Inside Sales Telesales Tips Blog

There are no be-backs: make it happen on the first call

I got a call this past week from a prospect that wants us to deliver an inside sales training course, and one of his main challenges is that his reps aren’t always asking a closing questions when they have the opportunity, and he’s convinced that sales are being lost because of it. And they probably are, because if his reps aren’t asking closing questions, his competitors’ reps probably will. 

I’ve always believed that you have to fully qualify on the first call, and close on the next step, too.  I learned this technique from Bob Tumbleson, so was my boss during the first sales job I ever had. This was an outside sales position, something of a misnomer, because we were at a sales office, and our prospects came in to see us. They visited us because we had a service that interested them. Bob always said that we had to close them on an order when they came in, because they’d never be back. “There are no be-backs,” Bob used to say. My first week on the job, I let a prospect leave who promised to return, and Bob told me that he would use that instance to prove his point. 

And sure enough, the prospect never returned. So I made it a point after that to close every prospect. Sometimes they’d want to go out to the car “to get the checkbook.” I told them that was great, because “I need to get some fresh air, too,” and walked out with them, just in case they decided to drive away without signing up, like they told us they would. This tended to  really flesh out price objections, and we did have some leeway, so I had an 80% close rate. I had no “drive-offs.” Our service was great, too, and just about every prospect became an enthusiastic customer. 

One of my most popular posts is on the subject of the one-call close, and it’s worth reading if you haven’t done so, because it describes how to do this effectively in an 8 minute telephone call. What I learned from Bob Tumbleson years ago, I still believe today. There are no be-backs. You've only got one shot at a conversation, because the prospect may never ever take your call again. This is an extremely important concept for enterprise sales, and it goes without saying that this is critical for transcational sales as well. If you adopt this philosophy and act on it, you’ll close more business faster, and your sales pipeline will be more meaningful, too.  Now that you’re starting a new month/quarter, it’s worth kicking it off by seriously considering this strategy. Add it to your Best Practices Playbook.

Price negotiation: when the prospect won’t buy today because your price is too high

Marianne is an inside sales rep who's just landed a telesales job selling high-end graphics tools to developers. Many of these folks are already customers, and her job is to upsell and cross sell. And she's dealing with people that really need those upgrades, but can't find the budget. So they tell her to call back next quarter. Today's post is about how to deal effectively with that issue.

When I mentioned Marianne's dilemma to a friend, he told me that one of his sales colleagues from years past had countered the "I can't afford it" sales objection with "You know what, Bob? You can't afford NOT to have it." Then the sales rep would discuss the reasons why. My initial reaction was that this was just another cheesy closing line from the past, hackneyed enough that you wouldn't use it today. But then I thought, with a modification or two, it would work. Here's how:

Marianne's new company never lowers it prices. It's an engineering-intensive company with a huge R&D budget. They're always introducing new upgrades, too. Fact is, Marianne's pricing will never go down. Her products will always be increasingly more expensive. So she should use the following model:

1) Build value by understanding the customer's business. Determine if the upgrade she's selling can be used to help her customer to make more money, or prevent it from losing money. Don't even discuss pricing until your customer agrees that it makes business sense to acquire the upgrade.

2) If the customer then balks at the price and wants you to call back next quarter, let's say, then mention to the customer that a very good reason to acquire the product today is that the price might actually increase again before the next call. Here's how her response could be crafted:

"[First name], I'd be happy to call next quarter, but let me tell you why I'd recommend that you move forward today instead. You've already told me that this upgrade is going to save you a significant amount of time, so you know it has value. What our company tends to do is raise prices over time to reflect the additional engineering we put into the product, and when those price increases come, they tell me in a moment's notice, and I can't do a thing to roll back the prices. I can't tell you when our prices are increasing, but I'd hate to call you next quarter and have to tell you that the pricing is even higher than it is today." [Now just be quiet, and let the prospect/customer respond]

 I've personally used this effectively over the years when I've sold high-end products. It not only increases the perceived value of your product, but gets the prospect thinking that the pricing that he or she initially perceived as being high, might actually, in fact, be low. You can use this rebuttal with any high-end product or service that does have an R& D design and development component that's significant. This is a technique that I teach in my inside sales training courses, and I've witnessed its effectiveness in numerous coaching calls. Add it to your Best Practices playbook.

