1. JUST DO IT
Set aside specific time for cold calling when you do nothing else – at least once or twice a week for 2 hours – in peace and quiet and on your own.

Remove all distractions – email alert and blackberry off, voicemail on, tell your co-workers it’s your cold calling session and can they leave you alone and take messages – you do not want interruptions

Have a well prepared list printed out or in a list format on your PC – do not try and work from CRM / database systems, Do the research about who is the decision maker before you make the sales call – not on the call.

You want to create an environment where you can “get into a rhythm”.

2. ONLY SPEAK TO THE DECISION MAKER
When speaking to the operator or PA use words, phrases and voice tone that makes it sound as if your call is expected and the decision maker knows you.

Establish if the decision maker is even there – if not get off the telephone – if you leave a message the decision maker will know to have future calls blocked.

Politely ask to be connected – try not to discuss the reason for the call with anyone but the decision maker.

3. OPEN WITH A BENEFIT STATEMENT
Always use the decision maker’s name first, explain why you are calling in a way that is “what’s in it for them” (benefit statement) not “what’s in it for you or your company”.

Tie your benefit statement to a specific business issue or problem you know they will have and that you can address.

After your benefit statement, explain why you are calling – to make an appointment, to see if they if they have a need, to make a pitch and get an order – tell them don’t be afraid.

4. DON’T FORGET TO ASK FOR THE “ORDER”
Once you have asked your questions and made the pitch – ask for the order, don’t leave the dialogue hanging with no conclusion.

If you are telephoning for a meeting give them your reason to be seen (the benefit statement) give them two times you are available and ask for the meeting.

5. BE PREPARED WITH ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS
Be prepared.  Work out answers to possible objections in advance.

Answer the objection and then don’t forget to ask for the order or appointment again.

6. DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP – YOU CANNOT WIN THEM ALL
You don’t get what you want on every call – know when to quit and move to the next call.

Thank them for taking your call, send a thank you email and call them again in a couple of months!

Many sales and business development people are looking at how they are going to finish the year and bring in their outstanding deals to hit quota  so here is a closing checklist to help you. 1) Are you really dealing with ALL the decision makers?  2) Is your proposition a “nice to have” or a “necessity”  what urgency to buy have you created? 3) Have you submitted a quote or proposal? 4) Does your proposal show hard cash savings or revenue gains  with a real ROI agreed with the prospect? 5) What risks do you have to minimize to avoid a no go decision?  5)What else could “your” budget be spent on instead of your solution or service –  how will you counter this?

Don’t fool yourself, if there is the slightest doubt – go back get this information. Make a list of what you need to do to close the deal, with dates, and have a formal closing plan.

Demographics play a part too – there is a generation of B2B buyers out there who have been brought up on cell phones, the Internet, facebook, twitter, ebay et al, and they really don’t feel the need to deal with sales people face to face.

The challenge of getting your sales message over (especially for more complex products such as software, consultancy, financial services) still requires a consultative, solution sales approach.

So here are a few pointers

1.  When you get a lead or a download trial from your website don’t launch straight into a sales call – do your research, is the enquirer the decision maker, could you call someone else higher to see if this is a real opportunity and check things out [discreetly] before you speak to the enquirer?

2.  Do a good discovery / needs analysis job before you present or demo your product, use the demo / presentation to prove the case not open the sale.

3. Don’t send your proposal too early, get all the decision makers and influencers lined up and present your proposal to them DON’T SEND IT- you can do this online.

4 Above all stay in control – don’t get rushed into selling and presenting too early and to the wrong people – just because its all being done on the telephone.

We came across a great product recently, we use tools such as Webex and Adobe Connect but we have found the killer app is this space – Vonei Meeting.  Its a great system – you can talk, present share screens and documents but where Vonei Meeting is really different is with its video capability.  The video is “many to many” rather than presenter to many – so everyone can see everyone on the call.  The user interface and connection is simplicity itself AND you don’t have to mess with client software on your PC.  (Go try out Vonei Meeting and mention Ian Farmer!)

Vonei Meeting is great because you can see the prospect’s reactions, its more personal, you can gauge their “buy in”.

