Great salespeople are made not born.
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Spring Program
Starts April 17
Our live instructor-led online program, Goal Aligned™ Selling, will give you the skills & strategies to close more sales.
Last fall, we launched our Goal Aligned™ Selling program for individual salespeople and the feedback was fantastic!
If you’re a sales manager, this is a perfect way to develop solid foundational selling skills for a select few members of your team!
B2B selling is evolving and is more challenging than ever and you’ll need to equip yourself with sharper selling skills to capitalize on every sales opportunity. Our 8 module Goal Aligned™ Selling program equips you with the essential skills, strategies & tools that will not only help you exceed your target this year, but also set you up for greater sales success for years down the road.
You will be part of a small cohort of like-minded sales professionals and be taken through a carefully honed module each week.
When? 8 weekly 2-hour Zoom sessions lead by our Founder & President, Michael Caron
What’s included? Includes PDF workbooks, field exercises & customizable templates, 90-day email reinforcement, networking with fellow participants
What’s the cost? $1,395
200% GuaranteeYour fee is totally refundable if you’re not completely convinced that Northbound’s program has given you skills and strategies to at least double your investment in the first year!
RecordingsAll sessions will be recorded for exclusive access for 60 days after
April 17 – Bulls Eye!: How to set and reach your goals
April 24 – Goal Aligned™ Time:Manage your most precious resource
May 1 – Selling to Different Buyer Types:Learn how to adjust your selling style for all types of buyers
May 8 – Connecting to the Big Cheese:Connect to high level prospects and book meetings with them
May 15 – Questions Are the Answer:Learn how to create and deliver the most powerful tool in your toolbox
May 22 – Goal Aligned™ Sales Interviews:Uncover your buyer’s needs in face-to-face or virtual selling situations
May 29 – Goal Aligned™ Sales Presentations:Deliverpowerful presentations that will close the sale
June 5 – Handling Objections:Learn how to deal with price and many other common objections that get in the way of making the sale.
To reserve a spot or for more information, contact Michael at [email protected].
When prospecting, don’t miss an opportunity to use voicemail to deliver your value message.Are you frustrated constantly by trying to connect to buyers when prospecting and getting their voicemail? I hear this complaint from many of our clients.
Times have changed. In the early 90’s before voicemail was ubiquitous, studies showed that one business person attempting to contact another business person would get through 22% of the time. Sounds low doesn’t it? But it gets worse. Spurred on by the pandemic, the work-from-home trend makes getting people at their desk next to impossible and today’s stats are more like 10% or even less. That means that 9 out of 10 times, you’re going to get voicemail when doing cold prospecting.
What I find crazy is how many salespeople don’t leave a voicemail when they’re calling a buyer. By not leaving a message, they are missing a great opportunity!
Instead of looking at this marvel of communication engineering as being your enemy, it can be your friend – at least in the short term. Before you say I’ve lost my selling marbles, let me explain. How many of you can convey a compelling description of your product’s benefits and features in 30 words or less? Some of you may be able but wouldn’t it be nice if you had a full minute? Of course it would. A good prospecting voicemail can do just that for you.
There’s a big difference between getting a prospect on the phone right off the bat and being able to leave a voicemail message first. I far prefer to leave a carefully crafted, practiced, voicemail message as my first voice contact with a prospective customer. You can’t get cut off, you can build some “personality” and trust and with many systems, you also have the added benefit of erasing it and doing it again if you screw up. Be careful to leave the message as best you possibly can and finish before trying to erase it though in case you can’t!
Just like in advertising, multiple impressions are often required before a message registers with someone. Each time your buyer hears what’s possibly “in it for him” to have a conversation with you, it helps strengthen your case.
Obviously you eventually want to connect in real time with the prospect and there are specific techniques to drastically increase your chances when the time is right but that will have to wait for a future post.
Using voicemail to your advantage is part of Northbound’s “Connecting to the Big Cheese” workshop. To arrange a complimentary condensed version of the workshop for your team, contact Michael Caron @ [email protected] or 416.456.1440.
Our live instructor-led online program, Goal Aligned™ Selling, will give you the skills & strategies to close more sales.
Last fall, we launched our Goal Aligned™ Selling program for individual salespeople and the feedback was fantastic!
If you’re a sales manager, this is a perfect way to develop solid foundational selling skills for a select few members of your team!
B2B selling is evolving and is more challenging than ever and you’ll need to equip yourself with sharper selling skills to capitalize on every sales opportunity. Our 8 module Goal Aligned™ Selling program equips you with the essential skills, strategies & tools that will not only help you exceed your target this year, but also set you up for greater sales success for years down the road.