5 Top Sales Techniques for Closing Year-End Business

OK, we've got only 3 1/2 days this week to close business for the year end. In our telesales training courses we cover a number of sales techniques to remember when we need to close business. The following techniques appeared in my blog articles this year, and all of them can be put to great use this week. Here they are in synopsis form, along with the blog article that explains each of them in greater detail:

1) Negotiate intelligently and portray price drops --- if you use them --- wisely. There's a reason my post on price negotiation techniques is the best-read on my blog. Too many reps don't use intelligent price negotiation strategies and leave money on the table, or don't get the order at all: www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/7413/5-Most-Common-Price-Negotiation-Mistakes

2) Close on the first call, budget money may get re-allocated this week.  Many prospects have year-end money to spend, but they won't necessarily tell you that unless you ask. When I was a purchasing agent years ago, I always had year-end money that had been re-allocated from another budget source. Be sure to call back folks that didn'y buy earlier in the year. They may have additional budget this week: http://www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/9840/One-call-close-on-the-first-call-if-you-don-t-the-prospect-may-not-return-your-second-call

3) Drill down to uncover the financial reasons it makes sense for your prospect to buy now. You can use a quick financial model to prove that delaying the order will cost your prospect in financial terms: www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/10732/How-do-I-get-my-PO-in-faster

4) Ask for additional needs through upselling. Don't shortchange yourself just because you're happy to get a small order. Tell your prospects about "the next best thing and they may increase the size of your order: www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/9101/Upselling-Don-t-forget-to-ask-for-The-Next-Best-Thing

5) Be careful that you're not being "shopped" by savvy buyers, and remember to "call high." OK, I know you don't view your unique high-tech solution as a commodity, but probably your buyer does, and has more than one solution in mind. On inbound calls, be wary that a decision may have already been made to go with a competitor. But that doesn't mean you can't unlock it and get the business: www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/5564/RFP-Hazards-Are-you-being-shopped-by-Purchasing-Agents-Here-s-how-to-fix-it 

Today's post is short because you've got to be out there selling, but these are 5 powerful tools that you can --- and should --- use this week. Add them to your Best Practices Playbook and have a great year-end.

How do I get my PO in faster?

In addition to writing my weekly blog posts on telesales training topics, I monitor a few other blogs in which sales questions arise. A few weeks ago, the following question popped up about getting POs in faster. We're closing in on year-end now, so I think it's topical to repeat the question in today's post, as well as my answer. Have a look:

Question: What methods do you use to put a time limit on a quote without exposing yourself to pressure? Let's say it is two weeks before the end of the quarter. You want to get a sale before the end of the quarter. What methods do you find effective to get the PO in the time you need it? I find that discounting does not contribute to that and that I am not able to back up from the discount even after the time limit. In other words, the discount is gone forever, even if the Purchase Order was not submitted on time. Please assume the customer is ready to decide, that is all other conditions for the purchase are already met.

(Geoff's answer) "You did the right thing by not further lowering the price. But you have to determine how the prospect perceives that your solution will either help him or her make money, or stop losing money. 99% of the time, companies buy for these reasons. This is always best done early in the sales process, but you can still do it now. Call the prospect and ask, and then try to quantify it. For example, let's say the prospect tells you that she will be using your solution to get her product to market faster. You can then ask how much faster she perceives your product will get it to market. Once you find that out, ask how much revenue is projected for that product in the next 12 months. Once you get that figure, divide by 52 (weeks), and you will know how much his or her company is losing based on lost opportunity costs, per week. Then you can tell her that for each week the decision is delayed, his or her company will be losing that much money. Those are real numbers, based on what she just told you, and you've given her a compelling reason to get the PO to you now. In addition, you'll have given her a good, financially sound argument she may have to take to her CFO. I've probably got a dozen examples of how to build an ROI model like this, but this one's one of the most common (for more on "Selling by ROI," read my whitepaper).

