Kevin Boyle

I do not look at cold calling as an isolated event. I also do not take the attitude that I am going to fail. In my mind, what I do is so critically important. Can you think of anything more important than a salespersons or business owners ability to connect with other people and get their ideas across? In my mind cold calling is more about starting a conversation and connecting with people and educating your prospects as to why you would be the best person to do business with.

Begin with these goals in mind and you will have more success with cold calling and prospecting. It will also change your mindset about why you are cold calling. When you change your mindset about cold calling and what your true objectives are it frees you and it also frees the person that you are calling. Cold calling is simply the start of a wonderful relationship with a person who doesn’t know you yet.

That should be your mindset.

Fact – it takes an average of 6 to 7 contacts with a prospect in order to make a sale. I think this is the reason why most people get so frustrated with cold calling and prospecting. Not fully understanding the nature and the reality of the daily stresses and challenges of the people that they’re calling. Today’s business owner and entrepreneur is simply overwhelmed with e-mail, things to do, and their own goals and agendas during the day. Not responding to your cold call is not a personal slight on you.

As a sales person or a business owner when you make peace with this concept and the realities of the people that you are trying to connect with then you can give yourself and them a break. So let’s take a look at a cold calling campaign.

Your objective; Cold Calling is about building awareness.

Rule #1 in prospecting.

People can’t have a relationship with you or buy from you if they are not aware that you exist.

Long-term strategy; cold calling is about believing in what you can do for other people and the positive impact that you can have on them and their business.

Rule 2 in prospecting.

I’ll say it again, just in case you missed it the first time – it takes an average of 6-7 contacts with a prospect over a period up to as much as 18 months in order to build a sufficient relationship with them, and where enough trust exists to make a sale.

Are you giving up after the second call? Are you following up throughout the year to continue to build your profile with your client to be, so that when they need your product or service they will call you?

So how does knowing this key piece of information affect your cold calling strategy?

Well first of all realize that in business to business selling as we have stated, is all about building relationships, and building relationships takes time. We know it – yet we procrastinate or allow our fear to control us. The time to start cold calling is not when your sales are in the tank, cold calling is about building sales for 2, 3, 4, 5 months from now.

Rule 3 in prospecting.

Always think in terms of value and speaking directly to your prospects concerns and challenges. Remember, your prospect is always asking themselves, why should I listen to you? Why should I respond to you?

Start a form, label it A B C and D

A – are companies who are interested and want to do business now
B – are companies who have indicated interest and are not rdy now
C – are companies that could use your product but have shown no interest in you
D – are companies who have purchased from you, and are moving from column A – for future business, referrals, testimonials and follow up.

A is pretty simple – make an appointment to go see them

B & C – develop a plan to continue contact with your prospects

- press releases
- articles that may interest them
- develop a piece – reason to do business #7 with your company
- a survey
- a referral for them
- an invitation to an upcoming trade show

After you have listed the activities that you can use to keep in contact with your prospects – then you need to map out the time frames, delivery means and the content.

For instance after your cold call you find out that they are not interested until Feb – that 5 months from now. A common mistake a lot of salespeople make is to phone back in Feb – and say hello its John from Grand Widgets we spoke last Sept and you said to give you a call. And they are left wondering who you are.

Where a savvy prospector – would have sent a thank you note after the cold call thanking them for taking the time to speak with them, and then followed up a month later with an article and thereafter within invite to a trade show. Perhaps a survey to ask their opinion on something or an educational marketing piece.

Building awareness takes time, persistence, and courage – make cold calling work for you!

Kevin, I need help with Getting My Foot in the Door!

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any tricks or tips on how to build long-term relationships with prospects? Please feel free to add your comments!

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Finding Your Niche!

The Take Away Close

The Top 10 Mistakes Business Owners Big and Small Make

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Your words have power.

Never underestimate the influence your words can have on others.

Every single marketing piece you have, your flyers, your emails have the power to either compell someone to respond to you or not.

Use your words to paint pictures for your prospects and your customers. Create a picture in their mind that speaks directly to them. That satisifies their immediate needs, their wants and their desires but also words that help alleviate their fears about making a poor purchase decision. 

Use your words to invite conversation, to empower people in their choices.