We have helped a large number of clients (such as Oracle, BEA Systems, Orange, Embarcadero Technology, TeamStudio) to develop their “solution selling by telephone” skills and processes.  Tools like Vonei Meeting are going to make telephone selling even more viable and productive.

Heh…. perhaps we can “see ‘em to sell ‘em” after all!

Good luck, good selling!

But first things first : what exactly is sales productivity, how can you measure it, and most importantly how can you influence it to boost your sales up – and with the same team …?

Sales force productivity :  a production approach to sales

If you have ever run a consulting business or a Professional services business, your revenue forecast was based on your people production:  your delivery organization was living by the following ratios : chargeability, billability, average price per day, per person, average number of  bid investment days,  etc..Well, sales productivity boils down to creating the same kind of “people based forecast”, but for sales people only. If you use a regular sales forecast that is opportunity/account based, the Sales volume total should of course be the same on both reports, but what your sales productivity forecast brings to the table is 2 extra things :

1 a past/present/future picture for each of your sales persons, that adds value to your opportunity based forecast and therefore to your “forecast confidence factor”

2 an early warning system for each of your sales person based on simple ratios specific to their sales cycle, that tells  you in advance whether or not the sales person is on the right track (before the month/quarter is over…) regardless of what he/she tells you

By providing these 2 “hard facts, data analytics” based reports early enough to the sales manager, he/she can then use this extra information to inspect business in a better, more informed and more predictable way. You can now influence your sales forecast upwards proactively by asking better questions from your reps, instead of trying to understand what on earth happened despite what all they were projecting (“trust me I am going to close that deal!…”)

Philippe Le Baron – Sales Productivity Manager

In a complex solution sale, a professional services sale or for something intangible such as training and education services, a cost justification argument is quite likely to be a key element in enabling the prospect to make a decision and you to close the deal.  As working capital within most organisations becomes a scarce commodity it is highly unlikely that they will commit to any level of expenditure without first justifying the cost.

If your competition is not justifying the cost of their proposal but you go through a justification exercise with the prospect, you will have gained a considerable competitive advantage as well as proving to the prospect that you have thought through the implications of your proposal and its impact on their business.

Speaking the Prospect’s Language

Throughout the sale but especially during the cost justification process it helps to understand and use the financial terms and measurements that the prospect uses.  It puts you on the same wavelength as the prospect, proves you understand their business and will make you stand out from your competitors.

Considerations for your price versus cost arguments

The “price is not the cost”

The price of item A is £10,000 and it lasts for 1 year, you then replace it.  The price of item B is £15,000 but it lasts for two years.  Over 2 years item B “costs” less, even thought the “price” was higher.

To get a price versus cost discussion going, you need to get your prospect thinking longer term, not just the immediate future.  Bring into play “the total cost of ownership”, “life cycle costs”, hidden costs of ownership, the cost of the time taken to make the purchase (writing requirements, issuing tenders, seeing suppliers, reading proposals, budgeting), the cost of buying the wrong product and it then not working and then having to “re-purchase”.  Get real, tangible numbers on the table and get the prospect discussing past purchasing experiences that have not gone well – what was the cost to sort it out compared to the price to buy it, what was the cost of what went wrong?

One vehicle is priced higher than another, its more reliable, it requires less servicing, it uses less fuel – over the life of the vehicle, the price is higher the cost is less.

You buy a cell phone on a tariff that is cheaper than another provider – the roaming charges are higher, the insurance is extra, the phone is inferior quality and you lose calls.  The cheaper to buy phone is more expensive to own and run – especially when you have to replace it sooner.

You hire consultant for $1,000 per day for a 10 day project, a more experienced consultant is $1,200 per day but he gets the project done in 8 days and with better results – for $9,600.  The higher priced consultant costs you less.

When the customer wants a discount prove to them that “reducing the price does not reduce the cost”.

Get the price positioning into perspective, make it palatable for the prospect

Assume that your solution or service has a price tag of $100,000 and you are talking to someone earning $40,000, $100,000 is a lot of money – it takes this person over two years to earn this amount.  If you are negotiating with a CxO earning $200,000 then whilst $100,000 is still a lot of money, to the executive it is only 6 months income and so the amount involved is psychologically less of a barrier.  Try and keep the price “on the same wavelength” and within the bounds of “comfort” for the person you are dealing with.  A good way to do this is to break the price down into manageable amounts e.g. annual costs or monthly lease payments rather than lump sum, capital amounts.

