Tag Sales Calls

Are You a Mad Salesperson?

Steve Keating 4 Comments

I like competitive salespeople. I want them to be upset when they lose a sale. I’m perfectly okay it they are a little angry about it. In fact, I’m fine if they are just plain mad. 

 

So long as they are mad at themselves and NOT their customer.

 

Professional salespeople know that when a sale is lost it is never the customer’s fault. The customer has zero responsibility to buy from a salesperson. No matter how much time and energy that salesperson might have invested in earning the sale. 

 

It is not the customer’s fault that the salesperson failed to influence them to the degree that they would feel comfortable making a purchase from the salesperson. 

 

It is NEVER the customer’s fault. Never!

 

Thinking that it is simply provides cover for unprepared, unprofessional, and undeserving salespeople. 

 

Even if something happened that is completely out of the salesperson’s control professional salespeople accept responsibility. 

 

Professional salespeople have chosen to accept the challenges of selling and EVERYTHING that comes with it. There may be some responsibility to spread around for a lost sale but that responsibility must never extend to the customer. 

 

There is no doubt that some customers are more challenging than others. Some customers are misinformed and some might have unreasonable expectations. But real selling is about overcoming those challenges and helping a customer to see how your product or service will help them achieve their goals. 

 

So, are you a mad salesperson? I hope so. I also hope the person you’re mad at is the one who stares back at you from the mirror every morning. If that is who you’re mad at then there is a chance that you know your success is up to you. It’s a sign you know that to have better results you’ll have to be better yourself. You’ll have to work harder. You’ll have to earn your success. 

 

If you’re mad at anyone else then your success will surely be limited. Do not limit your success by blaming anything on anyone else. 


Now, go earn your success!

How to Sell More

Steve Keating 4 Comments

I’ve been involved in sales training a long time. I’ve been selling even longer than that. I suppose that would be obvious that someone should actually be in sales before they start teaching others how to sell. But it shouldn’t be obvious. There are many people and companies around that offer sales training that have little or no sales experience. What they actually offer is sales theory, not professional selling skills training. 

 

Sometimes they offer “people skills” or “soft skills” but those are very different than actual sales training.

 

My suggestion is that you never accept a single word of advice on how to sell from someone who has never sold. If they have not experienced first hand the incredible high of earning a challenging prospects trust and their business along with it, then they don’t know enough about sales to teach you a thing. 

 

If they have never felt the utter hopelessness of losing a sale they know they should have had then they don’t understand the psychology of professional selling and they should offer training on how to be a fraud instead.

 

So, now that I have that out of my system I have another suggestion if you want to sell more….stop trying so hard to sell. Instead start helping your customers and prospects buy more. 

 

The difference between selling and helping people buy is not just words. When you help people buy rather than trying to sell them something everything changes. Your approach changes. The questions you ask customers change. How you advocate your product or service changes. 

 

How the customer perceives you changes. 

 

Salespeople who sell ask questions to determine if they might be able to convince the customer to buy their product. Salespeople who help customers buy ask questions to see if their product will really help the customer. 

 

Salespeople who sell are prepared to negotiate a price lower than they want. Salespeople who help customers buy know they are far less likely to be asked to negotiate the price. The customer sees the value in the product AND the sales professional representing it. 

 

Salespeople who sell see every question as a potential objection. Salespeople who help customers buy see every objection as an opportunity. 

 

Salespeople who sell work hard for their sales. Salespeople who help customers buy work incredibly hard too yet often feel as if they are hardly working. 

 

Salespeople who sell manage customer transactions. Salespeople who help customers buy manage customer relationships. 

 

Salespeople who sell can make a lot of money. Salespeople who help customers buy make more…and they have a heck of a lot more fun doing it. 

 

If you’re not sure which type of salesperson you are I have a question for you that might help. Can you say, with great specificity, exactly how your product or service helped your last five customers reach one of their goals or objectives?


If you can’t answer that, with specifics, then you might be doing too much selling and not enough helping. Think about that before your next sales call.

