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].
Most everyone understands the power of compounding. In a nutshell, small increases in anything multiplied by more small increases over a long period of time produces a hockey stick curve of massive increases. Compounding can produce powerful increases in your sales results too. That is, small improvements in your selling skills from sales training and equally small increases in your activity levels can produce massive increases in overall sales.
Let’s take a look below at the different stages of a sale for a typical salesperson who we will call Kevin Kloser.
Like many salespeople, Kevin makes outbound prospecting calls and attempts to connect with decision makers. In this case he makes 100 calls (and/or emails) monthly and, on average, ends up connecting to 20 prospects equaling a 20% contact ratio.
Out of the 20 conversations, he generates enough interest for 4 of the conversations to lead to meetings – a 20% booking ratio.
Finally, with a closing rate of 25%, 1 out of 4 meetings results in a sale. This example is a 4 step funnel, meaning there are 4 distinct steps between first contact attempt and conclusion of the first sale. You may have more or fewer stages in your selling process but the concept remains the same regardless.
Now, let’s see what happens when Kevin does some good sales training (and more importantly implements it). Kevin learns how to leave better voicemails and uses other powerful strategies to increase his connection rate from 20% to 24% immediately.
This results in connections to almost 9 more people. He learns how to engage the customer on the phone in such a way that they want to learn more about his product or service. This bumps up his number of meetings booked by 20% which now equals almost 7 when combined with his higher contact ratio.
When in “discovery” meetings, he gets better at uncovering the customer’s true issues, challenges and problems and is able to connect his solutions to these in a compelling way. This causes his closing ratio to increase from 25% to 30%. Armed with fresh and proven ideas, increases of 20% in these skill areas are very realistic. In my experience, it’s not uncommon for salespeople who apply themselves to become 100% better in these areas!
In addition to growing his skills, Kevin also learns how to manage his time better so he can make 20% more contact attempts through phone calls, emails or social selling platforms. The “Kloser + 20%” column below illustrates what happens to Kevin’s sales results. Incredibly, he has more than doubled his sales!
Can you get 20% better?
I’m confident that you can if you’re committed. After mentally making the commitment, the next step to doubling your sales is to get yourself or your sales team some great training. Click here for a complete list of workshop topics that Northbound can deliver to your team to help you with your own “20% Solution.”
Happy Selling!
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.
Being honest with your prospect that you’re giving up actually helps increase call-backs.
Salespeople generally give up far too early when attempting to contact a customer in the prospecting phase. But to make things worse, they don’t even let the prospect know that they are giving up. This is a mistake.
After you’ve made several attempts to connect to a prospect through different means such as voicemail and email, sending a “final approach” message can be very effective in prompting a response.
Tell them this is your last message.
Your voicemail might sound something like this:
“Hi John. As you know, I’ve left several messages for you over the last few weeks and haven’t been able to connect. It’s hard for me to tell whether that’s because you’re just crazy busy or that you’re maybe not interested in learning how we might be able to BENEFIT and BENEFIT you. Either way, I don’t want to become voicemail spam so I’m going to give up for now. If you think it would make sense for us to talk, I’m at 416.555.1212. Thanks.”
Sound harsh? Yes, it is direct but it’s the absolute truth and the feedback we receive from our clients is that it has produced callbacks from prospects that salespeople were convinced they would never hear back from. Let’s face it – you weren’t having any luck up to this point so what do you have to lose?
Do we know exactly why this technique works so well? Not exactly. We don’t know whether it creates a sense of responsibility from the prospect and makes them think, “Gee, I really should at least get back to this person.” or that it maybe forces prospects to realize that if they don’t return the message that they are going to miss an opportunity. Maybe it’s human psychology that people often want things more when they think they might not be able to have them! Whatever the reason, the important thing is that it works!
Inject some humour.
Some of our clients have had success using a little sarcastic humour in the final approach. This message might sound something like, “I don’t know if this means that you’re not interested in how we might BENEFIT and BENEFIT you or that you’re so busy putting out fires that you can’t even get to your phone.” This method is admittedly a bit cheeky and needs to done with a slightly defeated but cheerful tone to be effective. Again, what have you got to lose?
These techniques are not a surefire way to get all prospects to call you back. Aside from pretending that you’re calling from the lottery winnings office, nothing will guarantee this. What this will do, however, is increase your callbacks. And incremental improvements in several areas adds up to big improvements overall. A bigger problem is that salespeople just don’t try hard enough before they give up but that’s a topic for another post!
