Cold Calling Techniques:

Stephan Schiffman, is the author of the bestselling book: Cold Calling Techniques: That Really Work, where he wrote about hands-on tactics on making sales successfully through cold calling.

How to turn around common responses?

For cold calling, a lot of times you would encounter rejections. However, if you speak intelligently with the prospect, they will speak intelligently back to you. Remember, sales persons are professionals too. If you act professionally , other than being subservient or submissive, the prospective client will treat or perceived you as professional too.

Tips for how to respond:

“I’m not interested”: If someone says they’re not interested, the sales still has potential because sales is selling to someone who wasn’t interested prior to your call. If they said they’re not interested, you can say you had the same reaction from other people before they had a chance to see how what you do will benefit them. You can also mention the successful case you had with other companies.
“I am too busy”: If people say they are too busy, you can say: “the only reason I call was to set an appointment. Would next Tuesday be okay?” even if you might get the same response: I’m not interested, you can say the same thing again, which is “a lot of people tell me the same thing before they get the chance to understand how we can complement what they’re doing.
“Send me some literature one”: The trickiest one is someone ask you to the send the introduction or sales materials for them and they will think about it later. The best way to deal with this is to invite them to an appointment and meet together instead.

Third party

When you call a person, the basic first step is to get the person’s attention by saying their name. You then identify yourself and your company. Lastly, tell the keywords to let people know what this call is about within a short amount of time by mentioning key points, e.g., the companies you’ve worked with successfully and what your company is about. You can then give the reason for your call, which is to ask for the appointment.

Some key tips include:

To Leave certain elements intact verbatim: The reason that I’m calling you today specifically is to…
Use third party endorsement: we’ve worked with XYZ company and it was very successful. We helped them increase 30% more appointments.
Don’t make empty promises: when you mentioned the 3rd party endorsement, don’t make empty promises that you will do the same for them. You are just asking for an appointment.

Referral Calls:

The referral helps you make the most of the opportunity to get an appointment. When you call and speaking to the wrong person, you can ask some personalized questions for you to bond with that person, for example, “what do you do?”. In this way, he or she might be more willing to refer you to the right person in the company.

When you proceed to call the right person, you can introduce yourself and say you just spoke to XYZ, and he suggested that you give a call to him to set up an appointment. You want to know if next Tuesday at 3:00 will be okay.

Overall, referral call can work in many different situations. If someone tells you you ought to call other ones, you can call to make an appointment to get together.

The Principles of Sales Success:

Have a sales plan in mind. Remember, every step should lead to another progress. Think about the purpose and goal of each move you make. Additionally, eventually, you will want to make an appointment with your prospects during a cold call.
Implementing the sales strategies: A habit needs 21 days to form. If you read this book and learn new sales techniques, start from now or the knowledge will never be utilized!
Follow through v.s. follow up: instead of follow up, you want to follow through what you’ve started and going to complete it. You may not make every sale, but you’re going to follow each relationship through.
Truly understand what your customer need and what success is like for them.

The 4Ps of a more successful salesperson:

Professional development:

Read books to improve your sales skill, or go to sales training – sharpen your sales skills constantly.

Product malleability:

Understand your and your client’s product and how you can help them succeed.

Presentation skills:

Presentation skill is one of the most important element for a successful sales closure.

Prospecting:

45% of success come to sales person directly from his or her ability to prospect, 20% is from presentation skills.

Some of traits of a salesperson are optimistic motivated, self-declared, enthusiastic and persistent. They love what they are doing and know the ways to attend the goal. They will utilize their resource and get out of their way to get the results, whether to close a sales or the sales target the company gives. The bottom line is, to be productive and execute the plan!

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Piedmont Avenue Consulting is a San Francisco Bay Area based business development and marketing consulting firm who creates brand awareness, strengthens customer loyalty, and increases lead generation through leveraging new technologies and streamlining business processes.

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Cold Calling Techniques: That Really Work, Stephan Schiffman