The Mini Token Blog

One of my speech teachers in college was former Navy Captain, Sheldon Hayden, who taught me a lot about communicating. He was well suited to the task, having been
trained as one of Dale Carnegie’s first instructors.

He shared with me a winning, three-part formula for persuading anybody to buy anything. And it has helped me to close innumerable sales.

This simple outline, he asserted, could be used to inform, to persuade or sell, and even to entertain.

(1) First, you make a POINT.

(2) Second, support that point with EVIDENCE.

(3) Third, repeat the main POINT.

He called it his PEP Formula, and I can tell you from long and wondrous experience in using it, that it certainly lives up to its name. I’ve personally used it to inform, to persuade and to sell, and to entertain.

Moreover, it’s PEPPY, lending energy, coherence, and dynamism to your talks, to your reports, to anything.

If you take a quick moment to review the sequence of this article, I promise you’ll find at least one major PEP talk in it.

Many of us use a variant of this unconsciously. If you listen to the most credible and sincere sounding salespeople, you’ll be able to trace this outline.

Try using PEP in your everyday chats with family, friends, and co-workers.

How’s this one?

Sorry, you can’t go out and play, because:

1. You haven’t eaten your lunch;

2. You haven’t done your homework; and

3. You haven’t cleaned your room.

So, I’m sorry, but you can’t go out and play!

In future articles, I’ll show you some of the more exciting dimensions of PEP, but in the meantime, try using it at least once a day, especially in selling, to prove its value to yourself!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman © 2005

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, Reach Out & Sell Someone, and How To Sell Like A Natural Born Salesperson. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. Gary’s programs are offered by UCLA Extension and by numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. When he isn’t consulting, Gary can usually be found in Glendale, California, where he makes his home. He can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at gary@customersatisfaction.com

Most people who use the term “Cold Calling” believe that all telephone prospecting is “cold calling.” As the name implies, you call each prospect only once, trying to sell your way into an appointment. It’s the kind of prospecting that most salespeople do, and usually hate to do.

What’s wrong with traditional cold-calling?

Prospects don’t like to be cold-called any more than you like calling them. Because you’re pushing so hard for an appointment, they feel wary and defensive. As a result, they push back angrily, they refuse to give you an appointment, and you feel rejected.

Perhaps, if a prospect sounds “interested,” you will try a second call, and try again to sell an appointment. Most prospects don’t want you to call them again, and will reject your request for an appointment, again. Therefore, few prospects will get that second call, and even fewer a third call. If you do get appointments with reluctant prospects, you’ll only close a small percentage of them.

REAL Prospects Really Buy!

A High Probability Prospect (HPP) is someone who needs, wants, and can afford to buy your product or service, now. There are more HPPs than you can ever find the time to meet with–yet most salespeople don’t know they exist.

High Probability Prospecting

In the HPP process, the objective is to determine whether each person you talk to wants what you’re selling, now. Each call takes an average of 35 seconds: they either want to buy, or they don’t. If they don’t, just say “Okay, good bye,” and call the next prospect. Those who don’t say “Yes” today are more likely to say “Yes,” the next time that you call. Most of those who say “Yes,” without being persuaded, will also buy without being persuaded.

“Warm Calling”

In High Probability Prospecting, we call our prospecting list every three to four weeks. After the initial call, each time you call a prospect is a “warm call.” Each time you call your targeted prospecting list, you’ll get better results than the last time you called that list — if you’re not trying to sell appointments. Most sales are made to people after they have heard numerous High Probability prospecting offers.

People become HPPs in their own time, for their own reasons. It’s seldom because you convinced them that they have an urgent need for your product or service during a prospecting call. Just because you want to sell now doesn’t mean that a prospect wants to buy now.

Referring to the High Probability Prospecting process as “cold calling” is inaccurate. The vast majority of calls you make in HPP are “warm” calls. The HPP process has rendered Traditional Cold Calling techniques obsolete.

©Jacques Werth, High Probability® Selling - All rights reserved.

Jacques Werth, author of “High Probability Selling,” is an internationally respected Sales Trainer and Sales Consultant. HPS graduates are excelling as Top Producers in over 70 industries. Visit http://www.highprobsell.com to read more articles, preview the book, and learn more about High Probability Selling.

