"COLD CALL SALES AND PROSPECTING CHECKLIST: 14 PRACTICAL STRATEGIES WHEN COLD-COLD CALLING" which had been here in four parts is now a short E-book, available via Amazon.
You can read it on a Kindle, or in various other E-reader formats, including your PC. Amazon offfers free apps to enable that.
The article "CAPTURING THE PROSPECT'S ATTENTION AT THE START OF YOUR FIRST PHONE CONTACT" which had been here in four parts has now been published as a short E-book, and is available via Amazon.
You can read it on a Kindle, or in various other E-reader formats, including your PC. Amazon offfers free apps to enable that.
The article "CAPTURING THE PROSPECT'S ATTENTION AT THE START OF YOUR FIRST PHONE CONTACT" which had been here in four parts has now been published as a short E-book, and is available via Amazon.
You can read it on a Kindle, or in various other E-reader formats, including your PC. Amazon offfers free apps to enable that.
Overall, strive to become not just a passive listener, but an active listener. We'll be examining the how-to of active listening in much more detail later in this site, but here are some starting points to give you a quick sense of what active listening means in sales.
Active listening is a topic in itself, but means, among other things, not just sitting there, but becoming actively and visibly involved with the speaker.
Depending on the situation, that might mean giving clear feedback that you are understanding correctly, nodding, taking notes on items that are particularly relevant — as all of these are signals to the speaker that this is what you're really looking for.
Thus "active listening" may not be just listening: it could be saying encouraging words—like "I understand," or "Interesting," or "Mmm, I see," or whatever helps to the speaker realized that he or she is on-course to what you need to know.
Active listening may also mean asking follow-up questions as needed.
Yet active listening also means knowing when to be silent, and when to let the speaker "roam free."
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The content in this post has been adapted from my books, How to Sell Face to Face: Survival Guide, and Selling 101. They are available in various e-book and paper editions; see below:
Survival Guide:Order e-book as Amazon Kindle (Amazon offers free apps that enable you to read it on your PC, Apple I-pad, I-pod, Blackberry, and others)
Selling 101 (third edition): Order e-book as Amazon Kindle (Amazon offers free apps that enable you to read it on your PC, Apple I-pad, I-pod, Blackberry, and others)
HOW TO SELL FACE-TO-FACE: SURVIVAL GUIDE, a to-the-point sales how-to handbook, based largely on a consultative selling approach, especially for people getting
started in face-to-face sales, or marketing their skills or services as consultants, free-agents, career-changers,
or in new business start-ups. 6×9, 125 pages. ISBN:
0-9768406-2-6.
Available in both paper ($9.95) and e-book ($2.99) versions via Amazon. (A free Kindle reader is available at the Amazon site. Also, it can be read on other types of readers, including iPad, IPhone, and Blackberries via free Apps that are available from this Amazon site.)
UPDATE: HOW TO SELL FACE-TO-FACE: SURVIVAL GUIDE IS NOW ALSO AVAILABLE ON KOBO. KOBO is "device neutral" — which is a techie way of saying that if you buy via KOBO you can read it on your PC, MAC, iBook, IPad, etc. etc. KOBO provides free readers/adapters. Here's the link to Kobo's version of HOW TO SELL FACE-TO-FACE: SURVIVAL GUIDE .
KOBO, in case you haven't heard of it, links with Borders— which I'm sure you have heard of.
BARGAIN! BARGAIN! BARGAIN!
At this point, the e-book of HOW TO SELL FACE-TO-FACE: SURVIVAL GUIDE is a smidgen cheaper via Kobo than via Amazon/Kindle. ($1.79 versus $2.99.)
In sales skills terminology, "prospecting" often means looking for industrial parks and the like, then doing a quick sweep in order to rapidly scan and flush out potential prospects.
In those sweeps, you speak briefly with the receptionist or secretary to make a quick determination of whether it is worth calling back to see the Decision Maker.
Just what information you are looking for at this early stage of your search for viable leads will vary with your product and the market. The checklist below is a starting point; adapt it to your own uses.
Checklist: The Kinds of Information to be Looking for When Cold Calling
Good sales can flow from cold calls. While cold-calling should NOT be your primary way of approaching new prospects, there will be times when it is appropriate as a selling tool.
For example, if you have open time between scheduled calls, consider using it to "smoke-stack" for other leads. (The term arose when sales people would drive around looking for factory smoke-stacks to guide them to industrial prospects. Now most smoke-stacking is done by scanning the list of tenants at the elevators of office towers and entrances to commercial parks.)
You may spot a possible prospect, and knock on the door in the hope
Cold call sales involve dropping in on prospects without an appointment, either with the objective of going for a sale, or of collecting research for a later call-back. (Or, phoning people more or less at random is another form of sales cold-calling.)
The fact is, cold-calls are usually not a good use of your time when selling. You can waste a lot of productive time waiting in reception areas for an opening to see the Decision Maker.
Prospecting, as we use the word in sales, is looking for potential buyers. But sales prospecting is also about screening out those who will not likely be viable prospects, at least not this time 'round.
Keep in mind those prospectors out west in the Great Gold Rush of '49. They spent months and years
First the good news: "President Obama's proposed 2011 budget includes funding for 100 additional federal staffers [within the IRS]. . .
Who says this country isn't creating new jobs? Well, look at that! Yes, it's true! The IRS is creating new jobs: 100 jobs IS 100 jobs that can be added to the labor statistics.