The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » Cold Calling Tips

12 Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

Confidence. It’s one of those key ingredients that needs to be present in our formula for success. If you look at anyone at the top - in business, in politics, in entertainment, in sports, one common denominator each one of these leaders possess is an unshakeable degree of confidence in themselves, in their abilities and in their beliefs.

Confidence makes up much of the fuel that drives us, the over-achievers, the dreamers, the visionaries, the driven, the passionate and those who simply want to be the best at what they do; the entrepreneur who’s looking to build a successful business, the manager who wants to empower his team and make them winners, the salesperson who’s looking to post large monthly sales numbers, the sole practitioner seeking to build a sustainable practice or the up and comer starting a new career and is looking to make their mark in order to ascend through the ranks within their company.

The challenge for maintaining an infallible, unshakable high degree of confidence is that for most people, it seems to be conditional. Rather than being absolute, most people’s level of confidence changes based on their situation and experiences. Sometimes it’s at an all time high. Yet, other times their level of confidence is shaken or challenged based on an encounter they had, a mistake that was made, a failure, or an inability to produce a desired result.

The myth surrounding confidence is this: The overall sense of confidence you have about yourself is based upon your experiences and what you produce. As such it will continue to eternally vacillate, as most people allow their internal condition to be dictated by their external situation.

In my article, The Secret to Building the Confidence of a Champion, you’ll discover the hidden power that we, as human beings have at our disposal but rarely do we tap into its fullest potential. I’m referring to the greatest power we all possess. That is, our power of choice and out ability to choose to be confident as an absolute rather than as a condition of circumstance.

You can read the full article here.

For more information or to register, click here.

I’m delivering my last public tele-seminar on Prospecting and Cold Calling this Thursday, entitled, Permission Based Prospecting. I say it’s my ‘last’ one on this subject for 2008, as my new book for managers, executives and business owners on how to transition from managing to coaching salespeople will be my focus for the rest of this year. Here’s the course description as well as the agenda for this 1 hour and 30 minute seminar:

Permission Based Prospecting™

Does this sound familiar? ‘If I could get in front of the prospect, the rest of the selling process becomes easier. It’s just getting in front of them that’s the challenge.’ The fact is most cold calling efforts are doomed from the start. Salespeople lose sales not due to a lack of effort but because they lack a prospecting system they are comfortable with and can trust to generate greater, consistent results. With more business conducted virtually and more sales being closed over the telephone, strengthening your telephone communication skills becomes essential to leveraging your competitive edge - or be left behind.

If you are prospecting the same way you have been for the last several years (including the ‘calling to check in, touch base or follow-up’ approach) or haven’t been prospecting at all, you’re simply making it easier for your competition to take away the new business you are working so hard to earn.

So, if you love to sell but hate (or don’t like) to prospect, then learn from best selling author and renowned executive sales coach Keith Rosen how to maximize your cold calling potential and boost your income by learning how to get in front of the right prospects in less time and create greater selling opportunities without the fear, pressure or anxiety associated with cold calling.

Agenda

I was recently asked what the top five things businesses and salespeople can do to attract more business and find more qualified prospects. Certanily something top of mind for every company. “Where do we mine for new business?”

One option is to outsource your lead generation or new business development efforts to an outbound marketing company. I have some clients who rely on this option with great success. They have found companies located both in the states as well as overseas, particularly in the Philippines where the hourly wage is certanily more competitive. Of course, outsourcing overseas comes with its on inherent risks and trade offs.

Another common option for salespeople is to mine through company websites and develop their own custom targeted call list of prospects. As you can imagine, while highly effective, it’s also very time consuming.

As such, many companies and sales professionals turn to third party solutions that provide lists of companies you can call on. These companies vary in both how they charge as well as the type of targeted data and information they provide. Some of these list providers offer very targeted and relevant data on the companies you’re looking to call on where the lists they provide can be broken down by industry, profession, size, years in business, position (i.e. CEO, sales manager, VP, HR, as well as their contact information) location even by number of employees. Here’s a short list of companies who provide this type of service.

www.idexec.com
www.goleads.com
www.salesgenie.com
www.netprospex.com
www.jigsaw.com
www.hoovers.com
www.dnb.com
http://www.listengage.com/emarketing.asp
www.maxprodata.com

Please note, I am not endorsing any of these sites in particular, just offering you several options that are available for business owners and salespeople who are looking to mine for specific prospects. I share these sites with my clients, as each site has their own advantages and disadvantages, and provide different levels and depth of data. It’s a pretty comprehensive effort to research the solution that works for each individual, as everyone needs different data points on each prospect.

