly challenging for most salespeople as we are all programmed to talk endlessly.  I know this might be completely counter to what many of you have been taught in error over the years.  Most less effective sales professionals spend their time telling, telling and telling instead of asking and then selling.  Let the prospect explain fully what their thoughts are and go from there.

Remember, that your goal is to move Mr. Big Cheese to the next reasonable stage in your sales funnel, such as agreeing to a meeting or a demo.  Except in the case of very low transaction size sales, you goal is not to make the sale on this first call.

If Mr. Big Cheese hasn’t received the letter (or has it sitting in his in-box), don’t waste this opportunity to speak with him.  You can say something like, “Oh, that’s strange.  That’s OK though.  It states that we’ve had a lot of success in . . .  “ and give him your carefully rehearsed 15-20 opening statement.  Your opening statement should be natural, relaxed and friendly—similar to the way you would talk to a friend without being too casual.  Use the time to convey strong business reasons why he should want to continue the conversation with you.

In an upcoming post, we’ll cover what to do if you receive voicemail, which, in today’s digital world, will be over 75% of the time. We’ll discuss proven techniques to get Mr. Big Cheese to call you back.

Northbound Learning provides sales training and consulting to companies who want to improve their sales performance. The complete Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese is a one day customized, in-house program that will dramatically increase your prospecting results. Click Click here for a list of other Northbound programs.

Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese (Part 1)
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 15 Jan 2008 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Mr. Big Cheese

When determining an entry point when selling into an organization, it’s always better to start high and be “pushed down” than to start at a lower level and claw your way up to the ultimate decision maker. But how do you get your message through to, what we at Northbound Learning call, “Mr. Big Cheese”? Note: We call him Mr. Big Cheese but of course it could be Ms. Big Cheese as well!

Do you currently, or in the past, mostly rely on relentless cold calls placed at off times of the day, hoping to catch Mr. Big Cheese off guard on the other end of the phone? This technique often brings poor results. Why? Because it’s very time consuming and if or when you do reach Mr. Big Cheese, he is irritated by being interrupted with an unscheduled sales call that he considers to be a waste of his time. Further, it’s only you and your voice who have a few precious seconds to convince Mr. Big Cheese that he should give you a larger share of his valuable time. That’s quite a challenge.

Mr. Big Cheese hates to be interrupted—use this technique to prevent you from annoying your important decision maker.

We recommend (and use ourselves) a step-by-step process to connect to Mr. Big Cheese that is very different than the traditional cold call. In general, it goes like this:

A letter is mailed to Mr. Big Cheese in a plain white envelope without your company name and logo on it but rather just your name and address. In this day and age where e-mail is the way of communicating, why send a snail mail letter? Two reasons – one is that e-mail is too hard to deliver and far easier to delete and two, snail mail gets noticed because it is rare these days. The writing of this letter is worthy of an entire issue of North of Target so suffice to say at this stage, that it needs to be powerful, benefits oriented and concise. In the Mr. Big Cheese letter, you give him two options on the call to action. If he prefers, he can e-mail or send in the attached fax form to invite a call from you at a specific time and day or he can simply wait for your call at the precise date and time that you’ve noted in the letter. For instance, it might say, “I will call you at 9:15 on Thursday morning to organize some time to talk. If you will not be in at this time or you would prefer another time, could you kindly contact me with a better time?”

Is is considered interruptive to call Mr. Big Cheese at the time in the marketing letter? No way. You’ve told him when you were calling and gave an opportunity for him to change it.

One of our clients has recently used this technique to great results. This company sells enterprise software solutions and has been targeting large US universities. On the very first batch of 8 letters from one salesperson, they received two positive replies back even before the salesperson was scheduled to call them! With one of the universities, the salesperson was told that they have to go through a vendor application process which would take weeks even before they were allowed to call anyone. Instead, a Mr. Big Cheese letter was mailed out to the CIO and he e-mailed the salesperson with the name of the person in his department to contact right away. Try it. It works!

There is a technique for what we call the “Chase Calls” which take place at this stage that we will cover in the next issue.

Northbound Learning provides sales training and consulting to companies who want to improve their sales performance. The complete Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese is a one day customized, in-house program that will dramatically increase your prospecting results. Click here for a list of other Northbound programs.