You will be part of a small cohort of like-minded sales professionals and be taken through a carefully honed module each week.
When? 8 weekly 2-hour Zoom sessions lead by our Founder & President, Michael Caron
What’s included? Includes PDF workbooks, field exercises & customizable templates, 90-day email reinforcement, networking with fellow participants
What’s the cost? $1,395
200% Guarantee Your fee is totally refundable if you’re not completely convinced that Northbound’s program has given you skills and strategies to at least double your investment in the first year!
Recordings All sessions will be recorded for exclusive access for 60 days after
Nov 15 – Bulls Eye!: How to set and reach your goals
Nov 22 – Goal Aligned™ Time:Manage your most precious resource
Nov 29 – Selling to Different Buyer Types:Learn how to adjust your selling style for all types of buyers
Dec 6 – Connecting to the Big Cheese:Connect to high level prospects and book meetings with them
Dec 13 – Questions Are the Answer:Learn how to create and deliver the most powerful tool in your toolbox
Jan 3 – Goal Aligned™ Sales Interviews:Uncover your buyer’s needs in face-to-face or virtual selling situations
Jan 10 – Goal Aligned™ Sales Presentations:Deliverpowerful presentations that will close the sale
Jan 17 – Handling Objections:Learn how to deal with price and many other common objections that get in the way of making the sale.
To reserve a spot or for more information, contact Michael at [email protected].
Is there a magic number of attempts before calling it quits?I’m bombarded with this question when I’m delivering a prospecting workshop. I usually pass it back to the group to sound in before I give my explanation. “Never” is often tossed out as is any number between 1 and 10! Like many sales methodologies, the correct answer, although it seems evasive, is “it depends.”
Recent research reveals some statistics that can help us. A study by M.I.T. found that it takes on average 7 telephone contact attempts for a salesperson to get through to a prospective customer. This has shot up from 4 in the 90’s. Of course pre-internet, the phone was the primary method of reaching out with your message when prospecting. With remote work, email, texting and people putting their phones on voicemail virtually all the time, it’s much harder to get through to a live person these days.
So how many voicemails and/or emails should you leave before moving on to greener pastures? Some of the factors to consider when deciding on a reasonable number are:
1) How potentially lucrative is this prospect? Is it a whale or a minnow? Whales are worth a lot more effort.
2) What types of prospecting touches have you used in addition to phone? Regular mail, email, LinkedIn InMail and even faxes are often very effective when used in conjunction with phone calls. I don’t recommend using text when prospecting. Most people find it very intrusive coming from strangers.
3) Has the prospect given you any clues as to their level of interest? If you have something that shows interest, it makes sense to keep going.
4) How high up in the organization is the prospect? Generally, the higher the position the more tenacity will be required to connect with them.
In general, I suggest you leave a minimum of 5 voicemails over a period 3 weeks and combine this with at least 2 other types of contact attempts before you give up on the prospect . . . for now. Park it for 3 to 6 months and then go back to it.
Don’t make the mistake of many salespeople who wrongly assume that if the prospect doesn’t get back to them after a couple of attempts that “I guess their not interested.” It doesn’t mean that at all. People are busy and returning a sales call is a B-52 priority for most people. It doesn’t mean that they have no interest at all. It most often just means that they aren’t going to put it at the top of their to-do list. Case in point – since starting Northbound, the company has made approximately 15,000 prospecting calls, 10,000 emails and delivered 1,500 regular mail packages. We have actually spoken to approximately 2,500 of these prospects. How many have told us something to the effect of “If I were interested, I would have called you back?” A grand total of TWO!
Invariably, what we hear is something like this: “I’m so sorry I haven’t called you back. We’ve just been crazy around here.” They apologize most of the time!
While it’s crazy to never give up, I bet you’re stopping far too early when prospecting. Don’t be scared to crank that number up and you’ll be rewarded by much higher contact ratios.
For more strategies on prospecting, check out our workshop, Connecting to the Big Cheese.
And other lies that we tell ourselvesI hear them all the time from salespeople. Excuses why they aren’t prospecting in the summer months.
“It’s a waste of time.”
“I can’t get in touch with anyone.”
“Everyone’s on vacation.”
“People just don’t make decisions in the summer.”
Let’s look at why you shouldn’t take a holiday from prospecting.
Reason #1 – You’re in for a bad fall.
By “bad fall,” I mean both the season and the metaphorical sense of term. A Harvard Business School study found that over 25% of selling cycles were 7 months or longer. It’s rare to see selling cycles of less than 3 months. With elongated selling cycles, you can’t afford to let your funnel get empty by reducing your prospecting activities. Otherwise, the opportunities for closing in Q4 will be few and far between.