Yet, at the end of the day, I’m always shocked and amazed as to why companies don’t leverage the selling opportunities that are right in front of them, without having to spend time and money on leads, call lists or outbound telemarketers.

Here are seven additional and highly effective ways to generate new prospects without having to spend a penny.

1. Become an expert voice.
2. Prospect your prospects.
3. Mine within existing accounts for upselling opportunities.
4. Mine within existing accounts for opportunities to be introduced to other people within the organization, possibly in a different division of the company.
5. Set up referral agreements with existing clients.
6. Networking
7. Partnering and collaborating with other companies to cross-sell products and services.

So, before you hire some outbound calling company or purchase your next prospect list to use for your cold calling efforts, I most certainly suggest that business owners leverage the first seven strategies I suggest above. If you find that your efforts are not resulting in enough new business nor brings in the volume of prospects you need to hit your goals, or if you simply find that time constraints and additional responsibilities are preventing you from generating new prospects on your own, then it would make sense to explore these additional lead/list providers as an additional complementary vehicle that will assist you in developing a targeted list where you can generate new prospects (or have someone do the calling for you).

Keep in mind, the positioning of each of these seven strategies is different and each requires a mapped out process and approach to achieve success and the results you want. Most salespeople unfortunately don’t spend the time creating their step by step approach nor do they fully leverage these seven strategies that are immediately available to them consistently, thus leaving new business on the table for their competition to take. (I cover this in my prior book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling, just fyi.

I’m so thrilled to announce the launch of this new company, CanDoGo. As one of its founding content providers, it’s a privilege to be a part of this organization in terms of the sheer value this will deliver to individuals and companies worldwide, as well as the impressive caliber of people who are involved in this company.

The company offers a web-based subscription service that enables organizations and their people to receive exclusive advice from a panel of experts, covering a wide variety of relevant work-related, business or professional topics such as sales coaching, power proposals, leadership skills, motivation and much more. This expert advice is delivered on-line and on-demand, making it easy for the modern workforce to get the answers they seek and apply this knowledge on the spot to solve today’s business problems; redefining the way people work and access relevant and time sensitive content solutions.

Below is their official press release that went out today.

CanDoGo(TM) Unveils On-Demand Coaching & Mentoring Solutions
New Company Provides a Fresh Approach to Employee Development and Training to Deliver Immediate Results

CHICAGO – October 15, 2007 – CanDoGo, a provider of professional development services for organizations and their employees, today announced broad availability of its on-demand coaching and training solutions. The company offers a web-based subscription service that enables organizations and their people to receive advice from a panel of experts, covering a wide variety of relevant work-related, business or professional topics such as sales coaching, power proposals, leadership skills, motivation and much more.

CanDoGo has secured exclusive rights to deliver this advice and coaching from more than 120 authors, speakers and professional trainers in a whole new way. The company converts traditional long-form material into short, meaningful advice, known as ‘CanDoGo InsightsTM’. This expert advice is delivered on-line and on-demand, making it easy for the modern workforce to get the answers they seek and apply this knowledge on the spot to solve today’s business problems.

“Offering my distributed sales force the immediate guidance, training and mentoring they need is a challenge I face on a daily basis,” said Bob Neeser, vice president sales with Sage Software in Scottsdale, Arizona. “CanDoGoTM offers relevant training content to help my sales teams shorten their sales cycles, create better proposals and improve their conversion rates. My colleagues and I have noticed a tangible, positive impact on Sage’s business from using CanDoGo’s resources.”

“It is second nature for us to obtain advice in our personal lives every day,” said Dave Batt, CEO of CanDoGo and former executive at Microsoft and Sage Software. “However, timely guidance in the business world is harder to come by. CanDoGo delivers expert advice in a way that appeals to all levels of the workforce.”

CanDoGo’s customers purchase subscriptions to access advice and coaching from the experts from anywhere they work. CanDoGo Insights are delivered in a ubiquitous manner as text, audio and video and presented within a multitude of delivery options, designed to appeal and be accessible to people wherever they work.

Subscribers can seek advice from Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Additionally, subscribers can access CanDoGo Insights from their corporate Web portals, from third-party applications like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) systems, from their PDA/Mobile devices or from the CanDoGo Web subscription portal directly.

“Our research indicates a need for ‘in context’ information as a top requirement for businesses,” said Sheryl Kingstone, analyst with Yankee Group. “Solutions that can help address this need and provide information appropriate to an employee’s current task, make this more practical and appealing to the modern workforce.”

See a full demonstration of CanDoGo’s solution at the Selling Power Conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago on October 15, 2007, or visit www.candogo.com.