"This technique works equally well if your target company is building an external project (for use by their customers) or an internal project (for use by themselves). Ultimately, people buy solutions because they make financial sense, and sometimes the finances are based on projections. But you do have to ask what their thoughts are as to how the implementation of your solution will pass muster on both the technology and the financial sides of the fence. It sounds like you've won the technology battle. Now you've got to tackle the financial element."

(Back in the present again) The technique of drilling down on the financial reasons people perceive a need for your solution is critical to accelerating the sales process, and it's most effective when you're early in the sales cycle (I encourage you to do it on the very first call) because the prospect is not yet in price negotiation mode, and much of the time will be fairly comfortable giving you some hard numbers. Add this technique to your Best Practices Playbook, and you'll be getting those POs in a lot faster, and with less resistance.

What to do when your competition is cheaper (and maybe better!)

This has got to be one of the more serious sales objections in any salesperson's day, and because technology is moving so rapidly, can occur at almost any time. I'll tell you how it happened to me, and what I did about it.

I once sold a hardware-based software debugger, a great product, and we sold thousands for $5000 each. One day, a new competitor came up with a product that did a lot of what ours did, and sold for $400. We tested it, and it was a great product! The only feature difference was that it didn't have something called hardware breakpoints, a feature that not all software developers needed. So I had to reposition our product. I never like to knock the competition, so I decided a good approach was to "damn with faint praise" and position our competitor into a small corner of the developer world. Our prospects and customers were savvy buyers and read all the journals, and a large percentage of them started asking how our product, which cost ten times more, stacked up against theirs. And even if they didn't need hardware breakpoints, here's how I responded. Let's call their product the ABC Debugger:

"ABC makes a really good product, and it's terrific if you're building a home software program to run a sprinkler system. But if you're in serious production mode, and have a hard timeline for getting a product to market, our debugger is the only way to go."

Of course, I had to sell the value of hardware breakpoints, too, even if the value wasn't perceived initially. You know that I place a real value on asking ROI questions, which I teach today in my telesales training courses, so I knew what they were building, who their customers were, and had an idea of how much revenue that product was going to produce for them. My customers' concerns about product rollout timefames turned out to be way more important than a $4500 cost differential per unit, and our sales never faltered. Within a year, our own engineers developed a new flagship product that sold for $20,000 and was wildly successful, but we never stopped successfully selling our $5000 debugger, either.

Damning with faint praise is a great technique when your prospect brings up the name of a worthy competitor. Use it along with your important ROI questions, and add it to your Best Practices Playbook. And if you have another way to handle this sales objection that's worked successfully for you, tell us about it!

Do I mention the competition first?

I regularly monitor a few sales websites, and a good question was posed the other day about whether to openly discuss the competitor's solution, or totally avoid mentioning the competition. I'm pretty opinionated on this. Here's my answer, followed by a brief explanation:

"I will never be the first to bring up the name of a competitor. But I will always ask "What other solutions are you considering?" I not only want to find out who is competing with me, but also want to get a sense of the prospect's global ideas about solving the problem. Also, be wary that your prospect may have already made a decision to go with the competition, but is "shopping" you to get price data to use to lower the price of the already-chosen solution. When I was purchasing solutions myself, I did this to salespeople all the time. I've blogged on this shopping practice, and what to do about it at http://www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/5564/RFP-Hazards-Are-you-being-shopped-by-Purchasing-Agents-Here-s-how-to-fix-it   "

I'm a real believer in never bringing up the name of a competitor before the prospect does, and it's just one of the things I teach in my telesales training courses. When you do that, you place the competitor on a peer level with you, and I can almost guarantee that if your prospect hasn't talked with your competition, he or she almost certainly will right after you've hung up the phone. In one fell swoop, you've brought your competition into the sales picture.

