Category — Sales Prospecting

In three seconds your prospects make a choice between reading and trashing your email. Clearly your objective is to get them not only to read it, but to respond so you can set an appointment and begin the sales process. That means you need to find a way to get past their delete barrier.

There are two keys to successful email prospecting:

1. The message
2. Your personal approach

Even if you’re emailing a list of prospects who’ve never heard of you or your company, you can get replies from your campaigns. Take Hank for example.  Read more...

Finding new ways to connect what you sell with those who are ready to buy is a constant challenge in sales. Even if you’re already hitting your sales targets, a good salesperson is always looking for ways to close more business in less time.

Connecting, getting a conversation started with your market and then sustaining that conversation requires that you apply a range of skills at your disposal as a sales professional. This involves engaging field-tested activities (and I’ll be talk about those in an upcoming article), but it also requires that you give some thought to creating and reinforcing what can be called a “sense of place.”  Read more...

A recent article I wrote titled, “Prospecting Letters Still Open Doors” sparked quite a response from readers recently and I just have to share their ideas with you! They disclosed their best secrets for using letters to gain access to some of their toughest prospects.

Most sellers today prefer to send an email in an attempt to get in the door and secure an appointment. I know because I train thousands of them every year on how to write prospecting emails that’ll get a response. While this strategy absolutely works, a personal letter causes you to stand out in a crowd of digital lemmings – especially in an over-competitive, reluctant marketplace.  Read more...

I’m often asked about the effectiveness of letters as a prospecting strategy in today’s electronic world. You see email, cold calling, and webinar tips, but rarely hear about letters.

Direct mail has fallen off considerably. Anything suspected to be a sales approach gets tossed in the name of productivity savings. It’s harder than ever to ensure your letter reaches the intended recipient. Even when you pay the extra money to send it via Express Mail it’s frequently an assistant who opens your letter and determines if the boss will read it.  Read more...

What’s the first thing that goes through your head when you get a call from a sales rep? If you answered, “I can’t wait to get them off the phone,” then you’re not alone.

In fact, when a telemarketer calls me up at home and says those words that immediately identify them as a sales person, the “How are you today?” line, my first thought is, “I’ll be great as soon as I get rid of you!”  Read more...

Prospecting has never been harder – or easier. Yes, it’s hard to get responses, but you have all the tools at your finger tips to increase your odds of grabbing the attention of your top contacts and getting a reply.

Gone is the dialing for dollars mentality. You can do better than that.

You can use these tools to do everything from identifying who your best-odds prospects are to deducing why they’d want to speak with you, writing a powerful email, and ultimately attracting them to you. Here are some of my favorites.  Read more...

I’ve written, tested, re-written, tweaked, copy edited, composed, marketed, reviewed, and used thousands of telemarketing scripts over the last 26 years.

I’ve written and used opening scripts, closing scripts, prospecting cold calling scripts, warm inbound scripts, closing scripts, rebuttal scripts, trial close scripts, initial resistance scripts, blow off scripts, qualifying scripts, etc….

Bottom line? Nobody writes better scripts than yours truly, Mr. Inside Sales. Heck, I wrote the book on scripts The Complete Book of Phone Scripts. When companies and sales reps hire me to write or review or tweak their prospecting scripts, almost always I find they are saying or doing the same things wrong. In this article, I’m going to give you The 5 Secrets to writing Killer Prospecting Scripts.  Read more...

In today’s economy you need every advantage in your sales kit. Prospects are scrutinizing all requests for their time and each purchase decision.

You want to pass their piercing investigation but the sales tools you’ve used in recent years aren’t cutting it. You need something more, and testimonials are the answer. They can be the difference maker in not just winning opportunities but also in attracting attention in the first place.

Testimonials are your clients’ stamp of approval. They provide an independent perspective that gives prospects insight into how you work, how effective your solutions are, and the results others have experienced through engaging you.  Read more...

Any change, or even an attempt to change anything you are doing, makes you uncomfortable. By attempting to change, you move out of your comfort zone. You feel increasingly uneasy. You experience stress and tension.

If the change is too extreme, your physical and mental health can be affected. You will experience sleeplessness, indigestion, or fatigue. You may react with impatience, irritability or anger. You will often feel as if you are on an emotional roller-coaster.

Raise Your Internal Standards…
So if you want to sell more and earn more, you must increase your self-concept level of income. You must increase the amount you believe yourself capable of earning.  Read more...

Selling is a contact sport and prospecting for new business is the name of the game! You’ll never meet a salesperson that failed because they had too many prospects to talk to. For the majority of salespeople, finding new customers is without a doubt the most difficult and stressful aspect of the profession.

Here are six, practical tips to help you become more effective at generating new business and following up with prospects.  Read more...