Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Are You Struggling to Make Appointments with Prospects?

The first part of the sales process often takes place over the phone - and this makes it easy for lots of mistakes or misunderstandings to derail your sales. Today sales trainer Jim Klein shares some prospecting tips that will help you stay strong on the phone - so you can get that meeting and make the sale!

Prospecting Tip #1: Prospect Daily
Sales prospecting is like eating. If you don't do it every day you'll die. With prospecting you won't actually cease to exist, however, your business will.

Professional salespeople prospect every day. It's important to block off specific times on your calendar for prospecting activities such as phone calling and mailing.
Treat your prospecting time the same way you would any other appointment, otherwise it will never get done.

Get focused on your prospecting activities by closing your office door and having messages taken for incoming calls until your prospecting time is up. I've found the best time to prospect is first thing in the morning. You're fresh and it gets the most important task in the sales process done first.

Prospecting Tip #2: Become a Specialist
This is the age of specialization. People want to do business with people who specialize in their particular problem. You wouldn't go to a foot doctor to have a heart bypass. And you wouldn't go to a criminal lawyer if you need to set up a corporation.

What is your specialty? Find one and use it in all your prospecting activities. If you don't know what it is ask your past and current clients why they bought from you. They'll give you some insight in to your specialty.

Then use it in all your promotional pieces. Advertise it every where. Put it on your business card. Use it to attract the kind of prospects you're looking to work with.

Prospecting Tip #3: Use a Script
Don't sell 'from the hip'. There's only one thing worse than listening to a salesperson read a script over the phone and that's listening to one without a script. It's important to not only have a script but to practice it until it flows from your lips.

You should know the script word for word without reading it. Don't read it when you're talking to a prospect, however, keep it in front of you to refer back to when you get off the track. Keep refining and making your script better and more powerful. After all it is the life blood of your sales business.

Prospecting Tip #4: Sell the Benefits of Meeting With You
Many salespeople want to tell the prospect how great their company is or how great they are. People don't care about you. People want to know what's in it for them. So make sure you include in your script the benefits the prospect will gain by meeting with you personally.

Make a list of the features of your product or service and then list the benefits of each of those features. If you need some help with this your past and current clients can be a great help. The best way to get the appointment is to show them the benefits they will receive by meeting with you.

Prospecting Tip #5: Don't Try to Sell Over the Phone
The purpose of prospecting is to get face to face with the prospect so you can qualify them and sell them your product or service. That's all. Don't try to sell your product or service over the phone. The main focus of sales prospecting is to sell the appointment, so concentrate on that outcome.

I know there are salespeople who are only selling over the phone, however, that's a subject for a different article.

Using these prospecting tips can send you on your way to having a calendar filled with appointments that lead to sales. Ignoring these sales tips can leave you with a lot more time to prospect. The choice is yours.

Jim Klein helps sales people fine tune the sales process so they can confidently close more sales and create long term relationships. Get free sales training by subscribing to our free newsletter "The Sales Advisor".

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