Having a salesperson say your company is good is very different than someone else saying it.Most companies vastly underutilize testimonials. It’s a big mistake because the fact is that they are very powerful in building credibility and trust in your product. Just as importantly, they provide proof of performance. A study by Yahoo revealed just how powerful they are. They found that if a salesperson makes a claim as to the capability of a company or product, it is only believed by 23% of people. That’s right, 4 out of 5 people think salespeople exaggerate or in some cases, outright lie. However, if the exact same claim of capability is made by a third party, over 80% of people believe it to be true. Do the math and you’ll see that by having a testimonial speak to your ability to deliver, it is 4 times more convincing! Northbound’s U.S. based partners, Corporate Sales Coaches, note below how to get a testimonial and how to use one in your selling process.
By Len D’Innocenzo and Jack Cullen, Authors of, The Agile Manager’s Guide to Customer Focused Selling
One of the problems we hear most often at our sales seminars is, “How can I prove how good I am to someone who doesn’t know me?” This is a real obstacle when approaching an account you never have sold to.
The power of a testimonial letter can be an excellent solution. A testimonial is a written communication from a customer that talks about the value added benefits your company and you provide. It is tangible, written evidence that says you are not just another sales rep trying to make a pitch. It allows you the opportunity to showcase the specific reasons you are different from your competition. Testimonials enable the smart sales rep to cement relationship with the author of the letter.
I’m sure most of you have been asked to give a reference or two when you applied for a new job. What was the purpose of providing a reference? Obviously, to show your new boss that you are as good as you said you were. You provide a personal reference to vouch for your competence and to attest to your qualifications. Most employers require at least three professional references and one personal reference before you can start working.
Doesn’t it make sense that a new sales organization should also provide references to a prospective customer? Why should a prospect spend money with you if you can’t prove it? Sales people can greatly increase their effectiveness by asking for and using testimonial letters. An example of the type of services you have provided and the benefits received by your customer will increase your credibility.
How to get one
How do you get testimonial letters? First of all, you need to have a base of customers that are satisfied with the products and support you and your firm deliver. These accounts must be living, breathing references to your value added service.
Who are your best customers? How many have you serviced that are really satisfied with your work? Everyone that has been in sales for a year or more should have at least one or two. If they haven’t sent you an unsolicited letter of thanks, solicit one on your own!
Yes, call them up and ask them to send you a letter that talks about why you are different. A letter that says you helped them save money, time or anything else of value. A letter that says you helped them increase or improve efficiency, throughput, control or anything else of value.
Why mention you helped them save, increase or improve? Because that is how a benefit is described. Benefits help people save, reduce, control and decrease costs or expenses. Benefits help people increase, improve, enhance or gain money, efficiency or time.
People want to know what’s in it for them when you approach them. A good testimonial letter will help you to tell your story. It also will show that you know something about a specific market, industry or business.
How to get verbal into written
How many times have you heard a customer say, “This system is great! We’re able to use your system to cut our order processing time.” Or, “Your system has saved us a lot of time and money! We love our new system! We’re very pleased with your service and support. You really saved our butt!”
If you’ve only heard it, if you delivered what you promised to a customer, ask for a letter. The more you do for an account, the stronger your relationship should be. If you have a strong relationship, capitalize on it. Get a letter that says you deliver what you promise, (not everyone does), that you’re good and your company is good (not everyone is), that you help people save money or time and that you are someone that. people should talk to! These are powerful words that you deserve and that you can use!
If your customers love you but have not had the time to write you a testimonial letter, write it for them. Yes, you write your own testimonial letter. Type up a “draft” for their review and approval. Ask them if this letter is a fair statement of what you’ve done for them. If they want to make any changes they can. If they change it at all, they will usually make your letter even stronger. Most of the time they just type it on their letterhead and sign it. It is that easy.
Don’t wait for that extra special person who goes above and beyond and sends you a letter unsolicited. Take control of your own destiny and draft your own testimonial. Besides, when you do it, you can say what you want to say. When they do it, you never know if the right message comes through.
Make this idea a reality. Give yourself a deadline before this month ends, and get a note from your best accounts. When you get one, share it with your associates. Any sales manager reading this article should collect testimonials from each sales rep. Email them around to every rep. A testimonial from one customer can be used for almost any prospect.
How to use one
What can you use testimonial for? Lots of things. Use them for approaching new accounts. If you did a good job for one business in your area, let other businesses know about it. Send a copy of a good testimonial letter to the same level (or higher) at another company. It doesn’t even have to be the same industry. The point is that you and your company are good. You can deliver what you promise. Someone also has checked you out.
(If you’ve ever gotten an email from me, you’ll see a testimonial in my signature on every one – Michael)
You can also use testimonial with your proposals. Put them at the end to serve as proof that you are worth the investment. Encourage your prospects to call and check your references. Make sure you call, before they do. There is nothing more damaging than providing a bad reference on yourself A testimonial will also improve self esteem. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing your name in a letter from a happy customer. Well, I’ll admit it would be more satisfying to see your name in a letter that came in unsolicited but who can wait for things to just happen? Make things happen!