Occasionally, the prospect will ask who you compete with. I hope you've already asked great qualification questions that will uncover reasons that your solution is the best in the marketplace for the prospect, and you'll have a unique value proposition that argues that you have the best solution. So my response to the question about my competitors goes something like this: "There are a number of companies competing in this space, Jerry. Based on what you've told me, we're the one that is by far your best solution, for the following reasons [name them]. The reason I work for [my company] is that we provide the best solution in the marketplace, and my customers get exceptional support and get taken care of really well. If I thought any of the companies that compete with us were better, I'd be working for them."

Savvy prospects (and they're all savvy) hunt around the web for different solutions, and mostly they're testing you to see how you'll respond to the "competition" question. Going back to the days long ago when I was a purchasing agent myself, I'd always ask every vendor salesperson who he or she competed with. Many of the salespeople weren't sophisticated enough to provide an answer like I gave in the paragraph above. So I'd call 5 or so vendors, get the names of the competitors from them, then rank those competitors based on the number of times they got mentioned. Much of the time, I'd choose a vendor based on that ranking, then negotiate a lower price based on the price data I'd gotten from the others. Don't you fall into this trap!

So now you've got a great way to handle the "competition question" and ensure that you're dealing with future price negotiation issues at the same time. Add it to your Best Practices Playbook. And if you have another way of dealing with the question that's been effective for you, tell us about it!

Next week's blog post: What to do when your competition is cheaper (and maybe better!)

 

4 steps to never getting hung up on again: What to answer to “I don’t have time to talk”

One of the things I preach --- and I really mean preach in my telesales training classes is you've only got one call to qualify your prospect. Just one. And when you get that person on the phone, that may be the only time you ever talk. Ever. We all know the frustration of calling back the same prospect that asked us to call back, and never being able to reach that person again. And all the voicemails and emails won't help, either, a vast majority of the time. So today I'm going to discuss a great sales tip to fix this, that works especially well if you're in the lead generation or lead qualification business.

Today's post is about prospects that try to get you off the phone as soon as you begin your opening. They're just going into a meeting. They were expecting another call. They're dealing with an emergency. They have dyspepsia or catarrh. Sometimes it's true, and sometimes it isn't. But you have to absolutely find out whether that prospect you're calling for the first time has a need for your offering. If he or she doesn't, that person is disqualified, and you don't have to call again. But he or she may, and that's what you absolutely have to discover before dropping this type of call.

So here's what you do. When the first-time prospect tell you he or she can't take your call, do the following:

1) Ask "Before I let you go, let me ask you this:"
2) Tell him or her in 5 seconds or fewer who you are and what you do.
3) Reference something that indicates that he or she might be interested. This could be that he or she attended a trade show, seminar, downloaded a whitepaper, or even something you saw on his or her company's website.
4) Ask if he or she will be looking into solutions like yours anytime within the "next few months."

This 4 step process works almost 100% of the time, because it's quick, gets you what you need, and often the prospect will actually have a conversation with you, provided there is an initiative to look into an offering like yours. Why does it work? Because you're honoring the "contract" that the prospect gave you at the beginning of the call. And that contract was "I'm busy, bug off."  By responding with "Before I let you go, let me ask you this", you're telling the prospect that yes, you'll bug off, after one quick question. Even if the prospect is busy, that's a pretty good trade. So let me set this out in actual dialogue form, so you can see what it looks like. And let's say you sell in-circuit emulators, for example's sake:

Prospect: "Hi, this is Sandra Bannerjee"
You: "Hi Sandra, this is Geoff Alexander from Atron, and..."
Prospect: "I'm sorry, this is a really bad time to talk, can you call me next week?"
You: "I'd be happy to, Sandra, but before I go, let me ask you this. You attended our seminar on debugging the 680X0 series of processors, and I'm wondering if you'll be looking at buying emulators for those processors any time within the next several months?"
Prospect: "Yes we will."
You: "When do you have to have them on board?"
Prospect: "Real soon, but I can't talk right now."
You: "OK, Sandra, who can I talk with right now that can discuss some of the specs of the project?"
Prospect: "Lee Kiley is the Project Manager, go ahead and give Lee a call."

