Reach your quota faster through your mobile phone
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 02, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
I just delivered our Telesales Skills for Field Reps course to a few dozen field reps working for one of my clients. They’d taken all the well-known, standard sales courses, but realized they could be far more effective by doing better qualification work on the telephone before they made face-to-face sales calls. They were all very sharp reps, and one asked me how to apply these telephone techniques when he was on his mobile phone, and couldn’t take notes.
I replied that prospects and customers today are so savvy about mobile phones that they won’t mind if you tell them to hold on a second while you pull over and park so you can take notes. Actually, many Field sales reps are used to “living” in their cars, and their mobile phones are essentially their main offices. What they’re doing to make their sales days more effective is something every inside sales rep should consider as well.
Today’s post is for you inside sales people who aren’t yet using your mobile phones to increase your sales pipelines while you’re on your way to work. Even if you start your workday at 8 am, you’ll find a significant number of prospects --- particularly high-level ones --- that will be in their offices before 8, and will be available to take your call. If your commute is one hour (pretty common in any metropolitan area), you can actually increase your sales day by at least one hour by using your commute time as prospect calling time.
Most high-level (CXOs, VPs, Directors) prospects begin their business days as soon as they leave home. If you reach these people from your office during the standard work day, end the call by asking for their mobile numbers, and tell them you’ll always be happy to call them while you’re going into work or coming home. A significant number of high-level prospects are engaged in meetings for virtually their entire business day, and may welcome a commute call from you.
And you can make calls after you leave work, as well. Many times, your best prospects are staying late. Make it a habit to include your mobile number on your outgoing email signature, and leave it on your voicemails, too. That way, your prospects can reach you when they’re commuting to and from work, because they know you’re accessible by mobile phone on the road.
So there, you’ve just figured how to extend your sales day by two hours by using “dead” time that you may now use just fighting traffic. Since you’re sitting there, you may as well make some money from it. And if you need to take notes, just pull over for a minute or two, write everything down, and get back on the road when the call is finished. Add your new “mobile office” to your Best Practices Playbook.