Your words cannot only influence the minds of people, but they can completely change their perception about a particular thing. Words have the persuasion power to entice and motivate. They are used by sales people, and business owners alike to pass on a message, the message? Why I should do business with you. These words are known as power words and they can do wonders when used properly in your marketing campaigns.

Words can create a sense of curiosity. Your customers and prospects will get the impression that your product or service is something that’s different from others by the words you choose to use. Laundry products have always been advertised as new and improved, from years gone by. The power of both these words and the product itself reinforces each other’s strength.

Take for instance the line ‘100% money back guarantee’, these powerful words help gain the trust of your customer for them to take a risk and buy. It is absolutely a must to print these words at the closing line of your advertisements or sales pages. After your guarantee, the methods of payment and how money will be returned if the customer is not satisfied should be also stated.

Invite curiousity and communicate with people in an authentic new way. Instead of asking someone if they would like to explore something, or if they are open to something or if they would be interested in something, (this is ALL salesmen language). Try new language! After asking a series of open ended questions, try this as a response instead…

“If you are looking to ______________ then have you considered ___________” 

See where it takes you, I guarentee you will be pleasantly surprized at the results!

Curiousity can be used in other ways. Employing the word “secret” in a headline is extremely effective.  People are knowledge thirsty, they want to know what others don’t know.   

Using the word Free in the headline simply does wonders. Your readers will more readily easily absorb your message, I mean who doesn’t like, free?  Usually the word FREE is spelled as FR~E or some other variation on websites or in emails as ISP filters blocks messages having the actual word, considering it to be spam.

“You” is a very important word to be used in an advertisement.

Do not write from “your” perspective, write from your customers perspective.

Directly point out the advantages to that particular customer in his or her own mind. I cannot state this strongly enough, the prospect must feel like you are speaking directly to them about his or her own particular concerns! This is perhaps the hardest part, step into the shoes of your customer and read it from their viewpoint.

The word ‘Immediately’ denotes that your reader should take action now. It can be interpreted as ‘Don’t wait, or I’m going to miss out!’ This motivates the customer to take necessary and quick action.

The basis of any successful advertisement is in understanding your consumer’s “core” needs and then designing the advertisement accordingly. Just stating the advantages of using the product or service of the company isn’t enough. Your sentences should be designed so that your customer sees the advantages in having your product or service right now. For example, when advertising for a digital camera, just stating that the in-built memory of the camera is of 1 GB, won’t do the trick.

Instead, your sentence should be changed to ‘enough memory to store up to 350 pictures or 50 videos’. The solution to the problem of your customer is reflected in ultimately what your customer really desires, a camera which can take a lot of high quality photo’s. 

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any tricks or tips on how to use your words more powerfully?Please feel free to add your comments!

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This is something that I highly reccomend both salespeople and business owners to do alike. The fact is within almost any given industry there is a “niche”, you just need to look for it, and understand what motivates your customers to buy.

For instance, I am a sales coach and trainer. I help sales people and business owners improve their sales results. But what is their real problem?

It’s getting more customers!

Right?

Well almost… you see if you dig a little bit deeper it really is more about cold calling reluctance. Every single sales person or business owner that I have ever worked with who has trouble in making their sales targets or meeting their budgets, has a problem with cold calling.

The majority of succesful sales people or business owners will tell you that generally the more successful a person is in business or in sales the more confortable they are and the better they are at with cold calling.

So I’ve discovered my “niche” but have I uncovered my customers “core” problem? Not quite yet… I know, I know I already said we were almost there… we need to dig “just” a little bit deeper. You see people who have difficulty in cold calling and prospecting, generally have some challenges in and around their own internal belief system about cold calling.

Why is that?

Well despite the naysayers, cold calling works and it builds businesses, profits and companies. You show me a struggling company or sales person and I will show you a sales person or sales force who has poor cold calling skills. Successful people exude confidence, and they don’t don’t have any problems picking up the phone and calling a prospect.

How can you apply this sales technique to your industry? No matter what you are selling I implore you to go deeper and discover what your true “niche” is and the real “core” problems of your customers. In this way you can really help your client get the break throughs that they are looking for.

