Sales Laundry

Archive for the ‘Sales Tools’ Category

Sales Literature.  Do we really want to read and internalize two pages of multi-colored marketing surrounded by stock photos of people that do not work there?  Nope.  Not me.  Not your customer.  Not you.

(I bet you did not get past the first two paragraphs of your own sales literature before you started scanning the page.)

That is why I am a huge proponent of sales literature that is concise and written in terms of what the customer gets out of the experience.  Recently I found an example I thought was worth sharing.

While not exactly an apples for apples comparison, look at how each of these two companies try to sell you on their shipping service.  Which one communicates their message the quickest?  Which one helps you, the customer, understand the value you are going to get out of the service?

More importantly, which one do you think is more effective and which more closely represents the sales literature you are handing out?

________

Example 1

Have You Ever Lost a Canadian Customer?

If you every had a customer on the phone asking how much would it be to get the product delivered to Canada – you should find the situation very familiar.

________

Example 2

BigShipper delivers seamless cross-border solutions to the U.S.

Why choose BigShipper International Ground service to the U.S.?
BigShipper makes cross-border shipping easy. BigShipper International Ground is a cost-effective, door-to-door service from Canada to the U.S. that includes:

Day-Definite Delivery

We deliver within 2 to 7 business days, based on the distance to the destination, for packages up to 150 lbs. (68 kg) each, with a maximum length of 108 inches (274.32 cm) and a length plus girth of 165 inches(419.1 cm).*

BigShipper Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service
To help facilitate your shipping, the brokerage-inclusive service is pre-selected on all BigShipper Ship Manager™ electronic shipping solutions. If the brokerage-inclusive service is accepted on our electronic shipping solutions, then BigShipper Ground will arrange for the customs clearance of your shipment. A Clearance Entry Fee may be charged, and will be reflected on your transportation invoice.**

Select Your Own Broker
If you already have your own broker, simply select “Broker Select” on our BigShipper Ship Manager electronic shipping solutions and enter your broker information, and it will be printed on your electronic Commercial Invoice. Additionally, our electronic shipping solutions will support a customizable database for storing broker information, enabling you to save time when shipping to the same recipient.

Shipment-Status Tracking
You have access to around-the-clock shipment-status updates.

Flexible Billing Solutions
If you accept the BigShipper International Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service, you will have the option to bill duties, taxes and ancillary fees to the sender, recipient or a third party.† You will know the responsible party for each shipment beforehand.

Single Point of Contact for Resolution of Customs Delays
If you accept the BigShipper International Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service, BigShipper customer service representatives will be your single point of contact for customs-clearance inquiries and will work directly with trade experts to help answer your inquiries quickly.

Money-Back Guarantee
If you accept the brokerage-inclusive service for your shipment, it will be supported by a money-back guarantee.*

BigShipper Electronic Shipping Solutions
Our electronic shipping solutions make shipping via BigShipper International Ground easy.
Please note that BigShipper International Ground brokerage options are also supported by BigShipper Ship Manager Server and BigShipper Web Services.

*Some restrictions apply. See Terms and Conditions for details.

** When BigShipper Ground arranges for customs clearance services, a Clearance Entry Fee may be charged to cover processes required to check the Commercial Invoice submitted with the shipment, to complete entry preparation procedures required by either U.S. Customs & Border Protection or the Canada Border Services Agency, including calculation of applicable duties and taxes for each type of commodity included in the shipment, and/or other customs clearance processes and activities. Clearance Entry Fees must be paid by the party paying the related transportation charges. Additional charges may apply. If you do not designate a specific broker on the BigShipper Electronic Shipping Solution and on the Commercial Invoice, BigShipper Ground will arrange for customs clearance and all applicable charges will be reflected on your transportation invoice.

†Clearance Entry Fees must be paid by the party paying the related transportation charges.

________

If you find reading your sales literature a painful exercise, so will your prospective customer.  Why did your last 10 customers buy from you?  Call them and ask.  My guess is the four or five sentences you get from them would make for a more compelling read than what you are handing out today.

If you have great sales literature, send it to me.  I always like reading the good stuff.  If it is awful, let’s fix it.

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of.  If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q:  What is the single greatest obstacle that would prevent a new CRM implementation from being successfully adopted by the users (sales team)?

A:  The biggest adoption challenge to achieving successful CRM adoption is getting the willing support of the sales team and their commitment to use the CRM tool as intended.

There are a few underlying issues that perpetuate this problem.