For a free 7 day trial, go to: candogo.com

About CanDoGo™:
Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, CanDoGo™ provides organizations and individuals on-demand coaching and mentoring. CanDoGo™ works with the best and brightest authors, motivational speakers and leaders to capture the educational guidance and information needed to inspire people, whenever and however an organization needs it. More information is available at http://www.candogo.com.

###
CONTACT INFORMATION:

Paulette Trimmer
Communiqué PR
206.282.4923 ext. 115
paulette@communiquepr.com

Ashley Halseth
Communiqué PR
206.282.4923 ext. 121
Ashley@communiquepr.com

You can check out some of the first videos available on KeithRosenTV on Youtube. They are also available for free right here on ProfitBuilders.com.

Here is one of the new videos discussing cold calling fear and reluctance and the best solutions to overcome them. You can check out more new video coaching content here on our site.

From this video: Here’s part of the transcript.
When coaching salespeople, the one activity that typically takes a back seat to everything else is cold calling.

Why is that why is there such a reluctance or aversion to picking up the phone and making that cold call?

Unfortunately, traditionally managers would offer a new template or a new script or maybe a new resource or collateral material in hopes that would make the salesperson more comfortable.

While this might help to a degree, it still doesn’t get the root of the issue, which is the salespersons fear of picking up the phone and making a call. Now here’s the interesting thing, if you think about the two people involved in the sales process, there’s the salesperson and the prospect. When I ask salespeople who the sales process should be about, they say “It should be about the prospect.”

If ask them who they are you making it about , and reluctantly if their being honest they say “I’m making it about me Keith”. Full transcript here.

I will be delivering a special free webinar that you can register for today. The date is approaching fast and details are below.

Date: August 1, 2007
Time: 10:00am PDT,
1:00pm EDT
Duration: One Hour
Cost: FREE

More Information or To Register Click Here

Permission Based Prospecting
Attract More Qualified Prospects - Close More Sales

Does this sound familiar? “If I could get in front of the prospect, the rest of the selling process becomes easier. It’s just getting in front of them that’s the challenge.” The fact is most cold calling efforts are doomed from the start. Salespeople lose sales not due to a lack of effort but because they lack a prospecting system they are comfortable with and can trust to generate greater, consistent results.

If you are prospecting the same way you have been for the last several years (including the, “calling to check in, touch base or follow-up” approach) or haven’t been prospecting at all, you’re simply making it easier for your competition to take away the new business you are working so hard to earn. So, if you love to sell but hate (or don’t like) to prospect, this program is your opportunity to maximize your cold calling potential and boost your income by learning how to get in front of the right prospects in less time and create greater selling opportunities without the fear, pressure or anxiety associated with cold calling.

In this session, Razi Imam CEO of Landslide Technologies will host this special event as I show you how to:

Strengthen your telephone communication skills.

As you may know, my latest book on closing the sale was released earlier this month. So, why haven’t I made much fuss over it until now? I was waiting for a reason. Here’s the reason.

I’ve put together a very special Three Day Launch Event (Expires this Friday) and wanted to make sure you took advantage of it. You can find out more about my new book and this special launch event below. In the meantime, feel free to visit my new site where you can read the entire intro and Chapter One here. I’m confident that this book will forever change your thinking and behavior when it comes to closing the sale. And you’ll like the results you see.

Now, back to this event:

Special 3 Day Book Launch Event Ends Friday

Get my book 32% Off and hundreds of dollars worth of Bonus Items

Bottom line: Some of the leading industry experts and authors are coming together to give away for free some of their best resources which will only be available for 72 hours during this event. During this 3 day event, anyone who purchases just one copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Closing The Sale will receive all of these additional resources for free.

This book gives you the edge over your competition by showing you, step by step, how to get to “Yes” more often by aligning your selling approach with the prospect’s preferred buying process and communication style without any pressure, manipulation or confrontation. You’ll also get exactly what to say in any selling situation as well as the dialogue that the world’s greatest salespeople use to defuse objections, ask for the sale and close the deal. Plus, over 100 case studies, templates and scripts you can use with my powerful process driven selling approach.

Traditional and gimmicky closing techniques are dead. Never be scared or reluctant to ask for the sale again and enjoy the confidence and peace of mind in knowing you have a process that works. The greatest salespeople are not great closers; they are skilled openers of new selling opportunities. Whether you’re a seasoned sales pro or just starting out, tap into my unique, permission based approach to having a selling conversation with your prospects that fits your style of selling rather than having to ‘pitch and close;’ the same system that I coach thousands of salespeople, business owners and managers on each year.

