Posts Tagged Successful Selling
The Most Critical Skills in Sales
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 3, 2014
Sales teams have multiple responsibilities over the course of their workdays, and it is inevitable that many of these tasks pose a significant challenge. Seeking out new leads, hustling between prospects and clients and attending meetings with marketing and management can get overwhelming. Because time management is integral to the success of a sales team, how can one better manage?
Tips for Time Management
Managing time can become an ingrained habit that can produce amazing sales results. In order to boost productivity, different methods can help sales teams best manage their time.
Delegate lead generation: Finding leads is part of a sales professional’s job. Simultaneously, it’s important not to spend all time and resources searching for new leads and ignoring the leads that may turn into valuable customers. A wise decision is to ask existing customers for referrals. This way, a salesperson can obtain leads who have heard about the company’s product from a loyal customer. The sales team is not neglecting current leads and still saving time and energy hunting for new leads.
Allot time: Before starting on a task, a sales person should decipher when the best time is to complete an appropriate project. When do customers like to be contacted? When are prospects more willing to talk? When do you need to have the proposal finalized? If sales professionals answer these types of questions prior to their work days, they will decide times most fitting to carry out each task, which will organize their daily schedules.
Log activity: To stay better organized, sales representatives should log their activity as it occurs. This decreases the chances of forgetting who they spoke to, who they tried to call but failed to reach, who asked them to call back later and who gave a positive response. By the end of the day, the sales professional will know where he/she stands. Rather than trying to remember all of the activities from the previous day, work the next day will be much simpler and enjoyable.
Tips for Lead Management
While managing time is imperative for salespeople, an important aspect of time management is lead management. How does a sales professional improve lead management so leads are not wasted or contacted before they are ready? Although there is not one, fixed process that works across sectors and industries, a lead management system is valuable for any sales team. The following tips will make organizing leads and following up on them a less daunting task.
Know your buyer profile: Before contacting leads, sales representatives must know who their ideal buyer is. Knowing the characteristics of their potential buyers will help salespeople work toward capturing the right customers.
Nurture leads that are not ready: Some leads may fit a sales representative’s buyer profile, but are not yet willing to buy. These prospects need to be nurtured by a structured nurturing solution. Not all nurturing processes are alike, but they should include the same types of goals: Build a relationship with prospects and try to gain a deeper understanding of their needs. Through smaller interactions, sales representatives should keep their company’s brand at the top of the prospects’ minds. Eventually, the buyers will open up about what the sales person can do for them.
Follow up: In sales, following up is crucial. Once a connection is made, sales professionals need to continue targeting those leads so they are aware of the prospect’s status: Did the potential buyer receive information they requested? Did they have a chance to think about a purchase? Do they have any new issues that the sales professional can take care of? Without a follow up, a potential sale and loyal customer could be abandoned.
Track and report: A tracking and reporting system makes it convenient for sales managers to log calls and stay up to date about the position of potential buyers. With a prospecting process, sales managers know exactly when a connection was made, whether a conversation took place or if the sales representatives left a message. By staying organized with a prospecting system, sales managers are using an efficient way to help facilitate the human touch.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Bill Johnson on March 17, 2014
Is your Sales Process Fresh?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on March 12, 2014
One of the most devastating conditions to a seasoned veteran sales person is the onset of complacency. This can occur anytime is a sales person’s career. But usually it follows a period of repeated success or recognition of achievement. It’s easy to fall victim, and easier to not recognize it’s happened. The best way to avoid such a situation having an impact on continued success is to be constantly looking for means of improvement. The best place to start is a regular review of your sales process.
As a professional sales person, you know the value of having a sales process or strategy which must be followed to be successful. In developing an effective strategy, it’s often helpful to look at the progression of the sales process as relates to your particular business or service. By reviewing the specific aspects of each step in the process, you can determine an effective method to apply. When you break the sales process down into specific steps, you can often improve your sales results by focusing on areas where you feel you may be weak.