1. CRM deployments are often designed and customized to serve the group paying for the CRM solution (management) vs. the people who actually use the CRM tool day to day (sales)

2. In many cases, few attempts are made to legitimately get the sales team on board by showing them how using the CRM package is going to help them do their jobs better/make their lives easier thus inspiring them to increase the depth and quality of data input.

3. Failing to get the sales team to willingly use the CRM package, use of the CRM package is typically mandated leaving the front line sales team feeling the CRM tool has been forced down their throats, taking up their time while not doing anything appreciable to help them close more sales.

4. Real, or perceived, there is a concern by a segment of the sales professional population that keying all of the information they know about an account and contacts diminishes their value as an individual to the company and makes them more expendable.

5. There is also an undercurrent of concern that the (Management mandated) data that a sales person puts in the CRM package under the pretense of helping close more business will actually be turned against them and used as a tool to micro manage their sales efforts or bring about their own elimination.

The end result is, when forced, that the sales team provides the minimum amount of data entry necessary to stay in compliance and will continue to use or develop their own tools outside of company purview as needed to assist them in doing their job, only further eroding the likelihood of successful adoption of the CRM implementation.

To avoid all of this, a CRM deployment needs to be developed with the front line sales team engaged from day one so they have input in the process and more importantly, a stake in making sure the implementation is successful.

Today something remarkable happened, I got a piece of junk mail that I actually felt compelled to open, and once I read the contents I was even more compelled to give them a call.

This impressed me because 99.99% of the junk mail I get does not make it past my office door where the shredder sits consuming the daily unwanted unopened contents of my mailbox.

I have read that the average American adult receives 40+ pounds of junk mail every year, so what did this company do that was so remarkable to get their one ounce sales message past my shredder?

The small envelope was hand addressed to me with a first class stamp.  Inside was a single page handwritten note off of a mini legal pad with a name, pitch and a phone number.

They made it personal, made me curious, communicated their message quickly, and they got me.

In this world of demographic driven marketing-to-the-masses, could simply sending personal messages to targeted groups of individuals be a successful strategy to improve lead quality/quantity and help your company stand out?

I don’t know, but at 75 cents a lead, I can afford to find out.

How personal is your company’s message?

A good first step is to read your own marketing materials.  Does the text talk about you and how great your company is or does it talk about how your product benefits the person buying it?

It’s easy to write on our websites and press releases that we are “industry leaders,” or talk about our own accomplishments and how many years of combined experience we have, but that is not a very compelling read to a potential buyer trying to answer the age old question “What is this product/service going to do for me?”

No matter the method, make your message personal and a little bit different to get your prospective buyers attention.  Then make the most of that precious attention by delivering a message that does more for the person experiencing it than the marketing department that wrote it.

Image courtesy of zcache.com

For the last few months I have been working via mobile office so I thought I would take the time to tell you about the tools I am using and give you field sales types a real life review of the stuff I am using and hopefully get a great idea or two from you.

My mobile office consists of:

• Blackberry Curve
• Toshiba Satellite L300 series laptop
• AT&T USBConnect Mercury Aircard
• Skype
• NeatReceipts software/scanner
• HP H470 mobile printer
• 300W power inverter
• USB drive
• Sales binder
• Rolling bag
• Filebox
• 3 Drawer box containing:
  • Printer paper
  • General office supplies
  • Aspirin and other basics
  • Button repair kit and other things it seems silly to mention but glad that I have when I need them.
• Honda Accord

With this setup I am completely autonomous with ready access to anything I need, wherever I am.

My tether back to the office and society at large consists of my Blackberry and my AT&T Aircard. In those rare instances where I am out of range, I can go all analog but I have not faced that issue yet.

There are a few enhancements and equipment changes I would make now that I have practical experience which I will share as I go.

Toshiba Satellite L300 series laptop.

PROS: Good looking laptop, 15.4” screen is easy to work with on the road, built in camera works well for field Skype video calls with the AT&T Aircard.  Microsoft Vista is well behaved for me, the wireless connectivity is simple and less cranky than what I am used to.

Was able to record a video (Sony Handycam), download it, edit it, add sound from iTunes and burn it to DVD for a last minute project. It was not Hollywood quality, but the end result was far easier and more professional than I expected being in the middle of nowhere with only the raw footage and the built in tools the laptop came with.

CONS: The battery life is  not so good. If it was not for my power inverter and being able to recharge on the fly, many times I would have been dead in the water.