When you are actively trying to develop business you must be proactive. Sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring does not lead to sales. If you think that the world’s most successful sales professionals are simply highly paid “order takers”, then you are mistaken.

That does not mean that order takers do not exist, many large companies have large buildings full of people in cubilces answering phones all day long. While they are called “sales”, these are not the ones who drive the business.

True sales professionals who work with the largest, most important clients do not sit around awaiting calls. The best of the best are always networking, prospecting, scheduling appointments, following up and developing unique solutions for their customers and future customers. For these people, selling is not part time….they live it.

And the best do not complain. They do not hang out by the water cooler and gossip about what is wrong around their company. They do not blame others when they have a soft quarter. The best reach out to clients, prospects and others in their network no matter if they are busy, tired or cranky (and if they are those things, they never let others know about it).

When I was in sales and did not feel like making calls, I would take twenty pennies and put them on the left side of my desk. Every time I made a call and left a voice mail, I would slide one penny to the other end of the table. If I actually spoke to someone, I would move two pennies. I would not allow myself to leave until all the pennies were on the right side of my desk. This silly exercise usually led to setting appointments, and it is appointments that lead to sales.

So if you need to develop more business, don’t expect anyone else to do it for you. To be successful in sales, you need to be talking to people. So get off the internet and reach out to someone.

Thom Singer is the author of “Some Assembly Required: How to Make, Keep and Grow Your Business Relationships” (New Year Publishing, 2005). His book is available at http://www.thomsinger.com

Making more sales on your website may be as simple as choosing.
Assuming you have a good product, and a market exists for your
product, all you need is to add sales and marketing expertise to
your webbusiness.

You have 3 options. Which will you choose? 1. Hire a full-time
Sales and Marketing Director

Description: He or she understands how to attract and keep
customers. Manages budgets and people, sets goals and evaluates
performance. Many times must “sell” strategies and tactics to
decision makers, who may have strong but wrong-headed opinions.

Pros: Knows how to build sales. Can have industry-specific
experience and contacts, which may give your firm an advantage.
The best will have extensive online sales marketing experience.

Cons: A huge investment, which makes this option only available
to larger firms. Many times an otherwise experienced sales
marketer must play catch-up to learn about tools and tactics
that work on the web.

Cost: It varies by experience and where your business is
located. According to Salary.com, a sales and marketing director
position can command $96,000/year in Chicago, $107,000/year in
Boston and $103,000/year in San Diego.

2. Hire a online sales specialist.

Description: These sales consultants have built up web-specific
selling expertise. He or she knows what sends online shoppers
clicking away from a website and is fully versed in attracting
potential customers and converting them into buyers. Can develop
a sales and marketing plan, prepare budgets, implement the plan
and other tasks.

Pros: Should be able to tell you how to get the most impact for
your money. Knowledgeable about techniques that will get the
best results. Will first determine what needs to be done, then
is connected to the copywriters, webdesigners, search engine
specialists and tools that can help.

Cons: You may find a “one size fits all” solution provider. For
example, he may really only be experienced in search engine
placement and unaware of other tactics that would work
especially well for your particular business.

Cost: Prices vary. You can get a website sales tuneup starting
at a few hundred dollars and up. Some consultants work on
advance against percentage of increased sales.

3. Do-it-yourself with the help of an book

Description: The two top-sellers are the ebook Make Your Site
Sale by Ken Evoy, and the 2-binder set, The Internet Marketing
Course by Corey Rudl. There are also books available focused on
search engines positioning, copywriting, traffic-building and
more. A list of links to these resources is available at
http://www.jawdrop.com/resources.html .

Pros: Inexpensive and fast access to information from people who
are succeeding at selling online. Many times these books contain
specific info and lots of examples.

Cons: Many people who BUY books don’t READ them. If they read
the materials completely, the next challenge is implementation
and accurate evaluation of the results. For example, a website
owner may try a pay-per-click ad. If it fails, he may think
“pay-per-clicks don’t work”, when an expert may see that it was
the ad itself that failed, or that particular pay-per-click did
not work.

