Cold Calling - The Sales Mastery Program

The Rainmaker Sales Mastery Program

Module Three – Cold Calling Mastery

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By Wyn Nathan Davis

Welcome to Module Three of ‘The Rainmaker Sales Mastery Program!All materials are copyrighted 2020. The goal of this program is to teach you how to sell at a very high level and earn the kind of money that you probably thought was impossible for you to achieve.

Let’s start with a quick overview of the Module Two program.

  • Creating a Sales Pipeline

One of the most important things that you can understand about selling is that selling is NOT an art, it is a science and this means that in selling,same actions brings the same results. This is a very important principle. It means that by correctly modeling a great salesperson you also can become a great salesperson. In a business, it means that if the best salesperson’s activities can be carefully monitored, understood and measured that the process can be replicated and your business becomes scalable. A sales pipeline is the lifeblood of every salesperson and every sales organization.

  • How inconsistency creates sales roller coasters.

I can guarantee you if you do not have a well-managed sales pipeline your business is going to be in trouble eventually.  A sales pipeline is like any system. Imagine an assembly line in any factory – large or small – every assembly line requires a constant quantity of raw materials and parts to be assembled. The moment any of the component parts runs out the assembly line screams to a halt. Nothing can be completed, nothing can be shipped, and the longer the assembly line stops the bigger the impact on the business. Eventually, the business will close!

A sales pipeline is really about asking the tough questions.

  • Who do we sell to?
  • Where do we find them?
  • Who are the top prospects?
  • When do we expect to close them?
  • How much business can we expect them to give us?
  • What are our chances of success?

A good CRM such a capsulecrm.com or salesforce.com will force you to ask these questions. If you’re a small business I would recommend capsule, it is free for up to two users and very user friendly.

Selling Smarter NOT Harder

Selling more is NOT about more selling it never has been.How could it be about more selling? How many hours are in a day? How far can you drive or how many telephone calls can you make? We are all limited by the number of hours in the day and if we are going to make more money, we need to work smarter. Take a look at your work and pull it apart. Try different things. Look to different industries or different countries to see if something is being done differently that you might be able to adapt. Experiment, test, measure and evolve the way you do business.

There is always a better way.

  • Creating awareness of your personal brand

The reality is that most of us never take even a few seconds to look at our professional image and evaluate what other people see. As a sales recruiter, I can tell you that most people applying for sales jobs never review their CV, LinkedIn profile or do a Google search of their own name. Are you really putting your best foot forward? You should never lie but it is always possible to present yourself in better light.

How to build a huge network

In selling you can never have too many contacts. Now, quality is better than quantity, but quality and quantity is great! Make a plan to know everyone in your industry, everyone who works for all of your customers and everyone who works for all of your main competitors. Competitors? Yes, it is very common for established competitors to help each other or even subcontract business to each other. The more people you know the better placed you will be to take advantage of opportunities. A competitor today could be a future business partner or employer.

Prospecting and Selling on LinkedIn

Building business through LinkedIn is not difficult but it does require discipline and consistency.

1) Write a profile that people find interesting and that reflects your wider business experience.

2) Connect with as many people as possible – think audience not Rolodex

3) Funnel all your blogs, tweets, newsletters and announcements through your LinkedIn account updates – Hootsuite is great for this.

4) Be active in as many relevant groups as possible – join groups where your customers are!

5) When you make a connection engage with that person, determine if the relationship has ‘legs’ and then move the relationship along. Start with a LinkedIn connection, then a coffee, then a proposal, and then business.

6) ABC! Always Be Closing! Identify if the relationship has business potential and if so then close! If not, then perhaps this contact could refer business, be a source of industry information or even a good friend – that is all good stuff!

Creating an audience

No matter what your profession being seen as a recognized expert will deliver real business success – fast! You can really become a recognized expert. One of the strategies we teach in our Rainmaker Seminarsis how to establish yourself as a recognized expert in your market fast. The highest performing salespeople are always seen as experts! Look at all of the reality programs on television and you will find cooks, matchmakers, accountants, lawyers, real estate agents, antique dealers, builders, designers, and the list goes on and on of established, recognized experts in something!