Do you have an online business or are you thinking of taking your business online? Do you have the right product and/or service that targets a specific need?  What do you want to sell?  What is your passion?  What subject or topic do you have a lot of knowledge about?  Let me start by telling you that selling an informational products online is easier than selling a service.  But, selling a service online makes more money with monthly memberships. 

Before you spend all your time working on a website and writing up eBooks, you want to be sure that your customers are going to be interested in what you are selling.  Do your market research.  Start by seeing how many competitors you have.  Read through newsgroups, discussion boards, and chat rooms and learn about your target market customer base.  If you already have an email list, send them a survey to see what they are most interested in.

When researching your niche, use www.Amazon.com and find the current top sellers.  Find out what people are reading about.  You will want to research keywords with keyword tools such as www.wordtracker.com.  You need to discover which keywords are being searched for frequently. 

Doing a little poking around your competitors web sites and subscribing to their newsletters isn’t a bad idea.  This is one way to come up with ideas on what would make your company different or better.  Take a look at their traffic rankings (http://www.alexa.com/) and their related links.  By analyzing this information, you can see how many visitors they have each day and how profitable their company is.

When you discover your true “niche” and the “core” problems you address, “the real reasons why your customers buy from you”. You will notice your sales and marketing efforts dramatically improve. Why? Because you will be speaking in your customers language, and isn’t that the only language that really matters?

Would you like to learn practical sales skills and strategies on how to get your foot in the door, book more sales appointments and dramatically improve your sales results?

Then go here…

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

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The Choice Close

Feature Advantage Benefit Selling

Have you ever pondered the meaning of life?

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Whether you think you are doing really well or you are not, it never hurts to take a step back every 3-6 months and re-evaluate how you are doing and how well your business is really performing. No matter how large or small your business is, you cannot gauge the effectiveness of any changes you’ve made without analyzing the benefits and bottom line.

1) The business creedo of yourself and every single one of your employees should be simply this, ““EVERY member of our team who, in any capacity, comes in contact with our customers, is a salesperson, and the impression he or she makes, good or bad, is a lasting advertisement!” (quoted from Fast Company).

2) Do you know what PR is and how to use it to positively position your business in the media?  I’ll bet your competitors do.  Nearly every mention of a company or business in the newspapers and magazines is a direct result of publicity efforts.  Being quoted or featured in an article speaks volumes to your clients and readers who are your potential prospects.  A good PR consultant can do that for you and show you ways to extend the shelf life of that article beyond its publication.

3) Do you consider training and coaching, an expense or an investment?  I believe how you look at the money spent on your eduction affects your willingness to spend money at all.  Would you look at prescriptions as a waste of money? 

How is your financial health any different or less important than your physical health? Training and coaching is an investment in you, the future you envision for yourself, and your company. 

4) Do you have a sound prospecting and/or marketing plan in place? It takes time to build a profitable business. It takes time for your marketing efforts to start producing results. According to the Small Business Administration, the number one reason why businesses fail, is lack of financing. I think their wrong, I think it’s lack of planning and lack of sales.

Did you know that 50% of all new businesses fail within the first year? And that 95% of all new businesses fail within the first 5 years! Don’t be caught into thinking it won’t happen to you. Sales is the lifeblood of your organization, nothing superceeds sales.

5) What percentage of your business is from repeat customers? This is important to know because if it’s too low, then it needs to be improved.  The estimated cost of getting a new customer versus retaining an existing one can be as much as five to one in terms of dollars spent.  Keeping customers is more cost-effective than constantly seeking new ones. The next question you need to ask yourself, when is the last time we offered a new product or service? Have you conducted any market surveys from your present clients to see what kind of products or services they want to see from you? Loyal customers want to stay loyal, don’t make them go to competitors to get newer more innovative solutions.

Also, how do you build customer loyalty? If your customers don’t feel special when coming to you for products of services, why should they stay with you?  Have a customer appreciation day or a special invitation only sale for your regulars.  Create a mailing list of your regulars.  Send occasional post cards or greeting cards for Christmas, special events or just to keep in touch.  Learn to recognize them on sight and greet them by name when they visit you.