Prospecting – The first part of the sales process is looking for promising leads which can bring you a sale. This can include cold calling and leads generated by referrals. Prospecting is not limited to the phone. This can be done via email or in person.
Appointment Setting – Once you have made the initial contact with the prospective client the next part of the sales process is to set an appointment with the client. It is always preferable to have an in-person appointment. If this is not possible, a phone appointment is acceptable, but you should try to turn it into a face-to-face meeting with the potential client.
Qualifying – The goal of qualifying the prospective client during the sales process is to make sure the client has a need for your product or service, is interested in buying your product or service, and, most importantly is in a position to buy. Part of the qualifying process is to make sure you are talking to the person who can actually make the decision to purchase your product or service.
Presenting – The presentation is undoubtedly the most important part of the sales process. It’s important you be prepared. This includes knowing your product and service inside and out. It also includes knowing the needs of the customer inside and out. You need to make sure your presentation is professional, interesting and relevant to the needs of the prospective client. Try to make your presentation interactive and fun. Make use of different media to keep it interesting. Don’t read your information, but have it memorized and present in a natural manner. Handouts should be relevant, fresh and simple.
Answering Questions and Resolving Concerns – As perfect as your presentation may be, the client is bound to have some questions. This may be one of the more difficult parts of the sales process. Many sales are lost when a sales person is not able to satisfactorily answer objections posed by the prospective client. If you’re not prepared, you may very likely not get the sale. If you are prepared, it makes your product or service look good, it makes your company look good, and it makes you look professional.
Closing – In this part of the sales process, you have completed your presentation and answered all questions and concerns. Now you ask for the sale. Many sales people skip this part of the sales process thinking that the presentation is the same as asking. You must directly ask the client to buy your product or service. You don’t go through the whole process and expect the client to stand up and yell “I’ll take it!” You need offer them the opportunity to buy.
Referrals – After the success of the sale, you feel good and, very often, the customer feels good too. This is the perfect time to ask for referrals. The client may know of other companies or individuals who would be interested in your product or service. Once you have the referrals, the sales process starts again with a new client.
It is important to have a sales process to follow. The sales process will help you to stay on track, keep focused and will allow you to break down each step you take that leads to the sale. Breaking the process down will allow you to make changes and adjustments in any of the stages where you might be able to improve. Reviewing your process and making necessary adjustments regularly will help you to avoid complacency in your activities and keep you on the path to continued success.
Eight Traits of Great Salespeople
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on February 11, 2014
When you look at the qualities of the great sales representatives for non-transactional sales–those sales that are larger and more complex in nature–they tend to share the following traits:
They assume parity with their customers–There is an imaginary hierarchy that average and poor-performing sales people place between themselves and their prospects. It includes head-trash like, “The customer is always right,” and “You’re the customer so you’re the boss.” The data says that the top sales representatives see themselves as problem-solvers worthy of equal respect with their customers. Respect always, deference rarely.
They are comfortable talking about money–This quality often starts back in the home in which they were raised and the beliefs that were held there about money. If there was a belief that money was a rare and precious thing to be horded or feared, then it shows up with a fundamental discomfort in discussing large numbers. Individuals that look at money as a measure of value, not as a number outside of personal grasp, typically do better in sales.
They challenge the decision-maker–The best sales representatives have a strong confidence in their understanding of the customer’s market and their own solution–enough so that they are comfortable challenging inaccurate statements made by the customer.
They are comfortable with silence–Confidence is demonstrated as much in silence as in what you say. Top sales people can allow for measurable periods of silence in conversations with prospects. This creates an opportunity for the prospect to give consideration to what has been said rather than having to process the next piece of data given to them by the sales rep.
They show up prepared–This seems so common sense and yet when I administer these types of assessments the statistical fact is that most sales people–greater than 70 percent–are not well prepared for sales calls and meetings. They lack research, pre-call planning, a complete agenda agreed upon by the contact, and a tailored presentation to the prospect. The best have all of these things.
