\n* Warm call, where you’ve been introduced by a mutual friend or you’ve already met the person; or
\n* Phone in, where the person calls you and wants to do business with you.<\/p>\n
Obviously, phone ins are the most desirable types of business generating activities. But they don’t happen by accident.<\/p>\n
Phone-Ins If you’re not actively getting your name in front of potential customers your phone will never ring.<\/p>\n You have to position yourself in the mind of the customer that you’ve a product or service that they would find of value. This is something that companies spend thousands, tens of thousands, Look at the amount of money Proctor & Gamble; General Motors, and Microsoft spend on television, radio, newspaper and magazine advertising<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you don’t have that kind of money to spend, you can mail out postcards, form letters, electronic newsletters – like this one, and create a Web site.<\/p>\n But just because you’ve done all of the above, doesn’t guarantee that anybody will respond to your advertising, marketing or promotional activities.<\/p>\n Surprisingly, even though sales people ‘dream’ of getting phone-ins, many of them never get around to picking up the phone and calling these people back.<\/p>\n How many hot leads do you have laying on the top of your desk that you haven’t ‘pounced’ on?<\/p>\n What’s keeping you from picking up the phone, closing the sale, and putting some money in the bank?<\/p>\n Warm Calls But what are you going to do with those business cards you’ve collected? Put them in the lap drawer of your desk? Add the person to your database? Then what?<\/p>\n If you’re going to wait for the person to call you, it will probably be a long time before the phone rings.<\/p>\n It’s still your responsibility to pick up the phone.<\/p>\n Studies have shown that the most successful networkers are the ones who follow-up with the people they meet.<\/p>\n Cold Calling So What!<\/p>\n Here are three questions to ask yourself:<\/p>\n 1. What’s the worst thing that can happen? You get hung up on, or somebody could yell at you. (You could hang up on them!)<\/p>\n 2. What’s the best thing that could happen? You could get an appointment, close a sale, and make some money.<\/p>\n 3. What’s the most likely thing that would happen? You speak to the person and they aren’t interested. You get voice mail. You get blocked by a gatekeeper.<\/p>\n When I first started out in sales I was whining about getting rejected. Pauline Novak, my trainer, grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, “Jeff, if you aren’t being rejected, you’re not trying hard enough!!!”<\/p>\n If you figure that only one of every hundred prospects will do business with you than your challenge is to find a hundred leads, work them as fast as possible, find the one person who buys, throw the When you speak with someone who says NO, that’s not rejection. It’s confirmation.<\/p>\n Three things happen when you overcome your fear of cold calling:<\/p>\n 1. You close more of the phone-in sales because you respond to their inquiries immediately.<\/p>\n 2. You create more opportunities from your warm calls because you follow-up with the people you met at your networking events.<\/p>\n 3. You stumble on some very nice pieces of business because you called on someone who just happened to need the things you sold at the moment you called.<\/p>\n Letters & Faxes Don’t Close Business “I’ve a bunch of prospects for my services and I’ve mailed 20 letters to these companies to introduce my firm to them. Nobody has responded to my letter of introduction, and believe me, Sally should be picking up the phone to call her prospects instead of whining to me. But if you’re running a business with only 20 prospects you’re in big trouble. You need to have a much larger universe of prospects.<\/p>\n The same day I got Sally’s e-mail I got a fax from Steve\u00a0 promoting his company’s services. This is how the fax read:<\/p>\n To: Owner\/General Manager [The Please Reply box was circled.]<\/p>\n This was Steve’s handwritten note:<\/p>\n Business consulting services to small and medium sized businesses, and if so, I’d like to speak to the owner or general manager. We just finished compiling a group of prospects located in your area that are targeted to spend money on outside consulting services this year.<\/p>\n Your prospects are guaranteed and proven to be the quickest and easiest way to make more money with very little effort.<\/p>\n If you want new corporate customers, call me at 1-800-222-1234.\u00a0 I would like to help you!<\/p>\n Thanks<\/p>\n Steve Jamison<\/p>\n I don’t know where Sally and Steve got the idea that they could get business by writing a handful of letters or sending out a bunch of faxes. It doesn’t work.<\/p>\n If you want to grow your business you’ve got to use the telephone.<\/p>\n Pounce on all your phone-ins and close the sale<\/a>. Turn your warm leads into happy customers. And use the telephone to look for new customers.<\/p>\n Learn how to use the phone more effectively and you could double your business during the next twelve months.<\/p>\n – Jeffrey<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>If you want to have people phoning you and wanting to buy your products, you must create advertising, marketing and\/or promotional campaigns where people hear of you and want to learn more about what you can do for them.<\/p>\n
\nor tens of millions of dollars on.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>The next best type of prospect is a warm call. This could be a referral or someone you met at a conference, convention or a networking event.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>This is the one area of sales that ‘everybody’ hates to do. Calling on someone who they’ve never spoken to before. Why? Because they’re afraid of being rejected.<\/p>\n
\nother 99 names away, and find another list of 100 names.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>With these thoughts in mind, I received this e-mail from Sally who is telling me her tale of woe:<\/p>\n
\nit’s a good one.”<\/p>\n
\nFrom: Steve Jamison
\nRe: New Corporate Customers<\/p>\n
\n[He started with an incomplete sentence.]<\/p>\n
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