So where have I been? You might ask! My computer was in being recovered for 4 days ....while I missed having the oppportunity to communicate I didn't miss having some time to myself to do things around the office AND make a few phone calls and ignore umportant e-mails that I got on my trusty new Blackberry! It was a kind of luxury.

Back to winning business. From the list I had seen of Deadly Sins of Sales I have put in the second one and then indicated the role the phone has to enhance this Deadly Sin. The value of questions ....there is no price tag. "Priceless" to steal a phrase. Engaging the client and building that relationship for now and the future is vital and a skill that many lack.

SIN #2: Failing to understand the customer’s business. Don’t expect customers to answer dozens of questions just because you didn’t do your research. Phone Sin: Not asking the right type of question to allow the customer to talk. Not being open minded to listening.

I know why, I really do but it doesn't mean I have to like it or appreciate it or see the value of it. Unless I am at a client's office iIwork from my home office. I have been receiving upwards of 10 phone calls a day from the various politicians in Florida.

These are not phone calls. These are a machine that is dialing me. I pick up and then I hear a recording of the candidates' mother, brother, dog, best friend or a local perosnality with some message. To add insult to injury when I do not pick up the phone to they they leave this message - as if I am going to listen.

What is the point? The point is what I talk about frequently. You need to touch your customers and prosepcts BUT that touch has got to be meaningful to them, have value to them - even if small - do not make that touch robotic, automatic and tedious.

OK?

Kathy
P.S. As I go to push the SAVE button on this Blog my phone rings again, this candidate has called me 3 times today!!! Crumbs.

Right now I am planning my Newsletter. Had a gap of a month or so developing the blog, finalizing my web site and just absorbing information out there about the changes in buying that do affect everyone in the selling arena from deicsion influencers, to decisionmakers to the sales person (inside or outside). I'm putting my next newsletter together now.

In the meantime thought I'd share some Sales Sins I discoveredwhile researching and will give them to you bit by bit. They are part of a 7 Deadly Sins list and I matched them with some Phone Sins that relate.

SIN #1: Not being personally accountable. Don’t pass the buck somebody else in your firm; your customers want your personal skin in the game. Phone Sin: Not setting up the right expectation to start building the relationship.

Have a good weekend! Share with me your own thoughts on sales sins-I'll start building a list for my next newsletter.

So then I have been reading all kinds of articles and blogs about selling. They are making it all sound so very clinical and scheduled. I am reading phrases like:
Discover where the prospect is today or where do they want to go. Then someone says repeat these two steps regularly and often. Another one I read says that you must know your product inside and out and product train regularly.

I won’t say ‘no’ to any of the above but I must ask you to go back to basics. The basics do still work and those basics include pre-planning as a first step.

Pre-planning does include knowing your product BUT it means knowing how it benefits your market. Therefore you must know your market.

Research your prospects using the internet, using their own web site and do know something before you pick up the phone. Does this mean you spend an hour per Prospect Company, I say no. Does this mean you swap your phone/sales skills for an ‘ace’ research hat? No it does not.

Today Lead Generation is changing. The fact that your prospects now spend much of their time (or the Decision Influencer) doing their own research makes the selling process much more interesting and certainly the salesperson needs to be sharper than ever.

Whether you start the process by demonstrating a need for your product/service or your customer identifies the need on their own – they are apt to check it all out and form opinions. Those opinions may not be right, they may be totally incorrect – but they have made some type of decision during the buying process.

A good salesperson is able to identify what their prospect already knows, what they think they know and where they are with this information. A good sales person doesn’t dismiss decision influencers at all. Very often they are the key in the whole process.

I am on a few Linked In Groups, aren't we all. I find them stimulating and the honesty and support is amazing and positive. One devoted to 'sales' has asked about Favorite Motivational/One Liner Quotes. The person who asked it has had over 1,700 replies and no two alike.

Well knowing this Blog was overdue and knowing I am in the middle of writing my Newsletter I was at a loss for blog content. THEN this quote came across my 'desk' ....the person who submitted it said it was on his 9th Grade Blackboard (gave his age away) throughout school and he wanted to share.

It so motivated me that I thought I would share it and wish you all a good weekend! Feel free to share with our fellow bloggers your favorite motivational quote. What keeps you going. ENJOY!

He who knows and knows that he knows, is very wise; follow him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows, is asleep; wake him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not, is a child; teach him.

I just got this from a favorite online newsletter that I get: BNET. Always has great snippets of information and wisdsom accessible quickly and esily. In any sales or lead generation process it takes time to learn, time to plan, time to execute and time to create the end result. All too often sales people are in a hurry and they are selling on their own time line to meet goals or commissions. It is a shame because it needs to be about your customers time line or buying cycle and you must know that in order to be successful and build relationships not just notches on a belt.

In business, in life (not just in sales) there are so many challenges and seeing this made me remember about resilience and that challenges are all opportunities to learn!

resilient: (adj.): capable of bouncing back from or adjusting to challenges and change
To be resilient...

I shouldn't be but I am always amazed when I get such a poor phone call for my business. This call was awful and did not do the company any service at all. It did them a dis-service in fact.

I answered my phone and the person launched into:

I am just following up about SEO for your business and how we can help you.

He did not say his name, who they were and assumed I was the person to talk to. He asked me nothing AND told me nothing as well.

First, I did not inquire so he was cold calling me and trying a very unprofessional linking introduction to me and my business.

Second, when I asked the company name he mumbled it so badly I had to ask him to spell it.

Third, I told him I did not make any inqiry and why would he say that to me? He said, "I don't know" and continued lanching into his message.

Colleague Art Sobczak has a great idea below and wanted to share it with you from his blog: http://www.telesalesblog.com/

The message to managers needs to be to lay off the volume of calls idea. It is not and never had been about 100 dials or about making sure you sales guys do 2 hours of cold calling every Tuesday from 2-4 in the afternoon.

It must be about the quality of those calls, the results of those calls and then the results of those results. Confused? If you are then you possibly aren't doing it right. In today's sales arena the 2.0 customer is harder to reach, expects more from a sales call and will be harder to 'close' in the traditional sense. Therefore, your touch points are as valualbe to you as that one quick hit cold call. A strategy that is put in place around your customer to show them that you are on their side and want them to win will help you win.

So measure the right successes and you will reap rewards.

Was recently working on the Largo-Mid Pinellas Chamber Phone A Thon (www.largochamber.org) ofwhich I am a fan and Mike, sitting next to me, said; "how do they stay in business" as we smiled and dialed many businesses in the Mid Pinellas area. We were met with rude receptionist, a million answering machines - not voice mail, a tool that has flexilbility so your business can actually sound as if it 'cares' and the quality of those messages that we heard - one had to think about doing business with that company, think twice and hard.