Packed in my bag, the laptop screen keeps getting squeezed to the point the keys were leaving light marks on the screen.  The solution is to either not pack the bag so full or buy a piece of felt and cut it to the dimensions of the laptop and place the felt between the keyboard and screen for an added level of protection.

The plastic case is so shiny that everytime you touch the thing it leaves fingerprints. Not a big deal rolling around a territory, but it has to be cleaned up before customer presentations. I eventually just started packing electronics cleaning wipes in the bag to keep the thing clean which is not something I have had to do or would have even thought about in the past.

The touchpad is touchy.  At one point the pointer was moving around following my finger as my finger hovered ABOVE the touchpad. I was not even touching the thing! After a few adjustments I got it under control. Everyone else I know just breaks out the wireless/portable mouse and avoids the whole touchpad issue.

AS A SALES TOOL: I would really look for a laptop with a longer battery life or work out how you are going to address the need for power in the field.

The sales process for what I am doing at present requires that three or more documents get filled out and signed, typically at our first meeting for our process to begin and docs to be signed at completion.

Buy an extra power adaptor so you are not perpetually spending the first and last ten minutes anywhere finding cords, wrapping and unwrapping them and trying to keep them all sorted out.

In retrospect I would get a touch screen model and fill out the documents electronically and submit them via Aircard back to the office.

AT&T USBConnect Mercury Aircard

In my end of the world the AT&T Aircard has great coverage and gets the job done. Easy to install in 10 minutes or so. Good download speeds. It has a built in Micro SD slot that I never have used.

Skype

With the built in webcam I found I use Skype more than I have in the past. It comes in very handy for communications back to the office but I get the most enjoyment out of doing Skype video calls with my family when I am on the road and connected to the hotel wireless LAN.

Neat Receipts Software/Scanner

This, surprising to me, is one of my favorite tools in my bag. Sometimes my Toshiba laptop does not recognize the scanner when I plug it in which I fix with a reboot. I am sure there is a better way to solve the problem but the Toshiba is still new and quick so a reboot is fast. This tools plays nice with both Mac and PC hardware.

The scanner is great for capturing paper versions of documents you need to email/fax, but the software brings a lot more to the table. Neat Receipts uses standard OCR or optical character recognition software and then some sort of secret sauce that makes it much more efficient to use than a standard flatbed scanner. The software lets you scan in your receipts as the name implies, business cards and documents for filing, synchronization with Outlook, exporting to a searchable pdf format, other Office applications, Quicken QuickBooks, TurboTax or in text format. The instructions say the database can hold up to 1.5 million receipts.

It connects via USB and is powered off of the USB port.

The scanner captures all of the data on the receipt and does a pretty good job of determining the restaurant and other details that can be annoying to deal with. It also lets you tag the receipts for reimbursement or tax planning purpose cutting expense report time down from several hours to just a few minutes. I am a big fan.

The business card scanner is solid. It uses the same type of technology the receipt capture software does and does a good job of capturing the data and giving you a color or black and white copy of the card as well. Once the data is captured it can be synchronized with Outlook to create a contact for you.

The documents tab does just what it says. It lets you scan single or multi page documents in, index them and save them to your preferred location, manipulate the file type or send them to another application.

I have used this tool to capture original customer docs where copies were not available so I did not have to request originals or hit Kinko’s.  I can also scan in signed documents so my pricing desk can begin work immediately or get contracts in and processed before they expired. Great tool.

I would buy Neat Receipts just for the time it saves me on expense reports, the other functions are just a bonus as far as I am concerned though not having to manage piles of business cards is a nice secondary perk.

HP H470 Mobile Printer

I have not used this printer much, but when it is needed it is invaluable.

The printer is Bluetooth capable but the model you buy at the store will most likely not come with the Bluetooth adaptor. The adaptor is $60 when ordered from HP, but it is cheaper to buy the printer with the adaptor already, better known as the HP H470wbt model. That model also comes with an extended life Lithium-ion battery and a protective printer sleeve. It works with PC and Macs as well.

my printer, the base printer has no case or cover.  You can buy a simple cover for $40 from HP.  At least Neat Receipts came with a small velvet bag for the scanner. So, you are going to need to have a bag big enough bag to hold the printer and keep it safe and secure or deal with the logistics of toting around a five pound black box the size of a loaf of bread everywhere you go.  HP has a bag that they will sell you for $85 that will do the job, of course.