Find out the timescales used by your prospect for budgets, forecasts, reporting etc.  Then break the price down to the smallest amounts that you can get away with in line with his timescales.  If you can get as low as monthly so much the better  This way cost justifications involving cost of employment, for example, can easily be related to monthly salary amounts.  Relate broken down costs to the prospects organisational structure by splitting and sharing costs amongst departments/offices/branches etc.

Make comparisons

Make sure, if it suits you and the circumstances, that the customer is comparing like for like.  If the prospect says “you are more expensive” or “you don’t do as much” find a polite way of saying “Compared to what?”.  It may in certain circumstances suit you to “move the goal posts” and take the prospect away from like for like comparisons.  This could be, for example, when you want to introduce features that you can give you better price : performance or cost : benefit reasoning.  Relate what you have on offer to tangible cost benefits.  Leave the customer to work out your competitors cost benefits for themselves.

Listen – are price objections actually buying signals?

Listen carefully to what the prospect means rather than just what they are saying.  For example when they say “this is a lot of money” are they saying this is expensive or do they mean “this is a large sum of money, what return on investment do we get?” or “this is a lot of money, help me justify it to my partners so we can go ahead”.

Income and expenditure

Find out about costs and overheads.  Ask about revenue generation such as billable hours, fee income, consultancy revenues, product and services revenues.  Look for how the prospect does his business and how they generate revenues:- Examples of question that help with cost justification include:-

How is your company/department/division structured?

What are your profit and loss and/or cost centres?

What are your annual revenues?

What revenues is your division responsible for?

What revenue peaks and troughs do you experience?

How do you measure employee costs?

What profit margins are you working on?

What is your monthly expenses run rate?

How many employees are direct fee/revenue generators?

How many employees in total?

What system/method do you use to charge out or bill for your employees/fee earners?

Look outside the sphere of where your own products and services will be used.  Is there a knock on effect that will result in cost savings for other departments and divisions too – delivering value that was not expected?

Sell Benefits not Features

Don’t forget – people buy benefits not just features, i.e not what a product or service does but what they will derive from it.  Don’t sell features without benefits – you cannot cost justify features.

Summary

• Get lots of information about costs, revenues, ROI, payback.
• Use the prospect’s numbers, do not invent them, get the prospect’s commitment to use them and his agreement as to their accuracy.
• Put the justification in writing – especially necessary when the decision maker is more than one person and/or you are selling through someone who has to go to a higher authority for the decision.
• Use the prospect’s language.
• Do not leave the prospect to do the cost justification for themselves -they may not bother.

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As money gets tight, decision making authority gets moved higher. Past decision makers, the people who previously have given you orders, suddenly move from being decision makers to [albeit significant] decision influencers, the problem is they don’t tell you – something stops them. So here is the acid test – are you dealing with the “budget holder” or the “budget caretaker”, find out who REALLY owns the business problem, who REALLY holds the budget and THIS is your decision maker.

Problem is you still have all the responsibility for the numbers but no authority to back it up.  Your own sales guy does not perform you can put them on a plan or even fire them.  The channel guys don’t perform – you’ve got a problem but little authority to sort it out.

So you want to set up a channel sales program?  Here are some tips based on my channel experience that goes back to 1983!.

1.  Work with your channel partners helping them to write a plan for the business they are going to do for you – nothing complicated, you can use a template to guide you.

2.  Do your margin analysis early not as an after thought, your channel needs to earn enough margin points to sell your products, you neeed to earn enough to be able to let them.

3.  Select your channel manager carefully, you need skill to run a channel but above all else you need experience because you need credibility.

4.  Make sure you are planning for managing channel conflict – there WILL be some, either with your own sales team or with other channel partners.

5.  Make sure you get the pricing strategy right and be careful about how you “publish” it, you don’t want the end user to think they can play you all off against each other – further eroding revenue and margins.

The bottom line?  Channel sales is not an instant panacea for winning new sales without the cost of a sales force, it needs thinking through, planning and controlling.  We would always advise get some experienced help writing the plan and training your people.

Channel sales is the way to go so long as its by design and not by accident.