They don’t rush–A study was done about physical demonstrations of confidence and power some time ago. The external view of two people moving was observed by a cross-section of people and questions were asked about which one had greater confidence, was paid more, and had a position of greater authority. They both wore similar attire, and were of the same body shape and age. The only distinguishing characteristic was the speed in which they performed their actions. The one who looked rushed always scored lower. An appearance of confidence in part comes from an appearance of control.
They ask great questions–This has been written about by me and many others. The data confirms that the higher-performing sales representatives ask more questions–often more than twice as many–and their questions are more focused on implications than on data. Put another way, they ask questions about what something means rather than just what it is.
They are impeccable in following up–Just like preparedness; this quality seems so simple but is often overlooked by poor performers. The best cover the details.
One more note: Great sales people score over the 50 percent mark on every one of these traits. That means that they are not super-high in one area and failures in the other areas. They are above the halfway mark on everything. That’s their foundation. Then they knock the ball out of the park in their areas of personal strength.
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This article was originally posted in the Inc. Blog by Tom Searcy on January 14, 2014.
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Think You’re Losing a Sale? Ask Yourself These Five Questions:
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on January 30, 2014
It happens to every sales person at least once. You feel like you’re right on the verge of making the big sale when suddenly the customer starts reacting in a certain way and you know you’re losing the sale. When this happens to you, you need to sit back and take a good long look at the whole process. Identify where things might have gone wrong and why you found yourself losing a sale. Here are five questions you need to ask yourself.
1. Were you totally prepared? Sometimes it’s hard to know at exactly what point you’re losing a sale. You need to go back to the very beginning and determine whether you were adequately prepared. Ask yourself if you were completely sure of the client’s needs. Did you find out exactly what the client was looking for? Did you have the necessary information to develop a presentation or proposal which demonstrated to the client you completely understood their needs? Was your product knowledge sufficient to begin with? Losing a sale can happen at the very beginning of the process and you need to look back to your very first encounter to determine where things may have gone wrong.
2. How did your initial contact go? You can find yourself losing a sale from the very first contact. Try to think what was said at your very first meeting. Did you miss some important information? Losing a sale at the initial contact is more likely due to something you said or did the customer didn’t like. You may still be asked to make a presentation, and even submit a proposal. But it’s hard to get past a bad first impression. Think about everything from your original greeting to how the client reacted to you. When losing a sale, think about whether something felt wrong from the very beginning.
3. Was your proposal right? If you did learn the needs of the client, did you present your proposal in such a way it was clear you understood what they wanted? Losing a sale in this part of the process can be fairly common. Perhaps your presentation was too generic and, while it may have covered all of the basics of what you have to offer, it may not have been specific enough to the client’s actual needs. What was your impression of feedback or body language of the client during your presentation? When making a presentation, it can sometimes be obvious you’re losing a sale. In addition to product information, you’re also projecting a personal and a company image. Think back to every part of your presentation from how you were dressed to how you responded to questions.
4. Why do you think the client said no? Again, look back at the entire process. Did the client ask questions? If so, did you answer appropriately? If the customer went with another company, look at the company and see what the differences were between your product and theirs. You can also ask yourself about other companies who may not have gotten as far as you did before losing a sale. Looking at those companies can show you where you were stronger and where you may need to focus more in the future.
5. Now what? It is often hard to accept losing a sale. And it is certainly appropriate to ask the client why they said no. In fact, the only way you can work on avoiding losing a sale in the future is to find out why you lost this one. Most clients will give you some idea as to why they went with someone else. Use this information to improve or correct any areas where you were lacking.
It’s tough losing a sale, but it happens to everyone. The key to future success is to learn from the loss by reviewing what went wrong and making appropriate changes for the future.