Get my book 32% Off and hundreds of dollars worth of Bonus Items

**72 HOUR BONUS: Once you purchase my new book, you will be given access to additional bonus materials valued at over $1,000 from industry experts, associations and companies like Paul DiModica, Jill Konrath, Steven Gaffney, Kim George, Vince Thompson, Jacques Werth, Lori Richardson, AllBusiness.com, SalesDog.com, The National Association of Sales Professionals and other incredible authors and experts. To get these resources, you can spend hundreds of dollars separately or you can invest just $10.00 (just ten bucks), order one copy of my book today and spend not one penny more. But order right now, as this unique and time sensitive offer will expire on March 2nd at midnight.

Get my book 32% Off and More

Download the first Professional Development Toolbar Now, Free!
Click Here for more info.

Here’s a totally unique toolbar that integrates seamlessly into your web browser which offers you and your team online coaching and training videos, Podcasts, communication tools, self assessments and templates that will help in developing the skills you need to achieve the results you want today.

NOTE: To satisfy those concerned (including myself!) with spyware, adware and other malicious features this toolbar has no spyware or viruses, does not open pop-ups or hijack your searches, and no personal information is required. The more I researched doing this project, the more I found that to be the #1 issue and reluctance of people to use these toolbars. That’s why I found a company who makes it very clear in both their privacy policy and their download page that they have made certain this was addressed, that it is their primary concern as well and as such, hopefully gives people like yourself the peace of mind to try what can prove to be a truly great tool.

Here’s the scene. You’re at your desk, feeling a bit overloaded, disorganized, behind the ball. Maybe you have some leads and sales that you should be closing faster. Maybe you need to get on the phone to bring in some more qualified prospects. Maybe you could use an added push, listen to a voice of inspiration or even a new cold calling template. Maybe you need to start meeting with your team on a more consistent basis so you can be the coach and manager you need to be for them. Maybe you need to stop procrastinating, admit you just don’t know everything and get some killer ideas to grow your business. Maybe all you need is my new toolbar, my New Year’s gift to you to ensure you stay true to your goals and efforts.

Tip: Do your sales team a huge favor and get this to them ASAP. You’ll be a hero. And if you want, I would be happy to create a customized toolbar specifically for you and your company.

Welcome to A New Way To Access The Resources You Need To Achieve More In Your Career

Here are just some of the highlights this toolbar offers you and the functionality you definitely don’t want to miss.

See Keith Coach! Online Coaching and Training. Stop stressing, click on the video or audio icon in the toolbar and get the “Just in Time” answers, coaching or strategies you need that will make ever day count and make you a winner. That’s what I said. F_ree video coaching and training as your fingerclicks.

Coach Connect: You’re two clicks away from asking me a question or dropping by to just say hello in my live forum. I love visitors, so come in stop by and introduce yourself! Chances are, it’s going to just be me and a few fellow coaches, salespeople, managers or business owners sharing ideas and collaborating.

K-Mail: Forget email and clogging up your inbox. This gives us a chance for us to communicate directly from my desktop and into your toolbar. You will also receive Special Offers, Contests and Exclusive Tools Only Available To Members through K-Mail.

K-Tools: I know, I should be charging for this. So for now, take advantage of the hundreds of articles, self assessments and templates that will help in developing the skills you need to achieve the results you want. Lets get tactical.

Additional Functionality Also Included In Your Toolbar:

While the web site for my next book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Closing The Sale has already been launched www.guidetoclosingthesale.com), I also want to bring to your attention that the site for my cold calling book has just been launched.

You can find some more great excerpts and tips on cold calling, prospecting and selling here at www.guidetocoldcalling.com.

Enjoy!  

Excerpt from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Closing the Sale by Keith Rosen. Reprinted with permission by Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Release Date, January, 2007. Visit www.guidetoclosingthesale.com.

When asking a prospect questions, be sure that your questions succeed in achieving the following objectives.

1. Be direct and candid with your questioning and communication. Do not be vague or tiptoe around the subject or question. Make the question clear, focused, direct and concise.

2. Make sure that your questions open up new possibilities, ideas and opportunities in the mind of the prospect that they never considered. Do they enable the prospect to see a new and better solution and envision more measurable worthwhile results, based on the information that you have provided?

3. Have the prospect draw from previous purchasing experiences to determine their buying habits, wants, priorities, and needs.

4. Learn to question what is said and what is not said. Never prejudge a prospect until you have the evidence to support your assumptions. Utilize questions until you are satisfied with the response.

5. Use questions to achieve mindshare and agreement as well as to gracefully uncover and correct the inaccuracies and misperceptions which they my have about your product or service.