Thank you for putting me through!

Thank you for putting me through! 

People often come to me and ask me the best way to get past a gatekeeper, the receptionist that is screening your calls because they are told not to put ‘sales calls’ through to senior people within their organisations. 

Something we often don’t realise is that if we cannot speak to the decision maker to present our offering we cannot sell our products or services. So getting through to the key person is somewhat important and what I am about to share with you is something I was told a while back and when I am making prospecting calls I use this technique and it works wonders. 

Now, when making your next call try this;

Steve - Good morning, could you put me through to Mr Gates please? Thank you! 

What I have done here is asked them to put me through to Mr Gates (likely you would get through to ‘THE’ Mr Gates mind!!) whilst closing it off with Thank you! This is important as it’s the assumption that you have spoken to him before and you’re thanking them for putting you through before they have had the chance to ask you any challenging questions.

Granted, this will not work all the time, however, if you can speak to more decision makers by closing the gatekeeper on your initial opening request you will be able get in front of more prospects and in turn you will sell more.

Remember though, it’s very much of a loose saying of ‘Thank you’ at the end of your opening statement. Try saying it to yourself and/ or a colleague to get the hang of it. Then try it, you will be amazed at the amount of gatekeepers that will automatically put you through.

Let me know how you get on and hope this helps you like it has helped me and many other using this simple yet effective technique, Thank you!

Looking at the reason why we are great!

Looking at the reason why we are great!

 

Sometimes when I am having a challenging day or finding it difficult to find new business I occasionally can sit here thinking to myself – What am I going to do? How can I drum up some business? What can I do differently?    

We can all answer those questions but what I do to instantly change my mental thought process is look at previous successes and business wins from recent times – This triggers an instant motivation from within and you can inspire you to go on and make the next few hours a lot more than the last.

Its human nature we all like to feel good about ourselves and when we see we have done a good job, like we adore those who give us praise or again – Tell us we done a great job we feel GREAT!

So next time we find ourselves knocking on many closed doors we look at some of the prosperous times we have had doing exactly what we are doing today and make a difference to our mind set. As we all know selling success is 80& psychological and 20% skills and techniques.   

I remember reading that people make decisions emotionally and with this we make decisions ourselves emotionally. That’s why we decide based on a feeling, need, or emotion, not though a logical thought process. That’s why intangible benefits are the keys to persuasion. When you’re talking, you should think to yourself, “What is the emotional hot button here?”                 

Of course, this barely scratches the surface. Psychology is a deep and eternally revealing line of study. And while I don’t believe in making things more complicated than they have to be, I think there is great benefit in knowing not only what people do and what we do, but also why we all do it.

Top 5 Skills Every Leader Must Have

Top 5 Skills Every Leader Must Have

 

I come across this great post on Leadership this morning and wanted to re-post. Its an article from Steve Tobak - He talks about the skills that we need to become great leaders and goes into detail with some really good content.

Steve Tell's us that the world moves fast and if you can't keep up, your company is doomed. Here are five skills that every leader must have to run a company in today's culture.

A few years ago, I saw a video by a Harvard professor on competences for adapting to a changing world. Frankly, it was embarrassing. It was the biggest load of pseudo-intellectual garbage I’d ever heard.

Still, the world is changing. It’s becoming a more complex place. I guess that’s always been the case, but the rate of change appears to be accelerating. Given that’s the case, then what are the real capabilities will people need to distinguish themselves--to become the leaders, the innovators, the success stories of a new age?

Fortunately, as a veteran of the high-tech industry, I’ve known and worked with some of the most capable and accomplished folks around. Here are five competences that not only set them apart, but are becoming more and more important all the time. No, they’re not new-age business school jargon. Some aren’t even new. But what’s important is that they work.  

Please follow the link to the Top 5 Skills Every Leader Must Have

If you have any other relevant skills, tips or information please share on a comment below.

 

Calling the Next Door Neighbour

Calling the Next Door Neighbour

This is something that I have always found to be very useful and it more often than not missed. When we win a new client one thing we should always be vigilant about and I seen it many times where Sales Professionals are not, - thus is their ‘location’ as they may be based in a prime business area or business park with many companies around them.

Now, as we are now doing business with company based at Office A, we can now contact Office B, C, D and so on... We can find all the information online all we need to do is simply, key the postcode into Google or even royal mail address checking facility. It then kicks out all the local business and we have an instant reason to call them.

The big reason here is we all like to know what the ‘Jones’ are up to and what is new in their business even if we don’t like to admit this. So when we call the Offices around our ‘new client’ we can make reference to the business pain we solved with our customer and how we can do the same for them. This is very powerful as you have immediately created some common ground and ‘hooked’ the potential client’s interest and he is now listening to you and what you have to say.

More reasons this is again very useful is many businesses talk – they might even know each other but as they are based next to one another they are aware! Your new customer may even be able to make this even easier for you as you could use him as a soft reference point! Should the client wish to be contacted (permission from the client is essential here as a new client might feel uncomfortable about giving you a reference so early on and especially if he has not been prepped beforehand this could become very uncomfortable for the future).

This technique done effectively is a great way to win new business and can create a warmer approach to prospecting.

Going forward, if you need any additional information on the technique detailed above, please contact me on:

nobusinesslikenewbusiness@gmail.com