I could go on ad infinitum about where I'd take the conversation from here, but bottom line, you took a call that was going to be worthless, and turned it into something. You found an opportunity, and got a referral. And if you do this on every one of these types of calls, you'll be spinning your wheels less, generating more leads, selling faster, and be spending less time calling the same prospect over and over. But do remember "the contract." Add "Before I let you go, let me ask you this" to your sales vocabulary and highlight it in your Best Practices playbook.

 

20 Characteristics of a Superior Inside Salesperson

What makes a superior salesperson? I don't mean merely successful. I mean superior. This question was posed by Ian and Jennifer, two very astute Inside Sales Managers with whom I communicate on a frequent basis. After training and coaching hundreds and hundreds of telesales reps, I do have some answers, because I've worked with many of the best. The list of the key elements that made these reps superior isn't long, but it raises the bar over which a rep must jump in order to constantly over-achieve and outperform others. And the list isn't just about superior sales characteristics either. It's also about superior habits in the workplace. I've broken it down into Superior Sales Characteristics and Superior Work Habits. Take a look:

Superior Sales Performance Characteristics

1. Achieves the sales goal of being over quota every month.

2. Has a sales-oriented call objective for every call. Every call must result in a sale, an agreement to action, or disqualification.

3. Turns cold calls into warm calls by doing pre-call research, both on the CRM system to determine previous same-company contacts, and on the prospect's website, to look for conversation points that could dovetail with his or her solution offering.

4. Habitually begins the sales process by calling the highest level executive responsible for his or her solution set.

5. Fully qualifies the prospect on the first call.

6. Is able to determine the quantifiable business need (return on investment) of the prospect for his or her solution on the first call.

7. Is able to make a concise value statement about his or her offering.

8. Has memorized answers for every question and objection that could occur in the call.

9. Is a territory expert: has had discussions with at least one high level executive in every Major account or Target account in his or her territory, and knows the sales status in each company.

10. Keeps stellar notes in the CRM detailing critical conversations and account status.

11. Has documented the decision process in each account from lower-level contacts directly to the CXO level.

12. Is customer-focused: strives to ensure that his or her offering betters the lives of his or her customers.

13. Sells consultatively: is considered an expert resource for those to whom he or she sells, as well for in-company colleagues.

Superior Work Habits

1. Works a full complement of territorial hours: for example, a rep working in the Pacific Time Zone with an Eastern Time Zone territory works 6 am to 3 pm.

2. Doesn't complain, but rather offers well-thought-out solutions to internal company problems, taking into consideration the financial realities, culture, and politics of his or her company.

3. Stays away from non-work-related computer and social activities during working hours.

4. Enthusiastically supports internal initiatives from his or her Sales Management team.

5. Focuses on the positive, staying away from gossip regarding other individuals or his or her company.

6. Is constantly in self-improvement mode through coaching and learning experiences.

7. Takes the "high road," acting ethically, honestly, and with consideration to others, to prospects and customers, as well as in-company colleagues. And always keeps his or her word.

You might know of additional superior characteristics. If you do, please post them to the blog and share them with others. In the mean time, adopt these practices if you're an inside sales rep, and share them with your team if you're an inside sales manager. Add them to your Best Practices playbook.

