"93% of business owners who have used the system have experienced a 34% increase in their total number of clients and a 42% increase in sales in the first year alone."

This comes from the dust jacket of a new book (Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port).  I chuckled when I read it because it may be a little over-the-top but it does demonstrate the value of using numbers in a value proposition.

I have found over the years that adding numbers to my phone or in-person introductions greatly increases my success in getting a “tell me more” reaction (usually what I want).

This works for cold-calling scripts, networking events, presentations and printed collateral. So when developing something to say consider finding some statistics to incorporate into your message. 

$$$ figures work best - since everyone understands money. 

Most companies struggle to find hard monetary payoffs from their clients’ use of their products/services.  However, you can often approximate payoffs by considering some operational improvements you made to your client's business and then estimating $ savings attributable to these improvements.

So next time you want to get through to someone consider the power of numbers.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Edward Golod, the founder of Revenue Accelerators and a successful Fortune 100 sales professional, entrepreneur of three business, and impassioned sales evangelist offers up an excellent post in the Adotas Weblog: How to Sell without Actually Sounding Like a Salesperson. Here are several excerpts:

The best salespeople know that selling comes down to relationship building, and doing it very quickly. And since just about everybody resents being in a relationship that feels disingenuous, it’s crucial that you do NOT sound like stereotypical salesperson.

Here are several ways to help you avoid coming off like a used car seller:

1. Put your self-interest on the back burner - Your goal is to make quota. But all those proven, consultative sales techniques you have learned will NOT work unless you put your self-interest aside while you build a new relationship.

2. Listen, listen, listen… 80% of the time - When you’re building a relationship, you’re selling trust, and trust comes from “active” listening.

3. You must ask the correct questions - Since selling is about helping executives make buying decisions, the best thing to do is ask questions to help the discovery process along.

4. Become an equal to the executive - Decision-makers do not usually want to spend time with salespeople. Period! They want to work with businesspeople that provide solutions, and fix problems that address painfully business situations. Be an equal and be confident.

5. Count before you respond - When responding to common objections, take a deep breath and hold it for 3 seconds. You need to be calm, focused, and fit the context of the relationship you are building.

6. Trust comes from sharing…do NOT interrupt - Do NOT sell to your prospect while they are sharing.

7. Do not abuse knowing their name - When talking; do not over-use the prospect’s name.

8. In essence, care about them! - When relating to people, care about them and tell them.

Conclusion - Selling is hard work, especially in the online media world. You need to stand out, be unique, and quickly sell your value to higher-level executives. Using a disciplined, structured approach will get you there faster, as it has over the last 20 years in filed selling across the country. Practice well, practice smart, but practice.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sales people use the telephone, marketing people write...but either way both have the same goal - leads.

When I talk to sales people about prospecting they immediately think "telephone".  When I talk to marketing people about lead generation they immediately think about writing something - letter, email, website etc.

But actually over time I have come to believe that the best way to generate leads is by using a "multimedia" approach.  By combining the telephone with letters, email and multi-dimensional mailers (books, gifts etc.) you increase your chances of finding the "medium" that appeals to that particular executive.

During my sales career I have found that some prospects regularly answer their telephone, some never seem to answer their phone, some people respond instantly to email (and carry their Blackberry or Treo everywhere), and some people need to receive a good old-fashioned letter before they respond.

I have personally experienced several situations where sending executives something creative like a gift basket with customized contents and then following up consistently by phone finally landed a meeting with a very hard to reach CEO, CFO or CIO.

Several other sales experts have written about the need to use "multimedia" in your prospecting. You can read more from Jill Konrath, Brian Carroll and Jim Logan.

So when prospecting don't put all your eggs in one basket...go multimedia!

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Good news for sales executives this week...Spoke (www.spoke.com) announced that it is making its service available for free for individual sales and business people. 

This makes available another really effective way to find executives in your target accounts.  First-out-of-the-gate with a great tool to do this were my friends at Jigsaw (www.jigsaw.com) 

Both Spoke and Jigsaw allow sales people to search for hard-to-find executive titles that do not appear on public filings or on services like Hoovers (www.hoovers.com).  This is especially useful for those of us who sell to large Fortune 1000 companies where finding the appropriate decision-maker can take many hours of work on the phone and/or online.

Both services can be used free if you share your contact knowledge with the community using each service.  If you don't want to share, you can pay instead.  Either way both services are affordable and allow individual sales people to use them on their own initiative without relying on the tools made available (or not) by their companies.

For sales people selling to the enterprise I recommend checking out both services...you might just make your job a little easier.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)