Trust – The Simplest Key to Sales Success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on January 24, 2014
We’ve all encountered this situation; young girls with their moms standing at a grocery store entrance selling cookies or boys with their dads selling popcorn. Why is it, a majority of people passing will stop and make a purchase? A large part of the reason is the organization sponsoring the girls and boys selling these goods has spent years building trust in the community and you have faith your money is going to a good cause. Trust is one of the most important aspects in sales. And sales trust is the significant factor in your ability to succeed.
It’s an unfortunate situation; many buyers just don’t trust sales people. This lack of trust has come from past dealing with sales people who have been too pushy or just plain dishonest with the buyers. Further, some 90% of companies surveyed report they will only buy from a company they do trust. If you want sales, you have to build sales trust. Today, a majority of sales people are more educated, well trained, and are aware of the importance of building a lasting rapport with their customers. Building rapport builds trust. And once you have established the trust, it’s important to maintain it. Never promise something you can’t deliver, always stand by your word, and always admit when you’ve made a mistake. Building a lasting sales trust will help assure you continue doing business with the customer for years to come.
Once you have developed sales trust with your customers, they are more likely to recommend you to other people. If the customer believes you are someone they can trust, they’re more likely to put their own reputation on the line to refer you to other customers. Building sales trust helps you to build business through word of mouth. Customer referral and recommendation is among the best marketing you can receive and it’s entirely built on trust in you and your company. When a potential customer sees a satisfied customer who’s working with you, they’re far more likely to do business with you.
Trust, particularly sales trust, speaks to your integrity as a person. Your own self-worth is built upon being a person who is trust worthy, believable and honorable. As a sales person, you will look for these traits in your own company and the company will look for you to be dependable and truthful. Groups which have trust in each other tend to work better together and are more likely to offer assistance and direction to help each other succeed. When you feel good about yourself and your company, your self-confidence grows. Buyers pick up on that self-confidence and it makes them feel more confident in you and your company. A customer or client who has confidence in you is basically displaying that they have sales trust in you.
Sales trust takes time to develop and unfortunately can be shattered very quickly. It’s important you do the things which build and maintain trust. You need to be reliable, dependable, honest, and honorable. This is the secret to developing and keeping sales trust.
Quantifying your value proposition
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on November 12, 2013
Quantifying your value proposition requires creating and communicating a clear, compelling picture of how your solution will drive your customer’s business results – allowing sales reps to make their business case. It requires translating the benefits of your solution into high impact, measurable outcomes that matter to the customer. When done effectively, it enables you to maximize the competitive advantages that differentiate you from your competitors.
Quantifying a value proposition involves three steps:
– First, list the business outcomes your solution impacts (e.g., improvement in the percentage of just-in-time deliveries).
– Second, select a customer metric that will demonstrate the impact of the business outcome (e.g., reduction in inventory x annual inventory carrying costs = value of just-in-time deliveries).
– Third, determine the most compelling anchor which will bring the metric to life (e.g., compare the outcome of your solution against the status quo or compare it against your estimate of the competitor’s solution or against other companies in the customer’s market space).
What are some best practices for quantifying value? Having a simple and straightforward planning process for the quantifying value is one piece of the puzzle. As is often the case; however, the real difficulty and creativity lie in the execution. Hence it is useful to explore four best practices for quantifying and selling value.
1. Sell the Concept First. Top performers do a superior job quantifying their value proposition but they don’t just “sell by the numbers.” Even a great set of numbers will fall on deaf ears if you have not established a foundation-level of understanding of your solution and a high level of trust. What’s the worst possibility? The quantitative analysis is viewed as a selling ploy and therefore discounted accordingly.
2. Remember the Ripple Effect. Often in addition to the primary impact of your solution, there are, as well, secondary and tertiary positive outcomes. The other benefits might occur in another division, in a different time frame or for an alternative set of players inside the organization. Make sure you have uncovered and demonstrated the payoffs of the Ripple Effect.
3. Translate Soft Differentiators. If your only major competitive advantage is price, the challenge of quantifying your value proposition is simple and straightforward. On the other hand, if you have other competitive advantages – such as integrity, superior integration, and creativity – the challenge exists to translate those soft differentiators. It is easy to quantify that part of your value proposition that is easily measurable, like price. However it is equally important, although much harder, to generate quantifiable proxies for soft differentiators.