Reason #2 – When contact ratios drop, activities need to go up.
It is true that contact ratios, the number of outreach activities (such as calls & emails) compared to connections, goes down in the summer, especially in Canada and the northern U.S. where many people take summer holidays. Recent stats show that connection rates since COVID have dropped considerably. The rise of sales automation and the work-from-home revolution are the two main drivers of this fact.
Across all industries, the B2B average contact ratio is now only 7%. In the summer months, it’ll be lower as most people try to squeeze in a week or two of vacation within the short 8 week window. Does this mean that we should back off on our prospecting. Not at all. In fact, you’d be smart to do just the opposite. You need to increase your outbound activities to compensate for the lower contact ratios. Yes, meetings are harder to set in the summer but that provides more time to prospect! Remember that even if you don’t get through to someone live, your compelling voicemail and email will be waiting for them when they get back. A voicemail or email is not as good as a live conversation of course, but it’s a lot better than no voicemail or email.
Reason #3 – Your competition doesn’t work as hard in the summer
Take advantage of your competition taking their foot off the gas during the summer. With your prospects receiving fewer sales calls, they are more likely to engage with you.
The bottom line is that while summer is a great time for all us to enjoy nice weather and take some well deserved vacation time, it’s important that in the weeks that you are working, you keep those money-making prospecting activities going.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Scripted calls don’t have to sound awful.
I’m not going to mince words — scripting is the way to go for prospecting calls. When I state this at one of our “Connecting to the Big Cheese” prospecting workshops, I often hear comments such as, “I don’t want to sound fake!” or “I want to sound natural.” The paradox with sales is that the best salespeople are scripted in many areas. People on the receiving end of their prospecting calls (and face-to-face meetings too) don’t realize that they are practiced and scripted. Why? Because they are skilled in sounding natural!
How do they do this? Here are the 5 ways to sound as good as they do:
Getting to be great at prospecting calls involves a lot more than reading a script. However, if you dedicate yourself to constant practice, reflection and incremental improvements, you will master this essential skill over a few months. It’s an investment that will pay dividends for a lifetime in your sales career.
For more information on Northbound’s “Connecting to the Big Cheese” prospecting workshop, contact Craig Brandys, Vice President Sales at [email protected] or (647) 677-5611.
If you use these 3 strategies, more prospects will actually return your voicemail!
You’ve left a couple of voicemail messages in the last week or two and haven’t had a return call from your prospect. What can you do? Here are some tips that work:
ONE – Script and master your voicemail message
Your voicemail should follow this rough outline (this isn’t the verbiage you’d use of course):
Your message should be around 45 seconds and 60 seconds max. While this might seem long, it’s important that you get your “elevator pitch” out in a clear, concise, compelling and complete manner (the 4 C’s) and this can’t be done in much less time. Most prospects will listen to the first voicemail message in it’s entirety and this underscores why it needs to be absolutely great. If you’re not happy with it, don’t panic. Hit the # button and most voicemail systems will allow you to re-record it.
TWO – Take the pressure off
An important rule in sales is that — Yes’s make you money. No’s make you money (because you can move onto more Yes’s) but Maybes cost you money because they eat up your time. It’s far better to get a fast no than a slow one. Sometimes prospects are reluctant to return prospecting voicemails because they feel that they are going to be subjected to a high pressure sales pitch. The fact is that with many salespeople, their fear is warranted! Let them know that this isn’t the case with you. You could say something in your second or third voicemail such as, “We’ve been able to help other companies accomplish X solution to problem and Y solution to problem but I don’t know if there’s a fit between your organization and ours or not. I was hoping to have a brief phone conversation to see and if not, that’s OK.”
Sometimes I get pushback on this language from people in my workshops who feel this type of language in a voicemail is weak. They say, “We should be totally confident that we can help them.” The paradox is that, by allowing that there might not be a fit, you’ll get callbacks more often and if you ask the right questions, will often find that there is a fit. Another reason not to claim that you know you can help them is that, in most cases, it’s simply not true. Until you have the opportunity to fully understand their current situation, their problems, preferences and goals, how can you know you can help? An added bonus is that it builds rapport and trust because of your openness.