Any category you can think of and somebody has positioned themselves as experts in that field. They have then pitched a television producer on a show featuring them as experts! You can do the same and here is how you do it!

There are three primary steps to becoming a recognized expert in any market and here they are:

1.Your positioning becomes your position.

2.Find a public platform.

3.Ask for an opportunity.

Preparing for sales situations and delivering sales presentations

Most sales people give very little thought to sales presentations. They simply wing it!

  • Know your product or service inside out.
  • Most sales people hang themselves by simply not listening to the prospect. In most cases if you let the prospect talk they will tell you exactly what they need. Most people are open books if you let them talk.
  • Set an intention deep within your mind that your product or service really delivers exceptional value and visualize the perfect presentation and outcome. Intention is powerful in setting up many of the non-verbal cues that prospects will follow! Even 30 seconds of mental preparation prior to picking up the phone or walking from the car to the prospects office can be enough to make the difference.

Negotiate Sales and Pricing

Of course negotiation is a powerful skill that could fill many courses but for most salespeople the issue with price is really a problem of objection. Most prospects will have a few objections or questions with regard to buying any product – even a product they know well. This is part of establishing trust with the seller and the product or service. The problem with most salespeople is that on the very mention of price they simply roll over and cut the price or give up on the sale.

Most price objections have very little to do with price, it has to do with trust. What the prospect is really asking you to do is to justify the price. The best way to deal with price objections is to know the value that your product delivers to the prospect.

Destroying Sales Objections

Most salespeople when faced with an objection such as…

  •  The price is too high
  •  It is not the colour I wanted
  •  It lacks the features I was hoping for

…simply give up!

They shrug or mumble or apologize and let the prospect walk away.  In most cases, the same prospect will eventually buy the exact same product a few weeks later from a competitor.

How to get past this?

Well, the best defense is a good offence and in selling the best offense is to know your product or service so well that your pitch pulverizes every objection before the customer even thinks about it! Invest in your sales technique and learn every objection inside out. When you do have an objection you use these three simple words taught to me by Brian Tracy.

This is how it goes.

Feel, Felt, Found! 

“I understand how you ‘feel’, many of our best customers ‘felt’the same when they first spoke to us but they have ‘found’, through experience that the reality is almost the opposite and they have become some of our best customers.”

The ‘feel’ acknowledges how they feel – validation.  The ‘felt’ lets them know that others have felt the same way – more validation. And the ‘found’ suggests that the objection has a clear and recognized solution.

It works every time

Monetize your offer

Know the value of your service and be able to monetize the value in terms of the client’s return on invest (ROI). When the client raises the issue of price make certain that you can justify in terms of value to the customer.

Important: If you did not complete all of the assignments from last week’s program please stop here and go back and complete the program. It is through action that you will get things done and it is through the leveraging of dozens of different actions that the power will come!

This week we will cover the following topics:

  • Double your income fast
  • Change your thinking and change your results
  • Monetize every action
  • Become ruthlessly efficient
  • Leverage technology
  • Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
  • Spread the good news
  • How to Cold Call and love it
  • Closing
  • Eliminating fear

Let’s start!

Double your income fast

Most salespeople feel that to double income almost instantly is impossible because most salespeople see income directly related to effort – in other words to earn twice as much they need to work twice as hard – and it is this thinking that keeps salespeople at the same income year after year.

If you take just one thing from this entire course please take this idea and make it your own.

You will NOT get rich with more selling – you will get rich by selling differently!

At one point in my career I increased my income by twelve times in three years and I can absolutely guarantee you that I did not work twelve times harder. I did work harder but mostly I worked differently – very differently.

Think about your successes!

Too many salespeople think about a sale as the same as every other sale and fail to consider that some customers can drive significantly different results. 80/20 thinking suggests that for most businesses 80 percent of the business comes from 20% of the customers. In fact, for most businesses it is higher than that with sometimes the top 5% of customers generating a full 90% of the business.