Cost: $25 - $397.

To get sales expertise, you can spend $25 up to over a hundred
thousand dollars. With such a huge range in price, it seems like
getting sales help would be a no-brainer, but that’s not the
case.

What is the best way to build sales for YOUR website? It
depends.

Do you have time for the learning curve of doing it yourself?
How expensive is the learning curve in terms of out-of-pocket
and opportunities lost in the meantime? If your website a
side-business out of your spare room, you will probably choose
differently than a business striving to meet payroll.

Sales help for your business website is out there. Reach out and
get some now.

Here’s a key idea when you’re hiring sales people. The title of this is called: If the Answer is Maybe, than It’s No. How many times have you gone through the process of hiring a sales person and you just weren’t sure? You’ve gone through several sets of interviews, you’ve brought your team together, you’ve asked all the right questions, you’ve gathered all of the sales history performance from their past. Maybe you’ve even taken them through a sales aptitude test or some sort of profile but there’s still something about the candidate that just makes you uneasy. You’ve even maybe checked their references and of course, everybody’s references check out perfectly, but for some reason, this candidate, they look like they have the all the right answers, they say all the right things, but is still doesn’t quite feel right. Well, I’m here to tell you that the absolute rule of thumb when you’re going through that process and you’re about to hire a candidate, is say no.

If it doesn’t feel right, if there’s something that sets you off, that indicates to you that a candidate is less than perfect, that something doesn’t quite line up, go with your gut, go with your intuition, understand that that’s a much more powerful vehicle than all the data gathering, all the behavioral interviewing, all of the sales testing and profiling put together. Intuition is the most powerful thing that you have when it comes to choosing which are the good sales people to hire and which ones you need to pass on.

So next time you come right up against the edge and you’re wondering whether or not you should hire a sales person, stall. Say no or go back to the drawing board and find new candidates. Once you bring some new candidates to the table, if the candidate that you passed on before seems enticing, bring them back into the mix against the other people that you’re measuring in the next round and figure out whether or not what you saw the first time was right or not. But the key is, to remember if the answer is maybe, when it comes to hiring a sales person, than just say no.

About Cube Management:
Cube Management provides sales acceleration services to emerging growth and mid-market companies in the technology, manufacturing, healthcare and business service sectors. The experts at Cube Management work across the entire spectrum of marketing, sales and business development to provide customized solutions that drive revenue and profit growth. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process & People to produce winning results.

Always give a reason for the sale for credibility.

1. If you have old Inventory, give a closeout sale.

2. Return sales. Sometimes called a scratch and dent sale. Offer any less than perfect inventory at a special discount. Always mention the character flaw with the product — the corner’s bent, label glue scratch somewhere.

3. Only one or two left. Sell them for half price. Post on eBay. Combine them with another product, change the price to cover half of the orginal price.

4. Discount sale. You could create one or two-time seasonal discount sale. Use Ikea’s model of a sale only once a year. How about holidays, the President’s birthday, or the company’s X year sale. Auto dealers have over used this and people don’t pay much attention to them any longer. Be careful not to do the same.

5. Use Amazon’s model and offer free shipping for orders over $X. Alternatively, offer free shipping with limited dates or if they upgrade.

6. Have higher priced items for sale? Offer a special payment with automatic billing to their credit card.

7. Add ways to provide samples. Free trials, free previews, with automatic delayed payment after X days if they don’t return the product by that date. To screen customers, charge a small fee like a delivery fee, postage, or an amount you pay for processing their credit card.

8. Offer a pre-sell price. Product not ready…book at the printers or currently in the mail to Amazon, sell it anyway. Offer a pre-production price. Just be careful on your dates.

9. Has someone purchased a similar product or smaller version? Offer them a “special” customer offer.

10. Use the “if you buy now, we’ll give you two for the price of one” offer. This offer has worked well in Sunday morning TV ads, why not for yours. Tell them they can give the other away for a Christmas or birthday gift. Whenever you solve two problems with one offer, you have gotten their attention. This works the same as a bonus offer.

Catherine Franz is a Marketing & Writing Coach, niches, product development, Internet marketing, nonfiction writing and training. Additional Articles: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com