Don't Be Had By NETSCAD

NETSCAD stands for Not Enough True Sales Calls A Day. This is a disease that has a 100% mortality rate in salespeople. You need to speak with the final decision-maker (DM) or someone in the DM loop who has the ability to influence the DM.

On a True Sales Call, you can achieve:
1. Identifying the client's budget constraints to make your initial sale as lucrative as possible
2. Probing to understand their value opportunities (needs and wants)
3. Providing value that shows you can help them
4. Uncovering/revealing attitudes
5. Validating a current customer's expectations and satisfaction
6. Validating previously delivered value. Get them excited again about what you've done for them.

You need to apply skepticism to ensure you actually made a True Sales Call. The client may want to just be nice but did not give you any real information that was useful. Set aside your feelings about the call (emotions) and consider the facts:
1. Was the same topic/information simply rehashed?
2. Have you progressed toward a sale or upsell?
3. Did you get new actionable information?
4. Did you get additional critical information such as DM loop, budget, and new value opportunities?
5. Ask yourself the hard question -- "What information did I actually get from the contact and is that information useful?" -- and give yourself an honest answer.

The Erie Sales Club is a joint effort of three leading local businesses: Jameson Publishing, Marsha Marsh Real Estate Services, and VertMarkets.

Voicemail: Avoiding The Black Holes

Several good ideas and tips regarding voicemail were swapped at the Aug. 10 Erie Sales Club Workshop. Here are some of the top tips from that discussion.

What are the biggest mistakes you hear salespeople make when they leave a voicemail?
1. Too long. Many prospects won't listen to a voicemail longer than 30 seconds. "The more you talk the more you lose."
2. No information/topic shared. The prospect won't return the call because they don't know what it's in regard to.
3. Not leaving your name and number until the end of the message, and then only saying them once. And saying both too fast. Talk slowly enough so the person can write down your information.

How much planning should a salesperson conduct for a voicemail?
1. As much or as little as you need in order to get the prospect to "put their pencil down."
2. Some preparation is necessary -- don't totally wing it. Preparation will ensure that you don't ramble and that you talk about a subject the prospect cares about.
3. In your planning, learn "trigger events" that will get their attention. e.g. "I understand that you're planning to move to a new location. Maybe I can help." or "I understand you just launched this new product. Maybe I can help you sell more of them."

General voicemail tips
1. A voicemail to a prospect should rarely exceed 25 seconds. A voicemail to a customer could be longer because you are getting back to them with information they requested/need. Customers will tolerate longer voicemails if the info is vital.
2. Follow-up your voicemail with a brief email. Many prospects respond to email faster.
3. Show that you're reliable by saying in your voicemail, "I know you're busy so if I don't hear back from you I'll call you Friday," and then call them on Friday. If you run this drill enough, the prospect will learn (a) your name, (b) your company, and (c) that you follow through on what you say.

The next Erie Sales Club Workshop is set for Nov. 9 from 6:00-7:30 PM in Knowledge Park near the Penn State-Behrend campus. The topic will be Prospecting & Overcoming The Fear Of Cold Calling. Hope to see you there!

The Erie Sales Club is a joint effort of three leading local businesses: Jameson Publishing, Marsha Marsh Real Estate Services, and VertMarkets.

What Your Voicemail Greeting Says About You

We had a tremendous discussion about voicemail at the Aug. 10 Erie Sales Club Workshop. One of the best lessons that came out of this was brought up by Christie Mahany (pictured here) of Marsha Marsh Real Estate Services regarding your own voicemail greeting. Christie asked the attendees this question: "When prospects and customers call you, what impression does your voicemail greeting give them?" Do you give the impression that you're ordinary with a common message saying something like, "Sorry I missed your call, it's very important to me, leave a message after the beep, I'll call you soon."

Here's how Christie suggested you craft your voicemail to show that you're extraordinary:
1. You've reached [your name]. Thanks for calling.
2. If you want to leave me a voicemail, you can skip this message by pressing * any time during this message.
3. Please leave a brief message that includes your name, number, and reason for your call.
4. Or you can reach me at [email address], text me at [text address], or call me on my mobile phone at [mobile phone number]. (Note: You don't have to give them all three options -- do what fits your situation best.)
5. I will return your call within [pick a time frame such as 24 hours].
6. Thanks!