Soft differentiators tend to fall into two categories: Value Adds and Strategic Opportunities. Value Adds focus on improvements to the quality of the business operations. Examples of intangible benefits include:
– Providing better information and/or more timely information
– Improving customer good will
– Improving service image
– Identifying problems on a timelier basis
Strategic Opportunities are those intangible benefits that help the customer expand its business. They might include:
– Protecting a company’s competitive position
– Increasing market share
– Venturing into new markets
4. Tell the Integration Story. Many companies have created integrated solutions. However, they continue to sell the individual pieces – hence there is a huge opportunity for differentiation for those that get it right. One solution: help the customer connect the dots and understand the power of an integrated solution by displaying a unique set of numbers that tell the story.
How Great Sales People Respond to Price Objections
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on September 20, 2013
Lowering prices or throwing in add-ons is often not the best methods to respond to price objections. Although all sales involve negotiation, using these tactics overlooks the reasons behind most price objections which is, in the prospect’s eyes, the value is not quite at the level of the outlay required to obtain a deal. Great sales people use the three tactics below to respond to price objections without cutting into margins for their organizations or their own commissions.
Great sales people respond by looking for a cause behind the price objections
A great sales person who has spent enough time with a prospect to know he or she is committed to moving forward with a deal and has the support of his or her organization knows enough to suspect that price objections are really masking another reason for hesitating on signing a contract. Follow the lead of great sales people in dealing with these price objections and dive deeper into why a prospect may be raising price as a reason for not moving forward:
Ask the prospect whether the product or service as presently defined is what the prospect and his or her organization is looking for. This can help the prospect reflect on value for price and realize that the price shouldn’t be an objection.
Find out whether the prospect has the full support of other decision makers, or if there may be a key decision maker who is not convinced. When this is the case, you can arrange a meeting with the hold outs to overcome the price objections.
Ask whether the prospect has found similar value for money anywhere else. Price objections are sometimes the result of competitor offers, and knowing whether or not the prospect is working with one of your competitors can help you explain where your offerings differ and provide a better value.
Great Sales People Find Out Whether Price Objections May End the Deal
Once great sales people have explored all other avenues, if the price objections remain it is possible that the objection to price can cause the prospect to walk away from the negotiations without making a purchase. It’s crucial for great sales people to find out whether this is a possibility before the prospect begins to distance him or herself from the deal. Great sales people handle this by:
Asking whether it’s the price or the product/service which is causing the prospect concern. Occasionally prospects think of an additional feature or functionality that would be nice to have or even a must have at this late stage, and this may be easily solved.
Finding out whether it is the price or the terms that’s the real problem. Less established companies or those emerging from recent business combinations may need longer terms, which can be less expensive to negotiate than price.
Great Sales People Put Price Objections in a Different Perspective
Big ticket sales cause pressure for prospects, especially if a prospect is worried about how his or her organization will react to the changes that a product or service may introduce. In other cases, it’s only the number that a prospect is worried about. In either circumstance great sales people help prospects overcome price objections by putting the price in a different perspective relative to value using tactics like amortizing the price and creating timelines that compare the price against the potential gains in revenue or margin. Using a combination of all of the above tactics, great sales people are rarely stymied by price objections.
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You can’t sell if you don’t know how they buy
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on September 17, 2013
It is one of the most fundamental and important propositions in major account selling – you can’t sell if you don’t know how people buy. Ask any top performing salesperson and they will paint a comprehensive picture of the customer’s buying process. Ask an average performer and they will provide only a sketch.
Because of the foundational nature of this idea, it is always a good idea to pay attention when someone adds new insight about how customers buy. In a McKinsey article they asked a fundamental question – Is the buying cycle linear? Their short answer was – No!