6) Do you have all of your systems in place? Do all of your prospecting and marketing pieces lead to one place? Does that one place convert visitors to buyers? Do you have systems in place to build relationships with your clients and to further solidify your relationships with current customers?

7) Do all of your sales and marketing materials project an image of professionalism? Do your customers fully understand the benefits of doing business with you? What problems do you solve for people? Is this reflected in your literature and your communication with prospects?

8 How long has it been since you really talked to one of your customers?  Just as you appreciate when your Doctor takes time to talk to you, your customers will appreciate you if you take an interest in their needs.  If you have a service business, have lunch or coffee periodically with some regulars – even if they only contact you once or twice a year.  The personal touch in an impersonal world will be remembered.

9) How is your business doing compared to your competition?  Every company, no matter what the size, has competition – even home-based businesses.  Is their business growing or downsizing? Is their pricing or service better than yours?  If so, what can you tell potential customers about the price difference?  Think about how you can improve your service to meet or exceed your customer’s expectations.

10) If you have employees, are they happy?  Don’t ask them directly, but observe them throughout the day.  Watch, listen and learn.  Employees who like their jobs don’t watch the clock for quitting time, aren’t habitually late, don’t have poor body language, don’t spend time on personal phone calls, and don’t look like they never smiled.  Observe how they interact with customers.  Not everyone is a match for direct contact with the public, so make sure you don’t have an employee who is driving business away.

Remember the old business manager adage, hire slow, fire fast.

And here is your bonus tip, when is the last time you really took a vacation? Don’t burn yourself out!

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

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Feature Advantage Benefit Selling

Delivering the WoW Factor!

Are you asking the right kinds of questions?

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A very good friend of mine once asked me, “Kevin, in your opinion what is it that we are really selling”?

A tough question to answer…. So many ”experts” say so many different things.

If you visit a lot of different sites today on selling most of them if not all of them – promote “benefit selling.”  If you have read my book or attended any of my sales seminars you would know that I do not use FAB (feature, advantage, benefit selling) techniques as the primary means to sell. To me FAB is only there to ensure that I have “the expertise” in what I am selling, I consider it “the foundation” work.

What I do I believe works is having a very strong Client Centered Value Proposition and asking good solid questions to learn about my prospects business and current challenges.

I honestly do believe using FAB to sell can actually hurt your chances of making a sale more than help it.

Please bear with me, while I explain. 

Take a person who wants to buy a car. The salesman taught to use feature, advantage, benefit selling. Might say, have we got a beautiful car for you today, and it’s on special! Just look at this beautiful car, top comes down so you can enjoy a nice country ride with the wind blowing through your hair, soft leather interior for you to just relax into, especially after a hard days of work, it’s a beautiful candy apple red and it has a CD player so you can listen to your favorite music! The customer says great, I would love to have a convertible, with a leather interior, but I want it in black and I want it with satellite radio.

See the problem with feature, advantage, benefit selling is that people can always object to features and advantages. You run the risk of causing a “disconnect” between you and your customer, of being thought of as not being truly present or listening.

Of conducting the meeting according to your own needs, rather than focusing on the only persons needs that really matter – your prospects or customers.

So what about benefits, they’re good aren’t they?

Well yes, they are…

Have you ever had someone tell you how great something is, how great the features are, all the advantages to owning, the benefits they’ll enjoy for years to come?

Have you ever found yourself drifting, your thoughts wandering aimlessly, as a salesperson starts telling you about features and benefits that you don’t even care about? You’re just nodding your head, trying to be polite hoping the salesperson will get to their point or just stop talking?

There is a BIG difference between selling something based on benefits and selling something based on “desired results”.

In regards to selling, the definition of benefit selling is: “In what way is it useful for me?”

While when you are selling “desired results” the definition is: “How is this going to change my life and impact my business?”

A very big difference.

You see the only way for you to know what your customer or prospects “desired results” are, is that you as a salesperson must:

1. Ask good questions
2. Be present
3. And LISTEN

Then you can sell. You take all of the information that your prospect has just given you, and then you “tailor” your presentation to give your prospect their “desired results”.

The “desired results” then becomes an EXPECTATION on the part of your prospect due to your promise. A promise between you and your customer. A promise on which your relationship to do business rests.