I would also recommend having a plastic storage case for the ink cartridges when not in use if you do not use it a lot.  Of course it does not come with one but HP will be happy to sell you one ($15).  I would also recommend packing extra ink cartridges. Nothing worse than having everything you need in the field to do your job but ink. It does come with a rechargeable battery, cords and software.

The paper tray holds 50 pages, but I have never loaded it with more than 10 and it prints up to 18-22 pages per minute according to HP.  There is no duplexing or automatic stapling, but they have to leave a feature or two out for future models, right?

The printer uses the same dual cartridge configuration of desktop inkjet printers (cartridges 94, 95,97 and 98 fit it plus a photo cartridge, etc.)

Fully setup with the laptop, scanner and printer with wires everywhere in some cases, I see the value of having the Bluetooth connectivity.

That is my rolling office.

I keep the laptop, scanner and printer in my rolling bag. My sales binder won’t fit in the bag with the printer, but that is not a big issue for me unless I am flying somewhere. I keep the file box and the 3 drawer plastic box stuck to the floor of the trunk with Velcro. I use a stretching cable with hooks to keep the drawers in place and strapped down.

If I am working out of a rental car I take my rolling bag and sales binder with a few empty folders and print and scan what I need on the fly.

It is easy to find yourself spending too much time managing cords and battery life. Plan ahead and go Bluetooth wireless where possible, buy extra power adaptors for places you frequent and keep USB cords around with standard and mini connections to recharge your phone or other accessories off of your laptop in a pinch. Leaching electricity off of my laptop for my phone kept me from going radio silent at a critical juncture in France last year when Air France gave my luggage an all expense paid trip to Nice without me.

Now, tell me how you roll.

Illustration courtesy of http://www.jesperdeleuran.dk

I have responded to several variations to questions like “Is cold calling still effective?” with a range of answers.

My long standing official position has been that there is always going to be a right time and place for cold calling no mater how advanced LinkedIn, Face book, MySpace, Twitter, texting, email, mail, flares and smoke signals get as communication tools.

The last two months have proven my point.

Cold calling is simply a sales tool and that is how you should look at it. I am not suggesting you roll cold calling into your mix of sales tools by default, I am just saying you need to understand where and when cold calling fits and makes the most sense.

For the last few months I have been working on sales strategies for an energy company trying to figure out the best mix of tools to reach new customers for them. (Their customer being anyone using electricity with a superset of products where one or more energy source is deregulated.)

The company had a solid referral model in place and a secondary simple lead generation system. Missing from the equation were websites, newsletters, white papers, opt in communications and a strong lead development engine.

To the company’s credit though, they had spent a great deal of time refining the sales forms, sales process and field sales to its simplest form on their operating budget. The field sales tools were truly outstanding and visionary when compared to other large and small field sales forces I have worked with.

The referral model in place was exceptional with a close ratio of 1:2 calls. The quantity and location of the referrals led to a lot of time being wasted with travel no matter how efficiently the call plan was setup. To mitigate the lost time I employed an extremely simple cold call strategy.

For every referral business I visited, I would cold call, or walk in, five businesses in the immediate vicinity with the hopes of at least getting some new leads and at best signing up new customers.

The company’s products worked well with this strategy, requiring no up front commitment or cost, played on the customer’s curiosity, and in the end would almost definitely save them money with a sub 30 day ROI.

All that was needed was a good simple but short explanation of how a company could benefit by our services and the cold call strategy was ready to deploy.

Walking in anything from a local SMB business to a large name brand global organization, at random with no contact name, led to a close ratio of 1:10 calls. For the record, none of the large national/global companies were signed at the time of the cold call, but the process was effective for finding contacts, meeting assistants and doing general sales groundwork that may or may not have been possible with Hoovers or other online tools.

In this particular situation it was effective enough to help me meet an established reps quota my first month in a city I had never been to before and talking to people I never met.

The point is cold calling is still an effective tool. The most effective? No, not by a long shot, but one worth keeping in your bag when your product or sales process works in short, initial meeting types of sales engagements.

Being effective as a field sales representative, trying to beat your quota and break the compensation plan in your favor takes some intelligent work and careful use of your time. As a rule, random cold calling would not be a strategy I would employ or even recommend for those two endeavors unless it just flat out makes sense in your situation.

I know Gitomer and a whole host of sales gurus and probably more than a handful of you would/will say cold calling is for suckers. All I can say is that the last two months cold calling earned me more suckers than the number of days I have been walking on this planet with plenty left over for you, too.