If your business or your sales approach is treating all customers as the same then you are missing a huge opportunity.

Take a moment to think about the companies where you really love to do business. Wouldn’t you welcome an opportunity to build an even deeper relationship? Of course! The problem is that many businesses don’t think this way and so potential business is never realized.

Lets look at the American car rental market.

20% of American Adults rent a car at least once a year

Only 5% of American Adults rent a car more than once a year

Only 0.2% Rent a car ten times or more

This 0.2% represents one in one hundred car renters

One in one hundred customers represent 25% of all car rental business

When I worked in field sales I traveled 43 weeks a year and rented a car for five days each of those 43 weeks.

That represented 215 rental days per year.

As a car rental customer I represented a huge opportunity!

I rented with Hertz because they had programs in place to make each rental seamless. The airlines and the hotels also had programs in place to keep me as close as possible. I arrived in a city and my luggage would be the first off the plane. I would walk to the car rental area passing all the lines. My car would be running with the heat on in winter and the air conditioning on in the summer. The trunk would be open. I simply dropped my bags in the trunk, flashed my driver’s license to the attendant and was on my way. Often leaving the airport within ten minutes of landing. The hotel would be the same treatment with upgrades, preferred newspapers and even my choice of feather or synthetic pillows.

These companies treated me like the important customer I was and they received my business and my loyalty.

When everything is perfect why would anyone change?

Every business has the potential to identify its best customers and put programs into place that simply overwhelm them with service and recognition. What are you doing to identify and get closer to your best customers?

Don’t burn leads

The reality is that most businesses don’t lack leads – they waste them. Most salespeople get a lead from one source or another and instead of acting right away they leave it. Most customers will buy from the first person they speak to and if you have a lead then you need to act as quickly as possible.

Listen intently

I will share two things about myself – I am naturally more of an introvert and I am extremely curious about what motivates people. Being a natural introvert my tendency is to let other’s talk – this is useful in selling. Being curious about what motivates other people I have learned that if you just let people talk they will tell you everything. This has been very useful as a recruiter and as a salesperson. I have found that if you can engage with a person, ask gently probing questions that they will tell you what is on their mind – customers will tell you want they want.

Focus everything on winning the customer

One of my key strategies to winning new businesses is to provide intense, quality service at the beginning of a business relationship – real first class treatment. This needs to make sense. Make certain that all questions are responded to immediately and that promises are kept can have a huge impart on the sale. Please use your common sense here – if you feel you are pushing or if the prospect backs away then ease up on the service. The point here is to make an impression. Be certain they know you will deliver on every promise. Think about the very best hotel – the service is impeccable but hardly noticeable – of course we do notice but it is never in our face. Overwhelm you customer during the honeymoon period and then gentle back off to a sustainable first class service. This is powerful!

Assignment

Devise a sales program for your customers and prospects that delivers the highest possible level of service imaginable.  This might be a free report, providing your mobile number, or quick turn around on every request! The important aspect of creating special value is NOT to give it to everyone – only those customers and prospects with the potential to do significant volumes of business. 

Change your thinking and change your results

If you want to change the results you are getting then you need to change your thinking. Your current thinking has got you to where you are today but chances are it will not take you to where you want to go tomorrow. Too many salespeople get stuck in their current thinking and cannot understand why things don’t change.

How could your currently thinking get you to the next level?

This is true for artists, athletes and chefs – to improve we need to push the envelope and change who we are and our approach.

Take a moment to think about the different experiences that you have when dealing with different types of businesses.

To stay in a budget hotel compared to The Savoy in London is a completely different experience. Shopping at ASDA (a large British discount store) compared with a luxury retailer such, as Harrods or Harvey Nichols are very different experiences. The type of customer attracted is completely different. To sell like a Rainmaker salesperson is also a very different experience. I can never stress too much that if you want a very different result from selling than you are currently getting you cannot do more of the same – this will only get you marginally better results and you will probably burnout with the extra effort.