Leverage your team to help boost your sales
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 13 Jul 2007 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Don’t forget that you have a wealth of knowledge and support all around you in the form of colleagues and management. Consider enlisting their support in these ways . . .

(1) Make them into a prospect Ask them to pretend that they are a prospect and give you honest feedback on your skills. Of course, before you do this, you need to be willing to listen and take constructive criticism. Send them your typical e-mail, leave them your typical voicemail, do a customer sales meeting with them.

Sure, it’s uncomfortable “acting” in front of your peers but where do you want to make your mistakes? In front of your friends where they can give you valuable feedback or in the field where prospects are far less kind and where it can cost you thousands?

(2) Take turns riding shotgun Ask a coworker to go along on a sales call with you. (If you ask your manager to go with you rather than waiting for them to ask you, just think of how much of a keener you’ll look!)

I’ve never seen someone ride shotgun where they haven’t noticed something the salesperson hadn’t.

Ask Doctor Sales
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 17 May 2007 0 comments

Dear Doctor Sales,
     I have a problem. I’m calling lots of prospects, doing lots of presentations, but can’t seem to keep everything organized. I spend half my day just going over my list to figure out what to do next. Can you help?
     Nancy P, Markham

Nancy: There are two parts to getting organized. The first is getting your organizational skills developed. The other is getting technology on your side. Let’s look at them separately:

Part One: Get a system set up. Categorize all your time and all your prospects. You should break the selling process in your specific organization into segments. For instance, you may have a category of “prospects who have been sent intro e-mail” and “prospects who I’m attempting to follow up with after intro e-mail” etc. In this way, you can clearly see what the required actions are for each category and it also allows you to filter out the “unlikely” time-wasting prospects more easily.

By the way, did you know that the average salesperson wastes 30 minutes per day simply looking for stuff on their own desk? That’s equal to three full work weeks a year! To help prevent this from happening to you, clear your desk and mark down in your agenda which category you are going to work on in a given block of time. This way, you won’t seem overwhelmed.

Part Two: Once you have a system set up, get a CRM product like Salesforce.com, ACT! or even Outlook and put every prospect and all actions taken in the system. Each time you “touch” a prospect by connecting with them by e-mail, phone or other means, ask yourself, “What’s the next step to take with this person?”. Once you’ve answered this, plug it into the date that you want to do it. This will cut down your future thinking time dramatically and give you a greater feeling of being in control. If you would like to learn more about managing your time, check out Northbound’s Goal Aligned Time™ program.

If you have a question for the Doctor, e-mail me at [email protected].

Questions are the answer
Posted by: In: Uncategorized 07 Apr 2007 0 comments
By Michael Caron   

Puzzle Pieces

In our business, we are often asked, “What is the biggest mistake salespeople make?” Of course, we tend to term them “opportunity areas” rather than “mistakes” but whatever you want to call them, the most common is the area of questioning. The second area that goes hand-in-hand with number one would be the seeming inability of typical sales professionals to quit talking and listen after they’ve asked great questions!

The average salesperson is high in the “D & I” of the DiSC personality assessment, which means that they are “dominant” and “influential.” They like to control their environment and generally, they love to talk (to learn more about the DiSC profile, send us an e-mail for a sample). While these are critical personality traits for a sales professional to possess, they can also be their Achilles heel. In a meeting with the prospect, they think that selling is best done by being the one who talks the most. Their best definition of communication is “taking turns talking!”

The shortest course on selling is “ask questions and shut up”. Good use of open ended, closed and probing questions allows you to accurately determine your prospect’s priorities, challenges and needs. How can you truly provide a solution, which is an overused word in sales these days, without knowing precisely what the problems are and where the opportunities are? You should never go into a sales presentation without a list of well thought out questions. At Northbound, we’re hesitant to even use the term “presentation” as it implies that the salesperson is “presenting” while the prospect carefully listens while it should be just the opposite.

Our partners in e-learning solutions, CRK Interactive, recommend in a Customer Focused Sales Interview, that the prospect should be talking over two-thirds of the time. Of course, there is much more to learn about performing this process properly.

Northbound Learning’s Customer-Centric Selling™ program includes a solid skills building segment in this area. For more information, click here. To experience a free e-learning demonstration in this area from our partners, click here.