This message shows that you're organized and helps you stand out from other folks they're calling. Furthermore, it's customer friendly because it offers other routes for them to get in touch with you sooner.

The Erie Sales Club is a joint effort of three leading local businesses: Jameson Publishing, Marsha Marsh Real Estate Services, and VertMarkets.

Learn Your Customers

How much time did you spend last week selling your customers? And how much time did you spend last week learning your customers? Oftentimes, we get into a mode where we are pushing our agenda but not taking the time to understand our customers' needs or understand them as people.

Successful salespeople take a genuine interest in their customers and actually care about them, not just to increase their commission but also for their customers' best interest. The more a salesperson knows about a customer, the better they are equipped to help the customer accomplish what they want to achieve. You need a human connection with your customers -- not just a business transaction connection. It's best to care about your customers as if they were members of your family.

Not learning your customers is not an option. If a sales rep is not learning their customer, they are too focused on the tasks/duties of their job or too focused on their own outcomes. Sales reps must have social acumen in addition to business acumen.

People stay with people, not companies. Customers frequently remain loyal to the person servicing them. Your ability to keep customers is far more dependent on the relationships you develop with your customers than your company itself.

How To Learn Your Customers
1. Step #1 is to actually care about them. You can't fake this.
2. Identify what you want to learn about them.
3. Put yourself into situations where you can learn your customers.
4. Gather information. Ask questions to gain a better understanding of what's really important in their life (business and personal), what they're struggling with, and how they're engaged in that struggle.

Besides getting to know your customers personally, you should have data to answer these questions:
* Why do they stay with you as a customer?
* Why would they leave?
* What one thing could you be doing better for them?

The Erie Sales Club is a joint effort of three leading local businesses: Jameson Publishing, Marsha Marsh Real Estate Services, and VertMarkets.

The 7 Secrets of Top Producers

by Jim Roddy, President, Jameson Publishing

I had the opportunity in late July to attend RetailNOW, the trade show of the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) in Orlando, FL. I won't tell you about the latest happenings in point of sale hardware or payment processing, but I will share with you some thoughts from Garrison Wynn (pictured above), the keynote speaker at the event.

Wynn's company surveyed 5,000 top sales producers, and the findings were pretty interesting. Here's a column Wynn wrote about that survey:

Contrary to popular belief, the most successful salespeople were not those who made the most phone calls or were the best presenters and closers. There seemed to be no common ground with best practices. We saw many top producers who had low closing ratios but set ten times more appointments and made more money than their competitors by being in front of more people.

Also, we saw many number-one salespeople who could not cold call or even work their referrals that well. They went where their customers were: to networking meetings, golf courses, and so forth. They met face to face with fewer people but were very successful. We saw people who managed their time well and many who did not, but who made up for it by what we can only refer to as "wasting their time with the right people."

What they had in common went beyond best practices. They focused on their strengths and were more competitive by getting better at what they already did well. Wynnism: The key to success is doing very little of what you do badly.

We found a group we called the strugglers -- people who work very hard to produce average results. They seemed to focus all their strength in areas where they just didn't have any. We saw them working on their shortcomings over and over again, hoping for a different result.

As it turns out, hope is not a strategy. The difference is that the top producers used their strengths to improve a weakness. Wynnism: If you do nothing but focus on your weaknesses, you will ultimately feel weak.

We did, however, uncover seven beyond-best practices that we believe may be the keys to sales success.
1. They explain the value of their service clearly in about 20 seconds.
2. They develop simple and easy to maintain organizational processes that create client care.
3. They are able to stay persistent because they have clearly defined outcomes.
4. They spend approximately 50% of their time building relationships with top customers.
5. They leverage existing relationships by being a solutions provider.
6. They survey their customers to find out what services they like best and then focus their offering in those areas.
7. They manage expectations and emotions by setting those expectations and making sure their customers feel heard.

The Erie Sales Club is a joint effort of three leading local businesses: Jameson Publishing, Marsha Marsh Real Estate Services, and VertMarkets.