Sometimes it’s good to be sucker.

Image courtesy of http://www.hitched.ca

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of.  If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

 

Question:  What is the most effective form of prospecting for business machine outside sales?

 I am new to outside sales and my company does not provide much training.  They had me watch some Tom Hopkins videos from the 1980’s, but there was nothing on prospecting. There also are no senior sales people from whom I could get information on what has worked for them. 

The company I work for is a multi-line dealership; we focus mainly on X Brand and Y Brand copiers, although we sell several other brands and types of equipment.  We have small business customers to global oil companies.  My plan is to get as many new customers as possible, but the cold calling (door to door) I have done hasn’t generating any positive results. I am in a very competitive market with 7 other copier dealerships in a city of approximately 300,000 people.

A) What is the most effecting form of prospecting? 

B) What questions should I ask potential clients when prospecting? 

C) Is a script really necessary when cold calling and if so how do I write one that doesn’t make me sound like every other salesman?

  

Answer:  A) The most effective form of prospecting is using referrals. Outside of that, the best form is the warmest form of prospect you can get. (People you know, friends of people you know, contacts from reference accounts with your company, etc.)  A cold phone call, or as is typical in my area for business machine salesmen, a cold walk in the door is the most difficult. 

B) The questions you should ask depend heavily on the client and what problems you are trying to solve.

C) A GOOD script can be very beneficial in giving you a repeatable process. What is in the script and how you say the script will determine if you sound like every other salesman?  Here is one good cold call approach.

 

It looks like you have some transactional customers or customers that understand your products and shop mainly on price and you have some consultative customers that might be looking for your assistance to help them develop some solutions to their problems with document security, workflow, document management, etc.

 For this discussion, I am focused more on the transactional customers and some ideas to get in the door.

 In general, if you know where you are going to be cold calling the next day, I would spend some time the night before looking these companies up on the internet, reading any press releases or news about them or anything on the person you might want to meet with so you can come in with an idea of what they do and how you might be able to help their business, as opposed to just stumbling in and hoping for the best.

 Here are some ideas that might help you stand out…

 Looking for angry copier stories

 Create a contest every week or every month, looking for the best angry copier stories and give gift certificates, dinner for 2, toner, spa treatment, etc. as prizes.

 Take a pocket tape recorder or a Snap HD camcorder, depending upon you budget and your ability to pull it off, and walk into these businesses telling them you are looking for angry copier stories of the worst, meanest, paper eating, toner spewing, cranky, always needing repairs copiers in town.

 Record their stories, and get the details on the copier you need to help sell them a new one (brand, age, clicks, monthly repair bills, how often it breaks, etc.)

 Ask for referrals to other people they know that have angry copiers.

 To make it fun, go in with a couple of photos of beater copiers with good stories about them if asked.

 Every week/month go back and award the certificate to the place with the worst copier, take a photo/video and put it on your website so your contest can build a little credibility.

___

 Talk to security guards or building management of larger office buildings and see if they will let you set up a show in some vacant space.  Offer up a 1 day rental of the space as a last resort.

 Go around to every office in the building with a flyer letting them know there will be a show on a certain date and time.  If you have the budget, cater in lunch, if not provide snacks, door prizes or some compelling reason to show up.

___

 Put ads in the paper/Craigslist and sell your trade in copiers.  Use this as a lead source.

___

 Look for good copier technicians.  While cold calling, tell them you are trying to locate good copier technicians and wondered if their guy was any good. Find out who he is, who he works for and a number if you can. Then ask questions about him like, when he fixes your copier, does it stay fixed? How often does he have to come back out? Etc. 

Part 2 of the strategy is calling up the technicians and taking them to lunch if you can, and offer up referral fees for leads to where the broken beat up copiers are in town, regardless of brand.

Part 3 of this strategy is building up a short list of the best copier repair guys in town that you can (as an option) refer people to the best of the best if they are under contract for multiple years with a competitor.

Part 4, which is a bit out there, would be to setup a separate web page with reviews and rankings of the local copier repair guys. Advertise the URL to the people you talk to and let them give their feedback to help other office managers find and pick the best repair guys to keep their equipment running. Of course the site should be branded with your information all over the place to remind them of who is providing them with this fantastic information.

___

Simple cost per page demonstration.  I don’t know what the numbers are today, but the last time I was looking at a copier it cost me 25 cents for every page that came out of an inkjet printer, a nickel for every page that came out of a laser printer and a little under a penny for every page that came out of a copier.