According to a McKinsey & Co study, the traditional linear sales process – customers take in information; narrow down their choices; kick the tires, and submit the purchase order – is not really how customers buy. Rather, they talk about the Customer Decision Journey that is anything but linear.
The study found that more than 50% of marketing spend is misaligned because of a misunderstanding how customers make buying decisions – as they say that is a problem worth correcting. So let’s take a look at three steps a salesperson could take to start getting it right.
Stop assuming the buying process is a mirror image of your selling process.
Most companies have a five or six stage selling process beginning with stages like need recognition and ending with stages such as resolution of concerns and proposal submission. The processes are almost always linear in depiction.
The first problem, as the McKinsey authors pointed out, is the buying process is often not linear. Second, the customer may not start at the beginning of your sales process. For example, they may expect that you have a good understanding of their needs hence not want to go through an extended series of discovery conversations. Third, they may have placed additional emphasis on a stage like evaluation of options so they can engage more people and committees in the buying process. So you are stalled at Stage 3 and don’t even know why.
Don’t get there too late with too little.
In an HBR article Steve Martin reported on a win-loss analysis study. He found – “Approximately 30% of the time, the winner of the sales cycle was determined before the official selection process started. Another 45% of the time, customers had already made up their minds about whom they were going to buy from about halfway through the process.”
This means that 75% of the time customers make their final decision halfway through the selection process. Consequently you have to determine early on whether you are chasing a bad business opportunity. On the other hand, if it is the case where the race can still be won, you need to have a strong first half.
Stop assuming the present can be predicted from the past.
Today we are living and selling in a time of “compressed history.” Changes driven by the global market and advances in manufacturing technologies make the past a bad predictor of the future. Companies in many industries are going through transformational changes which are impacting their buying process and, in some cases, their basic business model.
As a result, competitive advantages that once lasted a long time now disappear quickly. What you need to do and how you do it during the sales process has to be adjusted and fine-tuned to the new reality. If you want to prosper – assuming what worked in the past will work in the present is a risky assumption.
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This article was originally posted to the Sales Training Connection by Richard Ruff on September 9, 2013.
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Eight Ways to Make People Believe What You Tell Them
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on August 9, 2013
Credibility is one piece of the bedrock of trust. If people doubt what you say, all else is called into doubt, including competence and good intentions. If others don’t believe what you tell them, they won’t take your advice, they won’t buy from you, they won’t speak well of you, they won’t refer you o
n to others, and they will generally make it harder for you to deal with them.
Being believed is pretty important stuff. The most obvious way to be believed, most people would say, is to be right about what you’re saying. Unfortunately, being right and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. First, people have to be willing to hear you. And no one likes a wise guy show-off – if all you’ve got is a right answer, you’ve not got much.
While each of these may sound simple, there are eight distinct things you can do to improve the odds that people believe what you say. Are you firing on all eight cylinders?
1. Tell the truth. This is the obvious first point, of course – but it’s amazing how the concept gets watered down. For starters, telling the truth is not the same as just not lying. It requires saying something; you can’t tell the truth if you don’t speak it.
2. Tell the whole truth. Don’t be cutesie and technical. Don’t allow people to draw erroneous conclusions based on what you left out. By telling the whole truth, you show people that you have nothing to hide. (Most politicians continually flunk this point).
3. Don’t over-context the truth. The most believable way to say something is to be direct about it. Don’t muddy the issue with adjectives, excuses, mitigating circumstances, your preferred spin, and the like. We believe people who state the facts, and let us uncover the context for ourselves.
4. Freely confess ignorance. If someone asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, say, “I don’t know.” It’s one of the most credible things you can say. After all, technical knowledge can always be looked up; personal courage and integrity are in far shorter supply.
5. First, listen. Nothing makes people pay attention to you more than your having paid attention to them first. They will also be more generous in their interpretation of what you say, because you have shown them the grace and respect of carefully listening to them first. Reciprocity is big with human beings.