5 Most Common Price Negotiation Mistakes

Now that the year-end has closed, lots of my customers are reviewing the numbers, their sales processes, and discussing new ideas in overcoming sales objections. Whenever a month, quarter, or year comes to a close, many reps are trying to close important business, and invariably negotiating on price becomes a factor in getting the prospect to agree to a deal. Superior negotiation techniques are always critical. Putting on my inside sales consulting hat for a moment, here are the top 5 mistakes that salespeople typically make when entering into price negotiation discussions:

1) Not building value. You've got to fully understand the value your solution brings to the prospect's business. If you don't, the prospect will have all of the negotiating power. I've written a great free whitepaper on selling by ROI that provides terrific sales techniques for getting the right information from your prospect. If you haven't read it, please do.

2) Starting negotiations with an already-discounted price. Why give up something when you don't have to? If you've correctly ascertained the value of your solution (see #1 above), you never have to begin with a discounted price. Always start at full price.

3) Negotiating more than one price drop per deal. A common mistake is to negotiate a price with the technical buyer, then having to negotiate it all over again with a financial buyer. The financial buyer will almost always try to grab a 10-20% discount (he or she is often "comped" on it), so be firm, and tell the financial buyer you've already negotiated a final price. If the financial buyer persists, call the technical buyer with whom you already negotiated, and have him of her (or the appropriate VP) fix it for you.

4) Not having a "drop dead" date to agree to your price adjustment. Price negotiations can carry on forever if you don't provide a date in which your offer is no longer valid. This assists you in delivering a "fear of loss" close, and also prevents the prospect from asking for the same discount for a later transaction at a later date. You'll also need to provide a good business reason that your discount offer will end on a given date. There are loads of good ones, beginning with "We're agreeing to this right now because we need to close more business this quarter. When the quarter closes next week, the offer will no longer be open."

5) Not having a "walk-away" price point. You should never agree to a price that represents a financial loss for your company. Even a million dollar deal can represent a loss if enough company resources and solutions are "given away." Most sales reps are commissioned on gross sales, so it's tempting to grab a sale, even if it makes no financial sense for their companies. Know in advance of negotiations what your bottom-line price is, and hold the line. Savvy financial buyers will always try to go for an extremely low price, and will sometimes even hang up on you when you hold on price. This is a usually a negotiating tactic, and you'll be on top of things if you understand the value proposition discussed in item #1 (above).

These are just a few of the common mistakes I address in my Negotiation Skills telesales training course, but they obviously hold true for field sales reps as well. Add these inside sales tips to your Best Practices playbook, and you'll have more fun in the exciting world of price negotiations. And if you have your own favorite negotiation mistakes, blog me!

Handling sales objections: outrageous closing lines

This week many of my customers are in "shut down" mode as people take vacations. So instead of giving my usual sales techniques tips, today's post is about a couple of funny responses to objections from my past. Read ahead, and share your own classic objection handling lines with the blog.

"If I had your money, I'd burn mine." I worked with Tim Mattis at the 2001 Dating Service, my first real sales job, where we put lots of nice folks together in the pre-internet dating era. It was commission only, and people would walk in to talk with Tim and I, who were the only salespeople. For $420 a year, each person would receive a monthly envelope with 6 "matches," consisting of a photo and a little background on the person. When a potential customer objected to the price, Tim would respond: "Oh come on, Jim, if I had your money, I'd burn mine."

"It's so easy to use, even Ray Charles could do it!" Vince Amodeo was my sales manager at Modern Office Machines, where I sold photocopiers, coincidentally my next sales job after the dating service. Many of our sales were made by placing a copier for evaluation at a customer site, training the people to use it, and letting it stay there for a week. We closed 90% of our business that way. Occasionally, someone would voice the concern that the controls were difficult to use, and Vince would get a big smile on his face, hold up his hands, and say "This is so easy to use, even Ray Charles could do it!"

Now these are two techniques I DON'T teach in my telesales training course, but when I sit around with other salespeople and have a beer or two, we end up talking about outrageous closing lines we've heard, and these are the two I usually bring up. What are yours?