Top Appointment Setting Tips for New Sellers

What are your top 5 tips for a new salesperson?

Jill Konrath who is busy at Selling to Big Companies answered and re-asked a great question, "If you were mentoring a new salesperson, what would be your top five sales tips and how did you learn those?" 

Brian Carroll, author of a book I'm currently reading, "Lead Generation for the Complex Sale," answered Jill's question with his own tips.  Here are mine:

Top Apointment Setting Tips for New Sellers

1. Target a niche market, the more specific the better.   Sure, you can market to 3 or 4 niches.  Focus on one niche until you get momentum before you tackle another, though.  Don't be afraid of losing business -- the riches are truly in the niches.
2. Research and target the top 150 companies or prospects within your target niche.  Use a CRM or contact manager and create a file for each target prospect.
3. Schedule your calls to your niche market first thing every day.  Your highest priority is to set at least one appointment a day with a decision maker so why not make it task #1 of each day?  You keep appointments with clients, co-workers and prospects -- remember to set an appointment with yourself to profit-seek each day, too.
4. Become an Expert Resource to your targeted niche and communicate to your niche target 3 or more times a month, every month.  Use direct mail, seminars, teleseminars, free workshops, newsletters, and publish articles, to name a few approaches to nurturing the relationship. 
5. Leverage your time and prospects into 2 to 3 times as many appointments with Advisor Alliance Partners.  Meet weekly with a strategic mastermind with the primary purpose to intentionally set appointments for each other.  The group should be no more than four professionals targeting the same ideal prospect. 

Jill asks, "how did you learn these tips?"  Find out how by ordering the hot report, "The 10 Big Breakthroughs in a Salesperson's Life."  Then tell Jill What you think!