If the numbers still work, you could walk in and put a penny on the counter and a quarter, and when they ask what you are there for, point to the coins and say you are there to show them how to save 24 cents every time they push print.

___

 Sponsor events that help show off your products. Help charities print flyers, contact the local dog catcher and offer to print flyers for lost family pets for free, print Christmas programs for churches, help the Girl Scouts sell some cookies. Provide volunteers/staffers with your card and put a small tagline on the bottom of every document you can print if you think you can pull it off. “Brochure printing provided by Dave T. Smith over at XXX Office Machine Co. 555-555-5555”

___

A critical metric is contract expiration date, so set up events or put your dollars to work supporting other events and provide a service or something of value that would make someone want to go to the trouble of finding their contract expiration date and give it to you. Maybe free coffee and doughnuts, maybe a raffle, a free car wash on Saturday morning, etc.

___

 Build a transactional referral program. On the bottom of every invoice, business card, mailer, technician work order, etc. include a flyer or information asking for referrals.

___

Build a relationship referral program. Talk to your existing client base, your insurance agent, your barber, and anyone else that has been happy with your service and ask them if they would bring a friend or meet you for lunch with them, or introduce you at one of the events mentioned above.

___

Analyze your territory and find the community leaders and active voices in the community and get your equipment in their hands as a trial or a demo where it makes sense. These could be civic organization leaders, church leaders, politicians, local media, school boards, etc. The point is to find the people that influence others in your community and get some of your equipment in their hands and point to them/use them as references.

___

 Don’t know if it will fly in your business, but you might try offerings free contract audits. Help people out by evaluating their existing copier contracts making sure they are getting a fair deal, understand their usage guidelines, and know their expiration dates, etc., regardless of the brand. Make it a valuable service for them, not just a sales pitch. Maybe partner with a local leasing company to do an independent review or to look at aspects you might not be familiar with. Of course that leasing company should be using your equipment.

___

Stay in contact with everyone you meet.  The number one car salesman in the world mailed out cards to everyone he met every month to make sure he stayed on the top of their heads when they started thinking about buying a new car. Read about him here…
http://tinyurl.com/d9kk2b

 Good Selling!

For your 3 minutes today I will show you one consistent way to come across a little smarter to your prospect in a meeting and how to put them a little more at ease.  Planning is part of the conversation, so with that I am kicking us off with one of my favorite quotes on the subject of planning.   

 “You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan–even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all part of the plan.”

-          The Joker (Heath Ledger) “The Dark Knight” 2008

 

Everyone, prospects included, likes to know there is a plan.  Everyone is happier, still, when they know what the plan is.  It must be hard wired in our DNA somewhere.

 Plans are everywhere.  Go to church?  They give you a church bulletin that lists everything that is going to happen, and we feel better knowing.

 Getting the car repaired?  As soon as we give them the keys we want a plan.  We want to know what they are going to do to it and when it will be ready.

 Going in for Surgery?  It is not quite as frightening when the doctor tells us his plan.  The same is true for every aspect of life, right down to our economy.  When everything falls to pieces and chaos ensues we move to the brink of panic until there is a plan to rally around, no matter how miserable the plan is.

 Want to seem a little bit smarter on your next account call?  Pre-plan the sales call.

 

Want to look like an expert and put your prospect a little more at ease?  Pre-plan your sales call and explain the details of the plan to your prospect up front and get natural human nature working in your favor.

 

Example: 

“Hello, Mr. Jones.  It is great getting a chance to meet with you today.  I have done some research, but if you don’t mind, I would like to ask you a few questions to get a better understanding.  Is that alright?”

 “Sure.”

 “Great.  I’ve got five or six basic questions that will fill in some gaps for me and give me a better understanding of your company.  That should take us about 15 minutes, depending upon your answers.  After that we should spend about 20 minutes drilling down into some specifics and identify a few areas where we might be able to help one another, leaving the balance of our time to wrap up any loose ends.  Do you have any questions before we get started?”

 When I was taught this it was called the Predict and Prove Method or the Sandwich Technique.  The objective is to predict the basics of what will occur in the meeting, prove your prediction by executing the meeting properly, and then following up at the end to confirm the fulfilled prediction with your prospect.  End result?  You look smarter and your client is not wondering where or when your sales odyssey will end.

 Got it?

 Good.  See you Monday.

 “I love it when a plan comes together!”

– Col. John “Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard) “The A-Team” 1983