It is time to think differently!

Assignment

Take some time to think back through all of your customer service experiences – specifically your experiences as a customer. List five instances when you were treated differently than expected but still very positively.

Take a few minutes and drop in the best hotel in your city for a cup of coffee. Now, I am warning you that a coffee at The Dorchester could set you back £12 but pay attention to the environment, the quality and the service. Think about how the service you provide compares to the best hotel service.

Do you see an opportunity here?

Now using about fifty words describe the typical sales experience for your customers. Once you have done this write a list of five ways that the experience could be significantly improved. Don’t concern yourself with the cost of delivery at this moment simply how the sales experience you deliver could be better. Once you have listed the potential improvements create a different sales approach using these improvements.

Finally, test this improved approach on your top twenty percent of customers and make note of the result.

Monetize every action

Knowing what your time is worth is a very important step in increasing your productivity and income. Most salespeople spend far too much time on low value tasks that either could be done by someone else or not done at all.

Knowing the Return on Investment of every action will let you know whether your time and effort is an investment with a return or a simple cost.

Most salespeople make an effort to provide a high level of service and this is a good thing, however, the fact is that most good deeds go unnoticed. If you are providing a service to your customers make certain that the value they perceive is proportional to the cost to you in time, effort and opportunity costs.

In many cases, we provide a level of service because we think is it valuablebut, in fact, our customers may not care or may not even notice. The fact is that as humans we are reluctant to change – once we have made a decision to act the power of momentum tends to keep us in that same direction. We may make a decision that was right five ten or even twenty years ago and stick with it because we are reluctant to re-evaluate based on the current situation. How many people dress and keep the same hair cut for twenty years because one person complimented them on their style twenty years ago? We do the same in business. We decide to attend a certain networking group, or trade show and just keep doing it even though there is no value there any more! I see businesses still listing fax machine numbers on business cards when I have not used a fax machine in ten years – this is reluctance to change!

Assignment

Create a list of every aspect of your sales process / service delivery. Ask yourself if each action adds value in terms of the customer experience. Do you do anything or require anything of your client that is not necessary? Be ruthless and eliminate any action that does not provide a very clear benefit to your client. If you are uncertain ask your customer!

Become ruthlessly efficient

Great retail businesses know the sales and profit per square inch. What this means is that if there is a screw driver in isle four they know exactly how much that screwdriver generates in terms of revenue and profit compared to the hammer beside it or a package of nails in isle one. Effective retailers create ‘planograms’ which layout every square inch of space in the store. They are constantly working to maximize revenue. The only way that this is possible is to measure activity and results.

Great salespeople know that when they are closing business with top clients that their revenue may be 100 times higher than closing business with the smallest customers.

The answer is to become ruthless with every aspect of your activity so that your time becomes as effective as the square footage of a top retailer.

Most salespeople spend only a small fraction of their time pitching and closing business. Time is wasted thousands of ways. I know from my personal experience that when I was traveling away from home on business that I would average 10 sales calls every day – sometimes more. I knew that because I may only be in a particular city once every two or three months that I had to make every second count.  I would schedule my first call for 7:00am or earlier – there are always customers that would prefer that time. I would work right through the day even having lunches and dinners with clients. I would manage my sales calls geographically so that no time was wasted. In some cities where parking and driving was a challenge I would even hire a driver for the day – the increased efficiency could add two or three sales calls to the day and provide a huge ROI on the cost of a driver.

In comparison, when I was working in my home city my productivity was dramatically lower. I felt that I had more time and so simply became less effective. We all do the same and it is a productivity and revenue killer.

Do you know that lawyers have telephone systems and time management systems that record to the second the exact amount of time spent on each client’s file? They need to be certain in order to maximize billings and knowing exactly how they spend time is essential.

As you become a more effective salesperson, you will start to bump up against time. Trust me there are a thousand ways to become more effective through, preparation and simply getting better at selling. Plan your sales calls, prepare and even rehearse your presentations. Get effective!