Now you have accountability.

Your reputation is on the line.

This is what “Sales Mastery” is really about, being able to look someone directly in the eye and with 100% confidence know that you can deliver your customers “desired results”.

That comes from years of honing my craft, years of working with sales people, sales managers and business owners who want their “desired results” whatever that might be.

I have 100% confidence that when I coach someone one on one, I can help anyone increase their sales.

That is a powerful place to come from.

This is why testimonials are so important. Testimonials prove that you can deliver on “desired results”. It proves that you deliver what you promise, that you are accountable and that you follow through.

I can back up what I say I can do for you, and to prove it you can speak to these people.

And as a customer, that pretty well sums it all up about what I want. Sell people “desired results” and take yourself one step closer to sales mastery.

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Please feel free to add your comments!

Kevin Boyle, Sales Trainer and Coach and Author “The Secrets to Sales Master”

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Delivering the WoW experience!

Are you asking the right questions?

The best cold calling advice I could ever give you!

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Just what is the meaning of life? Have you ever pondered and asked yourself “what is the meaning of life?” How far have you got with that question? I remember as a kid, climbing up on to a grassy hill, lying flat on my back and looking up into the sky, watching the cloud formations drift slowly by… I gave up “pondering” the question a long time ago, because I realized the futility of asking such a question. Is there really an answer?

Did you ever think that maybe there is no “one” answer?

Did you ever think that maybe you are asking the wrong question?

How about if you rephrased your question and asked, “What would give my life meaning”?

Did you feel a shift?

You should have.

Everything should just fall into place for you, just by asking yourself the same question only using different wording.

Puts a different perspective on things doesn’t it? We’ve have taken a seemingly unanswerable question and given it a multitude of answers! Now instead of being “stuck”, searching for an answer that seems to alude us, we now have freedom, the freedom to let our imagination and dreams take us where ever we want to go!

So, you are probably asking yourself, “Kevin, how does this concept apply to me closing more sales and building my business?”

Have you ever been “stuck” with a prospect or a customer? Maybe you are asking the wrong kinds of questions…

When I sit down with a prospect or a client he or she may not realize the impact his or her problems are having on their business. We want to explore the implications of our prospects or clients in not taking any actions to solve their problems.

There is a process for doing this. I call it layering questions.

For instance, my main question I always begin my presentation with is: “I’m just curious, Bob–what do you see as being some of the biggest challenges for your sales team right now?”

His response might be, “Being proactive in getting new business.”

What then?

With our client we need to explore the implications of his or her sales staff’s not being proactive enough in getting new business.

In order to create even more value in our client’s mind, we need to thoroughly understand the impact this will have on his or her business and build on the original question by layering. The way I do this is to ask further questions about what effect that (not being proactive or cold calling) has on their business right now in terms of sales.
 
* By the way, how fast is your industry growing right now?
* How proactive are your competitors in soliciting new business?
* How is this affecting your market share?

This makes the client think. If my people are not being proactive, my competitors’ salespeople are. That means my competitor is getting my business!

When you ask the right questions and layer them, it gives you an opportunity to really give your clients a different perspective on what the cost of doing nothing to solve their problem really is.

Authored by Kevin Boyle, Sales Coach, Trainer and Author of “The Secrets to Sales Mastery”.

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any tricks or tips on how to use questions more effectively? Please feel free to add your comments!

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How to use stories to overcome objections…

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What do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you know what you want out of life? Are you living the life you have always wanted? For me I knew early on that I wanted one thing out of life, I wanted to be the captain of my own ship.

It has had it’s risks, but I do enjoy the freedom of being an entrepreneur and the life experiences it has brought me.

Today, I want to talk to you about what I believe to be the 5 requirements for success:

1. getting an education
2. setting goals
3. passion
4. relationships
5. ownership

I enjoy devoting my time to the community and one way that I do that is through Junior Achievement BC.
JA is a high school program that teaches students how to run a business. This is my 4th year of being a facilitator for JA and I have to admit I love it!

Every year I am asked to give an informal presentation on my perspective on what a person should do if they want to prepare themselves to be an entrepreneur.

1) Getting an education.