THREE – Use professional persistence
Recent research finds that it takes on average 7 contact attempts to connect to a prospect. The same research shows that most salespeople give up after 2. See the problem here? Worse, most sellers leave far too much time between contact attempts. They’re fearful that they will annoy the buyer to the point that it hurts their chance of connecting. Sure, there’s a fine line between persistence and stalking! Most sellers are nowhere near that line however. Think of what you would do if you got 5 voicemails from someone spaced 1 or 2 weeks apart. Now think of what you would do if you got the same 5 voicemails spaced a couple of days apart. Would you be more likely to put a return call on your to-do list in the second case. I bet you would! At the end of your voicemail, say something like, “If you don’t get a chance to give me a call back in the next couple of days, I’ll try you again on DAY.”
With the recent anti-spam legislation in place, many salespeople who have relied on email to prospect will now have an added dependence on effective phone prospecting. These three strategies will help you connect more often with prospects and maximize your efforts. The percentage of prospects who call you back will still be low, but these tips will bump the number up for certain.
In my prospecting workshops, I sometimes get push-back when I recommend the use of a phone script. The objections often come in the form of, “I don’t want to sound fake” or “You never know what the prospect is going to say, so a phone script won’t work.”
There are 3 strong reasons why you need one:
You’ve only got a few seconds to get the listener to want to keep talking. In fact, one study found that a listener will start deciding whether they want to continue a phone conversation or not in the first 8 seconds! Having a script allows you to craft the message in a clear, concise & compelling manner. In my experience, salespeople who try to “wing-it” end up in convoluted, weak conversations that end in failure. Rather, when you put the time in, you can craft a message that gets to the point – a point that will resonate with your prospect.
Just like a professional performer, your delivery will get better and better when you know what you’re going to say and you practice it until it’s smooth. Can you imagine a performer who tries to do things differently every night? Most people’s experience with salespeople who are obviously using a script is usually negative. Why? Because they usually are hired, given a script and told to simply read it to the customer. Of course it sounds fake because they are reading it and haven’t practised it until it’s great. The irony is that the more practiced you are, the more natural you sound! You will never know that someone who is good is using a script because it sounds so natural.
Prospecting can be nerve-wracking but when you know how you’re going to approach a prospect and have it well practiced, you’re confidence will multiply. And your increased confidence will benefit you in two ways: The confidence will come through in your voice and you’ll be less fearful of making more calls!
Northbound’s workshop, “Connecting to the Big Cheese” covers all the critical parts of prospecting skills including script development. For more info, click here or contact Michael at [email protected] or 416.456.1440.
Happy Selling!
I’m frequently asked this question and my typical response is, “Why wouldn’t you?” The answers I get back range from “They’ll never call me back so why bother” to “If I leave a message, they’ll know why I’m calling the next time and won’t pick up.” Both are bad answers. With the current work-from-home movement, it’s even more rare for someone to be at their office desk. And we all know that mobile phone numbers are often hard to come by. Here’s why some objections from salespeople to leaving voicemails don’t hold up.
“They’ll never call me back.” – WRONG!
This just isn’t true. Our own statistics plus statistics from our clients who we’ve trained to leave voicemails all point to the same thing. Some prospects will call you back. While many won’t, some will and some is much better than the “none” who will call you back when you don’t leave a voicemail.
Naturally, the more clear, concise and compelling your message is, the greater the chance of a callback. Our research has shown that callbacks can increase dramatically with the right technique and skill.
But there’s an equally powerful reason to leave a voicemail. Even in the cases where it doesn’t lead to a callback, you are able to get your message through to the buyer. You are able to convey the reasons why it makes sense for them to have conversation with you. When you are able to convincingly speak of how you’ve helped others solve problems that they might have, it can cause them to sit up and take notice. Just as in advertising, you’re making a “impression” on the buyer and for people to take action, they often need multiple impressions.
“If I leave a message, they’ll know why I’m calling the next time and won’t pick up.” – WRONG!
The notion that catching a prospect off guard will somehow help you engage with them seems very flawed to me. Question: Would you be more likely to have a conversation with someone if you a) knew what they were calling about and b) think that they might be able to help you resolve a challenge? Of course you would. And your prospects are no different.
When you catch someone completely off guard, their automatic internal knee-jerk response will likely be something like, “It’s a salesperson. I’ve got to get them off the phone.” They will be far less likely to think about what value you might bring to them. If, however, you’ve already touched them with your value proposition several times like you can with your voicemails, there will be a higher likelihood of agreeing to a brief conversation.
If you haven’t been leaving voicemails when prospecting, start today. As with all your selling skills, you’ll want to practice again, again and again until you sound smooth and natural. You will instantly see both the number of connections increase as well as the quality of your conversations.
Northbound’s “Connecting to the Big Cheese” workshop will teach you and your team how to be master this critical selling skill. For pricing or more info, contact Craig Brandys, Vice President of Sales at [email protected].