Assignment

During the next week keep a record of all of your activities. Just a simple diary recording every activity and how much time you spend. You don’t need to share this with anyone but at the end of the week review your activity and see if you feel good about how you are spending your time?

Leverage technology

If you have a computer, tablet or smartphone there are literally millions of programs that can be used to increase productivity. Scheduling, reminders, organization tools, team tools, the list is inexhaustible. Just think of a problem or challenge and a stack of solutions are available.

Now, it is important not to let technology become its own problem but it is important to use technology effectively. For example, I have always used Apple products and my current selection of a Mac Desktop computer, a MacBook notebook computer, an Ipad and an iphone allows any work to be completely and automatically synced on all machines – this is a huge time saver as I always have everything I need at hand and damage, loss or theft is never a worry!

Using a Satellite Navigation system when driving saves lots of time – technology is there so use it! It is also essential to keep on top of changes and improvements as the entire world of technology changes every few weeks – stay current!

Assignment

This is a simple assignment. Take a few minutes and ‘Google’ ‘Sales productively apps’ and you will find a plethora of articles, blogs and advertisements. Most apps have a free version so test drive a few and see if you cannot leverage your productivity with technology!

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

One of the best ways to increase effectiveness to eliminate unnecessary activity from our schedules – most meetings are complete waste of time. If a meeting does not have an agenda then don’t attend. Ask the organizer to provide an agenda.  If a meeting is not necessary and if you have a choice then don’t go. Never call a meeting without a clear agenda, a start and finish time and a defined outcome.

Look at your reporting, systems and organization. Are there duplications or unnecessary activities? Get rid of them? Is information kept in two different places? How many people touch a document – is it really necessary? With a little observation it is possible to determine that much of the work done has evolved overtime and is often not necessary.

I will give you an example. When my business involved managing the sales and marketing for numerous manufacturers we would receive paper copies of all invoices and orders. This was valuable from a sales point of view as it allowed us to assess each client’s purchasing trends and to be alerted to any problems. We filed all of these documents, which also allowed us to check back on a client’s particular order. We thought this was a huge benefit to our customers – access to years of back records. These documents took up four five-drawer lateral filing cabinets and required hours every week to maintain.

After about five years I asked the question. ‘How often do we access these files?’ The answer was three times in the previous two years. We stopped the system! We sent almost a ton of paper to recycling and saved hundreds of dollars a month in staffing costs. The system was never missed.

Assignment

Make a list of all of your systems. Can any be eliminated? Be ruthless!

Spread the good news

One of the most powerful sales tools is the success you are having with your current customers. Large companies regularly produce News Releases outlining sales successes! This builds essential credibility!

A News Release can present any good news – new equipment, a new hire, new customers, expanded services, a sales achievement or milestone! They can be posted on your Facebook page, Tweeted and heavily promoted on all Social Media – even sent to trade journals and newspapers.

This is called Public Relations and has been, and continues to be, an important part of business development. Use it don’t waste it!

Assignment

Create a News Release for a recent company milestone and sent it to your customers! Don’t know how to create a New Release? Here is a link that will help!

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Press-Release

Once you have created a News Release then really get it our there – your website, email newsletter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, industry trade publications are all great places to disseminate information. Once you have done this once create a template and a distribution list and regularly promote the good news that is happening in your business!

How to Cold Call and love it

We have looked at Cold Calling before but it is important and so we will revisit. Lots of people will tell you that Cold Calling is dead but I will tell you that it is still alive and is the primary tool to initiate B2B relationships. Sure, marketing and advertising is important and social media can be great to get the attention of prospects but selling is an active not a passive pursuit. Sooner or later someone needs to pick up the telephone and call somebody to ask for a meeting!

To Cold Call successfully you need to be heard and so it is important not to send up the red flags by sounding like a salesperson. Using questions and sounding natural is key! If you were calling your Doctor for an appointment would you write a cheesy script and read it like your selling cars on AM radio? Of course not!