Let me clarify myself here, I’m talking in a broader sense about “learning”. I don’t care what age you are. Never stop learning. There is always something you don’t know and there is always something that you thought you did know, but you really didn’t, and there is always someone out there that knows more than you. (having said this, if you are in younger I strongly reccomend gettign a good solid education).

If you are an adult, take at least one seminar or course a year on your current occupation. You can always be better at what you do. Why? Because if your dream is to be an entrepreneur you are going to need to be an expert in what you do and you will also need a lot of secondary skills to back you up while you get your feet planted firmly on the ground in your business.

Besides what are you going to do when a key employee gets sick? As a small business owner or entrepreneur you need to wear many different hats.

If you are a young adult, go to University! I can’t stress this enough. As a young person your eduction is critically important to what kinds of jobs you are going to be able to get and what kinds of doors will open for you. If you are still uncertain what you want to be when you grow up (who ever grows up?) then take a business degree. Sales and business is a very viable career option.

2) Setting Goals (long and short term)

You can’t get somewhere if you are wandering aimlessly through life. Goals keep us moving forward, they make us accountable to ourselves. I write out a to do list every morning. It keeps me focused and on track.

Break big goals into smaller goals. It’s much easier to tackle a task when you don’t see some huge monumental mountain in front of you, and don’t forget to reward yourself when you reach those goals!

Remember those who “fail to plan, plan to fail”.

3) Passion

You must love what you do. when you love what you do it’s much easier to stay up until 2 am because you have a project that must be finished by the next day for an important client.

Having passion for what you do also manifests itself in your sales presentations. People will sense that you are passionate about what you do and they will be drawn towards you.

4) Relationships

You can’t get where you are going alone, and why would you want to? The fact is, 99% of what we want to do in life, someone else has done it. “People who have been there done that” can help us get to where we want to go 10 times faster. So why not ask them out for lunch? You might be surprized by their answer! You will generally find that the more successful a person is the more they will want to share their experiences, their trials, and their insights with others.

Never forget the power of relationships and how they can help you get to where you want to go. The geeky guy you went to high school with just might be the next Bill Gates!

5) Ownership

In my opinion there just is no better way to go. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what stage of life you are in, freedom to create, to build, to experience – there’s just nothing like it. Have there been rough times? You bet, during the early stages there were some very close calls where I didn’t know if I was going to make it.

Despite what the late night infomercials and the internet snake oil salesman will tell you there are no short cuts. Having a successful business takes a lot of hard work and knowing the right things to do.

I do want to leave you with one thing I’ve learned over the years since becoming an entrepreneur. Free information you find off the internet is generally worth what you paid for it. There’s nothing worse than having a limited supply of money and blowing it on a promotion or “idea” that doesn’t work.

Free advice from a mentor is priceless.

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Please feel free to add your comments!

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If you would like to learn more innovative new skill sets and strategies to help you build an incredibly successful business and dramatically improve your sales results, visit my web site http://www.salesmasterybook.com and subscribe to my FREE 8 part email home study e-course on relationship sales and marketing!

What does it take to succeed as a salesperson?
 
Persistence

A good attitude

The will to prevail

Courage

Vision!

I read somewhere that, Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he “had no good ideas”. Colonel Sanders was told by many that “you are too old to start a new business”. Sam Walton was told by the executives of the Ben Franklin chain “your ideas for a discount store are not workable.” F. W. Woolworth was told by his supervisors that “you don’t have enough sense to wait on customers”. Beethoven was told by one of his instructors that “you are hopeless as a composer”. what have you been told that you can’t do?

Quite simply, we all learn through failure. The only true failure is to stop trying.

We all admire the person who has made it, the top performers, however often we don’t see the struggle that it took them to get there; winners continuously invest in training, hard work, their focused and determined. Never be discouraged when things don’t work out – keep at it! It comes down to applying effective behaviors that you can learn from others who are doing it. Will you put in the effort? It’s up to you. 

True motivation comes from AMBITION

Top sales people are ambitious, they take personal responsibility and make things happen.

Are you proud to be a sales person? Do you LOVE your work? Do you like your job?

The person who builds a better mousetrap – or a better anything – will starve to death if he waits for anyone to beat a pathway to his door. Regardless of how good, or how needed, the product or service might be, it has to be sold.