6. It’s not the words, it’s the intent. You could say, in a monotone voice, “I really care about the work you folks are doing here.” And you would be doubted. Or, you could listen, animatedly, leaning in, raising your eyebrows and bestowing the gift of your attention, saying nothing more than, “wow.” And people would believe that you care.
7. Use commonsense anchors. Most of us in business rely on cognitive tools: data, deductive logic, and references. They are not nearly as persuasive as we think. Focus instead more on metaphors, analogies, shared experiences, stories, song lyrics, movies, famous quotations. People are more inclined to believe something if it’s familiar, if it fits, or makes sense, within their world view.
8. Use the language of the other person. If they say “customer,” don’t you say “client” and vice versa. If they don’t swear, don’t you dare. If they speak quietly one on one, adopt their style. That way, when you say something, they will not be distracted by your out-of-ordinary approach, and they will intuitively respect that you hear and understand them.
What’s not on this list? Several things, actually: Deductive logic, PowerPoint, Cool graphics, Spreadsheet backup, Testimonials and references, Qualifications and credentials.
It’s not that these factors aren’t important; they are. But they are frequently used as blunt instruments to qualify or reject. We’d all prefer to be rejected or disbelieved “for cause,” rather than for some feeling. And so we come up with rational reasons for saying no, and justifying yes. But the decision itself to believe you is far more likely driven by the more emotive factors listed above.
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This article was originally posted on The Trust Matters Blog by Charles H. Green on July 26, 2013.
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For an Effective Voicemail Message – Ditch the Pitch!
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on August 5, 2013
In an age where phone ringers are set to silent and text messaging is a primary form of communication, finding a successful voicemail strategy can be daunting and discouraging. It can be tempting to just rely on emails for leads, or set up an automated system to leave messages for you, but the ability to leave an effective voicemail is still a valuable skill to learn. Here are some pointers I’ve learned from my time on the phones.
The Basics – Sounding calm and confident on the phone is the first step in leaving a good voicemail. Relax while you’re speaking, and talk a little slower than you’re used to in ordinary conversation. And as cheesy as it sounds, smiling while you talk actually affects your tone on the phone, and makes you sound more pleasant.
Talk Like a Human – It’s fair to assume that your prospects are human, and that you are one too. Surprisingly, you can use this fact to your advantage. There are so many automated messages, menus, and reminders that talking to a real, flesh-and-blood person has become somewhat of a novelty. Leave a voicemail the way you’d want someone to leave one for you. Keep your tone conversational.
Toss the Script – I remember story hour in elementary school. All the kids would sit and listen as the teacher read aloud to us from a book. It was lovely and relaxing, and a lot of kids would fall asleep. Don’t be a teacher reading from a book. People talk differently from how they write, and it’s painfully obvious to your listener if you’re reading from something pre-written. Know your content well enough to avoid stammering through with “um”s and “like”s, but don’t put your prospects to sleep.
Ditch the Sales Lingo – I hear a lot of new hires leaving messages the way they think “salespeople” do. The fact of the matter is if you sound like a sales pitch or an infomercial, your prospects aren’t going to be inclined to return your message. Fast-talking sleazy salespeople in the movies are hilarious, but having one on the other end of your phone isn’t nearly as fun. Explain your product to your prospects as though you’re talking to them about it over lunch. Statistics and case studies have their place, but your voicemail isn’t it.
Keep it Short – Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, and no one wants to be held hostage by a two-and-a-half minute long voicemail. There are three things people are listening for in a message: Who are you? What do you want? How do they get back to you? If you go too much longer than that, you’re going to lose your audience. Remember that you’re following up with an email, so you don’t need to say every last thing about your product in your voicemail.
Prospects are bombarded with salespeople every day asking “for just a few minutes of their time.” Make yourself stand out by not acting like the rest of them. Recognize that your prospects are busy, and don’t want to listen to you blather on about how great your product is. Keep your message short and sweet. Try not to sound like someone from a late-night infomercial, and you’ll be well on your way towards messaging that actually generates responses.
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