You Gotta Make The Call – Part Two

Steve Keating 2 Comments

This is Part Two of a two-part post on prospecting for new business by Cold Calling new accounts. I  hate to call these types of contacts cold calls because if they are completely cold then you’re handicapping yourself unnecessarily. A better description would be Prospective Account calls but that doesn’t have the same ring to it. 

 

Just so we all understand and are on the same page we’ll use the better known “Cold Call” for now. In this post we will focus on cold calling in person.

 

I was reading the local newspaper on my iPad the other day and was startled to see a headline exclaiming that a salesperson had been shot dead while prospecting for new business. Apparently he was asking a receptionist if he could speak with the owner of the business and the receptionist pulled out a gun and shot him on the spot. 

 

Now that’s what I call a cold call!

 

Okay, so I didn’t really see that headline the other day. In fact I’ve never seen a headline like that. I’m willing to bet you’ve never seen a headline about a salesperson being shot by a receptionist while prospecting for business either. 

 

And yet there were undoubtedly salespeople reading that paragraph and saying to themselves, “I knew it.” They knew cold calling could get them killed. At least that’s the way it appears when you watch most, yes most, people who make their living selling. You would think walking into a business that hasn’t done business with them in the past was as dangerous as walking into a war zone. 

 

I guess in the world of sales that’s called “call reluctance.” I think that’s being way too kind. It’s fear, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of looking or sounding stupid. 

 

It is fear of hearing NO from someone who either doesn’t like your product or has never heard of it. But guess what? Selling is not about going around collecting orders from people you know and people who are already sold on whatever it is you’re selling. 

 

Selling is converting someone with a neutral or negative attitude about you, your products or service into a positive one. Selling means interacting with people you might not otherwise go near. Selling means overcoming whatever fears make you insecure when introducing yourself to people you’ve never met before. 

 

Cold calling by definition is reaching out to people you’ve never met before. It’s no mystery why less successful salespeople hate it, they hate it because they fear it. It’s why so many salespeople go to networking events and only talk to people they already know.

 

In years past cold calls were truly cold. You called people by picking their names out of a phone book or you showed up at a business that “looked” like they might be a prospect. It burned a lot of time but a whole lot of salespeople did it exactly like that. 

 

Today, a cold call is far from cold. Or at least it should be. As I mentioned in my last post if you’re not doing research on prospects before you contact them you’re wasting their time and yours. 

 

You should never walk into a business and ask for the person who buys….whatever you’re selling. You should know their name. You should know it because you found it during your online research or from a referral source. 

 

You should have some idea if they are a likely prospect and more importantly, why they may benefit from your product. If your research or referral indicates they may benefit from your product only then do you make the call.

 

But…just showing up expecting anyone to drop what they are doing to talk to you is the height of arrogance, at least in my opinion. I used to tell the receptionist in my office that one of her most important jobs was shielding me from drop in salespeople. 

 

So don’t drop in…drop off. I strongly recommend a two-step approach to cold calling in person. The first step is to simply drop off “correspondence” for the person you believe to be a prospect. The word “correspondence” is key. Literature, brochures, information, etc. are all words that mere product peddlers would use. 

 

A day or two after you’ve dropped of your correspondence make a follow up call to your prospect. If the receptionist answers let her know that you were there the other day and you’re following up on some correspondence with (insert name here). When the prospect answers introduce yourself and let them know you are following up on your correspondence. Ask if they have any questions. 

 

At this point a number of things can happen. They may have questions or they may not have even seen it. If they have questions your call is not at all cold anymore. Your only task now is to interest them further. If they haven’t seen the correspondence then give an explanation on what the correspondence was and offer to resend it. 

 

When you follow up a day or two later you can simply tell the receptionist that you’re following up on some correspondence that (insert name here) requested. 

 

The two-step drop off approach requires more effort, it also greatly improves results. This is another example of sales being the lowest paying easiest job or one of the highest paying challenging jobs in the world. 


The good news is you get to decide which one it will be for you.