Freshly fallen snow on a breath-catching slope, a just-cracked can of something fizzy, blood-pumping cryotherapy: plenty of great things are cold.
Since 2009, entrepreneurs have pitched their ideas and dreams to a panel of ‘sharks’ on the hit reality show Shark Tank. The sharks – titans of industry who have made their own dreams a reality and turned their ideas into lucrative empires, listen to pitches and decide whether or not to invest their money in other potential profit-making ventures.
The biggest challenge facing sellers today is that most customers in the marketplace are unreceptive. They are resistant, not to a solution to their problems, but to salespeople and their attempts to engage.
Many people think of selling as relationship management or demand fulfillment. But it’s much more than that. Selling is about serving, it’s about changing beliefs, and it’s about influence – all with your customer’s best interest at heart.
In Part 2 of Call Center Sales, we’ll pick up where we left off in Part 1. You’re leading the call, driving the conversation by asking questions, keeping it conversational, and making sure your customer is with you as you navigate a solution and resolution to their questions.
If you run an inbound sales organization, or if you make a living selling on the phone, you know the biggest obstacle to up-selling happens in the first 15 seconds of the call. Although all “genres” of sales share common themes and techniques across the board, there are some key differences to selling in an inbound, call center environment that we’ll address here today.
If you’ve been following me on this step-by-step approach to filling your pipeline, you already know how to capture the prospect’s attention and the best answer to the question: “Why meet?” Next, we need to move this total stranger from “this looks interesting” to giving up their most precious resource: time.
If you understand and implement the principles offered in Step One, you will get the prospect’s attention. As the suit guy says, “I guarantee it.” Like unexpectedly jumping out from behind a door, there are some predictable things you can do to control eyeballs when facing obstacles to prospecting. The next step is a bit more challenging:
We've all been there - sitting in a coffee shop or at our cubicle, frantically preparing for that first prospect meeting. We're jotting down sales discovery questions, hoping to uncover those crucial needs.
For the past 25 years, we’ve been studying what I (and most sellers) believe is the most difficult aspect of selling: prospecting.
We’ve recently discussed the biggest pitfalls of sales training objectives, from believing sales program effectiveness relies solely on the front-line to trying to tackle too many deficiencies at once. For this last post, we’re honing in on the last, and maybe the most important, pitfall: The assumption that generic sales training strategy will work for your sales team.
In our last post, 4 Things You Should Consider Before Committing to A Sales Training Program, we recognized a severe pitfall of training initiatives: Focusing on the WHAT vs. the WHY. In this post, we’re uncovering the next pitfall of sales training: what happens after sales training courses.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: Most sales training initiatives fail to deliver.
Here’s an idea: What would happen if we learned about our client BEFORE we pitched our solution to them? And we don’t mean what you can find out from their website, but things that you can only learn after a conversation with them. For example, what challenges are currently on their whiteboard.
Another year, another failed sales quota. This year marks the fifth year in a row that the percentage of reps hitting their quota have declined — and they don’t look to be changing for the better anytime soon. So, what do reps need to know to meet the new demands in successful prospecting and see positive change?
Working as a marketing executive for the last ten years, I have literally seen thousands of attempts from sales reps to get my attention. Salespeople have tried the “hey, I see you are a Villanova grad, GO CATS!” They’ve also tried: “I noticed that you worked at Kodak, so did my dad!” Occasionally, I also get: “How ‘bout those Patriots,” when they recognize that I live in New England.
A sales team that is not effective at qualifying prospects before they begin their sales process is like someone holding a heavy metal concert for classical music enthusiasts. You may have gotten people’s attention, but they aren’t going to like what they hear.
We all know the truth: Selling is hard work. It demands a paradoxical blend of goal clarity, motivation, and talent to consistently prospect for, pursue, and secure new revenue.
It’s one of the oldest questions in the book: How do you make people care about what you have to say? It’s not just about your sales tactics; it’s more about how you’re delivering your prop.
Congrats, you made it! Welcome to the sixth, and final, installment of our series: Exposing the 6 Myths of Call Center Training. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the previous posts, you can start with the first post in this series, or download the full series for free here.
Welcome to the fifth installment of our series: Exposing the 6 Myths of Call Center Sales. Be sure to check out the first, second, third, and fourth posts in this call center training series.
Welcome to the fourth installment of our series: Exposing the 6 Myths of Call Center training. Be sure to check out the first, second, and third posts in this call center training series.
Welcome to the third installment of our series: Exposing the 6 Myths of Call Center Sales. Be sure to check out the first and second post in this call center training series.
The last thing you need is a whole new set of demands and challenges. But you’ve got them anyway, because now you’re now being asked to generate new revenue in addition to providing great customer service. Chances are, you’re already taking some steps to incorporate a sales element into your call center. But it’s not an easy transition.
There are 5 things I have learned in 25 years of prospecting. Wait, I know, that’s only one thing every five years. Hear me out.
Have you ever stopped to think what it would take to sell yourself something? I mean to call you during dinner and really have your beliefs changed about a product or a service and get you to stop eating and invest your hard-earned money. Do you have what it takes to sell yourself?
When I look in the mirror (not literally), and think about selling to myself, I learn quite a bit. I'm a hard sell. I'm typically immune to being approached by salespeople in general, and especially bad ones. And yes, I am a sales person by profession. Because of this, I take the art of selling very seriously, and I have a passion for helping salespeople transform into sales professionals. I also am very quick to recognize and reward good salesmanship.
I have rookies, amateurs, and time termites approach me every day, trying to pitch or persuade me. Very few succeed.
So, if I look in the mirror to selling me, what are the fundamentals to gaining access to me?