Cold calling is simple; it is about being real, having a compelling message and engagement. If you don’t enjoy Cold Calling it is because you are not being real and feel uncomfortable being fake. When we are not being real and when we have created some false persona, pitching some insincere written script we are not being natural – we feel it and the person on the other end of the telephone (often a gatekeeper) feels it too! And guess what? They shut down on us!

How is that a surprise?

A Cold Call should be a conversation and must start with engagement. Please real, be in the moment and ask the person on the other end of the telephone to participate.

It can be something a simple as a natural. ‘Hello. I am hoping you can help me!’ Asking for a favour engages and gets the other person involved.

NEVER READ A SCRIPT!!! People can hear this in a nanosecond and will shut you down! Be real, be in the moment and engage! Know what you want and enlist the person’s help to get you there.

I make dozens of Cold Calls every week and this works. Most important, because I am engaging with people I feel good about the calls.

Please think about any Cold Call you may have received – being polished does NOT help – it hurts! Success comes from being authentic.

Assignment

Take a few minutes this week and book a number of appointments. Book a hair cut, a Doctor’s appointment, a restaurant reservation, an oil change for your car. Pay attention to how you speak. If possible record the call. Now compare these calls to Cold Calls you have made or received – would a more natural approach get better results?

Closing

The majority of salespeople do not close! Why? In most cases it is not because the customer will not buy but because we, as salespeople, have simply told ourselves that the customer is not ready to buy. Unless we try to close we will not know if the customer is really ready or not.

This is the power of the trial close!

A trial close is a test, a little push to learn if the customer is ready to buy. It could be a simple question such as:

  • What colour would you like?
  • When would you like that delivered?
  • Would you be interested in the extended warranty?

The question is not as important as the movement forward. If you get a positive response then you can close – ask for payment, a signature or whatever commitment is common in your business.

The important issue is to always use a trial close! Without asking we never truly know! ABC – always be closing!

Now I want to clarify ABC. Yes, you should always be closing but the higher the level of the business the more subtle this becomes – at the enterprise level (big business) selling and closing is more of a joint experience rather than a pitch. The sale is never pushed – it is managed.

Assignment

Make a list of three trial closes that are relevant for your industry and commit to use one in every sales situation this week. Let’s see if you get any surprises.

Eliminating fear

Whether Cold Calling or Closing many salespeople avoid certain situations because of fear. Fear of selling can be fear of failure, fear of success or fear of a million different things. Fear can be a huge thing for many people holding many back from even taking action.

I would like you to consider something – a different way to look at fear.

When we were children and we feared the monster under the bed, in the closet or in our dreams our parents would explain that these things were not real and our fears disappeared.  As adults, we have the same feelings about cold calling, speaking in public or asking for the business. We fear that we will fail or be embarrassed but of what are we really afraid? We are afraid of the possibility of a feeling – a feeling in which we have complete control! This is, in fact, a mental mistake. Realize that you choose your thoughtsand have control over your thoughts. You can instantly eliminate fear. Do not treat fear as a real thing, like a barking dog, that needs to be controlled. It is not real – simply change your thinking and it will instantly vanish!

Assignment

Write done a list of your fears – every single one! Next separate them into two lists – actual and imagined. Actual, might be a barking dog. Imagined is almost everything else! Read through the imagined list over and over and then remind yourself that these things are notreal and that to be fearful is a mental mistake. Focus on fear as a mental mistake and the fear will disappear!

That’s it for this Module! You have a lot of material here and a lot of work to cover.

Next Module will cover the following:

  • Creating a Miracle Mindset
  • Maintaining results for the long haul
  • Get stronger – The Power Of Discipline
  • Health, Fitness and Money
  • Creating a Success Plan
  • 10 things that always work
  • 10 things that always fail

Until next Module!  Happy Selling!

Best,

Wyn Nathan Davis

The Sales Experts Ltd.

Canary Wharf, London, UK

Click here for Module One

Click here for Module Two

Click here for Module Three

Click here for Module Four