People stared at the first fax machine wondering who to transmit to. Edison had to install his electric light free of charge in an office building before anyone would even look at it. Morse had to plead before Congress before they would even look at his telegraph.

Do you remember the first computers? Do you remember your first time on the internet? Often we don’t always understand what the benefit of something is unless someone, sells it to us. Someone told you about the internet, they created a curiosity within you.

Everything, needs a salesperson. Our society thrives on the selling of products and services.

We need salespeople, trailblazers, pioneers, – people who can persuade us as the inventor can invent. Sales people took these inventions, sold the public on what these products could do and taught customers how to use them.

Are you proud to be a salesperson? I know I am!

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

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My first time!

A defining moment of truth?

Every interaction you have with your prospects, customers and clients is a defining moment of truth.

One of the most prevalent problems I see with most companies today is at the customer service level, whether it be with their sales people or their customer service reps. The best people I’ve ever had the pleasure of either working with or having work for me were people who took ownwership and pride in the company that they worked for.

Efficiency vs. Customer Service.

We get so caught up in what we need to do. We forget, customers are not dependant on us, we are dependant on them… we are in business, have jobs, and ultimately get paid because of people who choose us over doing business with someone else. In my opinion this is a gift! I am so very very grateful for each and every person who decides to do business with me.

And it shows in every interaction I have with them. Not only are first impressions so critically important, but so are the impressions you leave people with, your very last impression before your next call!

Due to the administrative demands of our positions, we often forget this one simple credo, customers are not an interruption of our work, they are why we are here. It seems that most small companies and entrepreneurs know this credo only to well.

They have too, simply to survive. The larger the company, the more likely this message gets lost. Why do you ask…

· Call Volumes, people start to feel overwhelmed

· Poor communication between departments

· Internal Cliques

· Job dissatisfaction

· Putting more emphasis on own internal requirements.

 
The front end people, the ones in the trenches start to lose sight of why they’re really there, what is my priority? Why am I here? To satisfy internal job requirements? Or to keep customers happy? Am I happy?

So they busily fill out forms and try and get through the day and when a call comes in, or a client walks in… they see the call or walk in as an annoyance, something to get done quickly and efficiently, and that one thought gets conveyed to your customer.

93% of all communication is non verbal. What messages are your people really conveying to your customers?
 

I think every person within your organization should post this sign where they can see it.

 
“EVERY member of our team who, in any capacity, comes in contact with our customers, is a SALESPERSON, and the impression he or she makes, good or bad, is a lasting ADVERTISEMENT!” (quoted from Fast Company).

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

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In my opinion anyone who wants to be really successful as a business or a salesperson has to stop playing lip service to this very critical concept in sales. Sales is a contact sport. You cannot be building relationships with people if you are not reaching out and touching your friends, business associates, customers and prospects in some meaningful way. And what has meaning to your friends, business associates, customers and prospects?

People will care about you when they know that you care about them.

Do you know what professional organizations or associations your sphere of influence belongs too? Do you know the names of their wives or husbands? Do you know about their interests and hobbies?

There is another part to this, and that is the contact part, you can’t have meaningful relationships with people if you are not reaching out and “contacting” them.

Be with your prospects and customers in their environment!

Volunteer for community events, join toastmasters, join social groups. Get active in your community!

Invite them to a football, basketball or hockey game.
Invite them out to play a round of golf. Invite 2 other people who would make a great fit for your prospect, business associate or customer.

1) Online Social Marketing
2) Participation in community and social activities
3) Professional activites: public speaking, writing articles, posting useful comments on blogs…

It never ceases to amaze me how much business Toastmasters has brought me. In fact I have got more business in one year from Toastmasters than I have ever got from some very notable business networking organizations in five!

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear about people “complaining” about doing business the “old school way” over lunch or a round of golf. There’s a reason these time tested methods work so well…

People prefer to do business with people that they know, that they like and that they trust! Most people would prefer to get to know you “outside” of the suit and the tie. People want to connect with the “real” you.

If you are serious about growing your business and increasing your sales by getting more referral business then get out of your office or your home and start connecting!
Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”
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