Alliance Science

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!

 

Know your Q, R, and S's

What do you do to maximize the follow-up activity of your group presentation?

Thursday, April 10th, Misti Burmeister launched her first book, From Boomers to Bloggers, and celebrated Inspirion Inc.'s 3rd anniversary party.  One of Misti's friends, sales trainer and business coach, Steve Dorfman, kept the party going as Master of Ceremonies. 

After refreshments and networking, the celebration started with an opener by Steve followed by a conversation ice-breaker as attendees were encouraged to meet someone new and discuss what they did both professionally and personally.  After Misti's presentation and testimonies from clients, friends and supporters were made, Misti recognized employees and her book editor with comments and gifts.  Afterward, while the crowd was feeling grateful and generous, Steve used a masterful technique to facilitate interaction and ongoing conversation between the attendees and Misti after the event. 

Reaching into his coat pocket for a pen and card, he commanded the audience to bring out a business card and to write one thing they learned about generational differences in the workplace.  Then he asked everyone to print the letters Q, R, and S.  Next, he instructed the audience to circle, "Q," if anyone had a question for Misti.  Likewise, he asked participants to circle, "R," if they had a referral for Inspirion Inc.  Finally, he suggested listeners to circle, "S," if they were interested in having Misti speak at an upcoming event.

What Steve orchestrated was the beginning of a great follow-up system using Neuro linguistic Programming commands and auto-suggestions at the right time during the presentation.  The secret to success of the campaign, of course, will be in the timely and consistent follow-up activity after the event. 

Referrals VS Appointments with Ideal Prospects

If client referrals are King, then personally prearranged appointments with ideal prospects are Queen.

Given that, in the game of chess, the king is all-important, the queen is all-powerful.  How far can a Queen move and in how many directions? 

Whereas a great client can refer you to, let's say, 8 prospects, not unlike the range to adjacent squares for a king, a great Advisor Alliance partner can personally introduce you to 27 ideal prospects and do it again in the following 2 weeks!  Of course, this is a visual analogy, and you get the point.

 

What's the difference between a referral from a customer and a personal introduction in the form of a scheduled appointment from a trusted Advisor Alliance partner? 

• Intention
• Reciprocity
• Ability
• Opportunity
• Consistency and reliability

Asking for and receiving client referrals should be automatic.  They are one of the highest form of advocacy when properly executed.  There are many blogs, companies and books on the subject of referral selling. 

There's only one way to learn how to automatically receive 8 to 12 automatically scheduled appointments with ideal prospects.  Email your Name, title, and business address to receive the FREE, unique report on, "The 10 Big Breakthroughs in a Salesperson's Life."  I highly advise it.

 

Why NOT to Call Cold

In a previous post, I admitted I love to do what most humans hate more than speaking in public or paying taxes.  Most salespeople rather face criminal charges than routinely make the cold call.  In all fairness, from a business perspective, cold calling typically results in lower call-for-appointment setting conversions than most warm introductions or marketing generated leads. 

Before I give you a list of reasons why not to cold call so that you can show your boss or ease your conscience, here are important reasons as to why you should routinely and occasionally call people who don't know you, may not like you, and certainly don't trust you - yet. 

• To increase mental toughness
• To improve your perspective
• To reinforce discipline (doing something whether you like it or not) while developing your improvisational skills

On second thought, instead of giving you a list of reasons why not to cold call, I will give you some alternative approaches to avoid the cold call to a targeted company or decision maker.

• Call someone you know who works for the targeted company and secure a personal introduction.  Ask for your friends' help.
• Call a sales person representing the targeted company.  Salespeople have to be nice.  Start the conversation by asking about their product or service.  Figure out who you can now or later introduce them to and make or promise the introduction.  Ask them for their help.
• Call another marketer or salesperson who sells to the same decision maker you do and refer them to someone important to them first.  Find out what they need, give it to them and then ask them for their help. 

Which alternative do you think will yield the most fruitful results if practiced consistently?  Imagine how easy it would be if this same person referred you to someone who fit your ideal prospect profile each week.  What would your business look like if this same person automatically set 4 to 6 appointments for you with your ideal client prospect every week?

If you never want to cold call again, send an email to alliancescience at ownershelp.com for an mind-altering FREE report on how to get other people to set appointments for you with your ideal client prospect -- people who don't know you, yet, but already like and trust you. 

Please Don't Ask Me to Call them Cold!

Last Thursday, I was generously invited to attend a new (to me) business networking meeting.  Although small, I found it informative and helpful to learn about the other representatives around me.  The format was effective; called "pinball", each person described the Power Partners, Industries, and New Client Targets to whom each was seeking to be introduced. 

My host, advisor and friend, the Financial Advisor, Brian Harner, defined his Power Partners as CPAs and attorneys such as tax, divorce and estate planning specialists, a similar ideal partner for a Mortgage professional like myself.  He identified his industry as company executives of manual service providers.  For New Clients, he purposely didn't identify specific accounts he wanted to penetrate, but that could be easily listed on another visit.  Naturally, what resulted from identifying these targets were referrals from other participants.  Typically, the exchange went something like this:

"Here's the name of a tax attorney... You should give her a call.  Just use my name."

I and another professional at the table chagrined at the seemingly helpful offer.  What's the difference between a cold call and that feigned introduction?

Call me antidiluvian, a stick in the adobe, but I'm particular on how to properly make introductions.  There's a few best ways and lots of weak, rather anemic referral practices I witness regularly at meetings primarily intended to propagate new relationships like the one described.

What's the best way to introduce a colleague to a prospect or client to maximize the potential success of that new relationship?

Tune in again next week!  Same Bat time, same Bat channel.