How to triple your sales revenue the easy way

For some people selling comes easily and naturally. However for many business owners sales is a nuisance and although important, it’s something many people don’t want to do. Leave it to the professionals, is the motto and although if you have plenty of money in the bank to hire sales pro’s, it’s not for everyone.

But sales doesn’t have to be that difficult. So, if you’re on your own, or working with a team of sales people that may under-perform, here are a few tips and tricks that could help your business to triple sales revenue by simply making it easier for you and your team to deal with potential new and old customers:

1. Use the number of averages – Many people put sales calls to one day a week or a specific time. Trying to do 20 or 30 or more calls to connect with potential clients may sound easy, but in reality how many did you actually get on the phone talking to? Most likely if you’ve done 20 calls you can consider yourself lucky if you talked to 3 – 5 prospects (and I mean getting to the main decision maker). This may sound good but reality is that it might even be less. Some weeks you may even just get to one or none. Turning this around is the key and making sure you make your calls on a more regular basis. Lets say you want to talk to 25 clients per week, divide them by 5 and now take 15 – 30 min each day to call 5 potential customers. You may still have days where you will not reach anybody of importance to you and you may need to add them to a different day/ time to call back. Once you get in to a rhythm however, you will notice that you transform 2 – 3 prospects on a daily basis (on average) either into meetings or sales (depending if you try to get a meeting or trying to get a sale over the phone).

2. Get yourself and/ or your team to go to networking events/ join networking groups. – This is important to spread the message of your business. You need to be out there and you need to be seen. Getting referrals is the goal with networking groups and getting meetings is the goal when you go to networking events. In both cases it is important to have the next step sorted before going/ joining:

3. Have a properly designed sales elevator pitch ready – With the right pitch you will gain up to 50% more referrals. Be specific, and tell people what or who it is that you’re looking for. A sales pitch is also great for networking events. It presents your business within 30 seconds, gives an overview of what it is that you do and how you can help any other business owner or potential customer to solve their problems. (If you need help creating an elevator pitch, you can contact us here).

4. Email/ letter marketing campaigns – Proper email or letter marketing campaigns are another great source to bring more customers to the table. But what’s important to know is that you need to do your research. If you don’t know who to address the letter/ email to, pick up the phone and ask. If you just send out generic emails to a list of thousands of customers, then you are not better than 95% of the other businesses doing just that. If you want to stand out and generate more revenue, you need to be different. Choose 100 of those potential clients, find out what they do, how you can help them and most importantly, who is your main contact and their contact details. Then address a properly designed letter/ email directly to them.

Don’t send all 100 sales letters on the same day. Spread them to maybe 5 – 10 letters daily. You will see why on point 5 and 6.

(If you need a sales elevator pitch and a powerful letter/ email marketing campaign, have a look at our PitchPerfect Programme here.) 

5. Have an inactive and pro-active call to action in your letter/ email campaign. – An inactive call to action is when you ask your clients to give you a call based on the information they received and if they like it of course. This could be something simple such as: If you now, after reading this letter, can’t wait to talk to me, please give me a call on xxx xxx xxxx or please fill in this application form and return back to us.

A pro-active call to action is when you take matters in your own hands. This is usually followed by the inactive call to action and is a simple way of saying, I will be calling you. You could say after your inactive call to action: If however you are like most business owners very busy running your business and may not have the time to call us, then don’t worry. I will call you on date x to discuss this in more detail with you. Our call will not take longer than 2 – 3 min of your valuable time. (make sure that with an email campaign you allow 48 hours before you call, on a letter campaign between 3 – 5 days. Don’t take longer. If you give them 2 weeks they will not remember your letter or you for that matter.

Now it’s your move. You promised a call on that specific day and most people do expect your call. Make sure you keep this in your diary and make that call.

6. Follow-up – It doesn’t matter if you take my advise on point 5 and have both an in-active and pro-active call to action or not. If you don’t follow up with your prospects, no one will. The return rate is usually quite low but if you keep your focus and make those follow-up calls, you will gain better results than any other company that sends generic emails/ letters. In fact, we have measured the success rate with a number of companies that we’ve worked with and it’s anywhere between 30 – 45%. Just by simply picking up the phone and making those dreaded phone calls. The good news is, that if you send a letter or email before hand, it’s no longer considered a cold call. It may not be a hot call, but luke-warm is already good.

7. Ask for referrals – Be it with your networking group or with customers and other business owners that you simply use for referrals, asking for referrals is the best way to keep your business growing. If you prepare your clients that you will be looking for referrals as part of your payment, then they will expect if they sign a contract with you, that you will be looking for referrals from them. Some clients may not be comfortable with it and others may just give you one or 2. On average we found that per client you could gain anything from 2 – 3 referrals that will help you keep going with your business.

When in a referral or networking group, it is important that you have a properly designed sales elevator pitch but also that you ask for specific referrals. Don’t be generic like: I’m looking for medium sized companies who are interested in xyz. You will not gain much out of that one. However if you ask specific it will make a difference: I’m looking for medium sized printing companies in area x. (If you can and done your homework you could also add:) I’m looking for an introduction to company X-Print in Town Y and company W-Print in Town Z. The only danger here is that if you choose 2 companies, it might happen that no one in your networking group knows anybody in those companies. However, consistency is the key and asking every week (or every time you meet with your group) for other specific companies, then you will get more referrals out of this. You could also ask type specific such as medium sized IT companies with focus on cloud computing or Start ups, Management consultancies, Coaching businesses etc. Be specific and referrals will come.

8. Put a picture of yourself on your business card and letter/ email campaign – People like dealing with people and this simple change can help you gain at least 10 – 15% more traction. People will remember you, they might not remember your business but they will most certainly remember you. If it’s in a good or bad way is of course up to you and your own selling skills but most people will remember your face.

Sales doesn’t have to be a daunting exercise. If you take every day 30 min to 1 hour to connect with new and old customers, you should see an improvement within a very short period of time in your sales revenue.

Some people say, sales is a numbers game, others say it’s not. In fact, sales is a game of averages. Every day you should do some sales related activity (and by that I mean not looking at your facebook page and hoping to get a customer interact with you). I mean real sales activity when you actively look for new potential customers, engage with old or former clients, use proper up-selling and cross-selling techniques and become more and more visible. Be out there, go to networking events, sign up to a networking group, join the chamber of commerce and actively promote yourself first, then your business and you will see a rise in sales revenue. Meet for networking coffees to discuss how you can help each other.

Try out different ways to interact with your customers. If you have a list of old or former clients, talk to them again. Maybe you have some missed up- or cross-sell opportunities, maybe you can get some referrals out of them. If your old clients are happy, they are more willing to recommend you on to somebody they do business with.

Have the right steps in place when it comes to your own sales strategy. If you don’t have one, it’s time to create one. Make it your daily mantra to work at least 1 hour on your sales and your business will flourish. (Just for the people who might say, 1 hour is not enough…we found in our research that the average time spend on sales activity is less than 2 hours per week for most SME’s. Having a focused 1 hour per day will not only enhance the performance of the business but will make it much easier to grow this activity over time to a decent 2 – 3 hours per day. Some SME owners are not able to spend that much time only on sales activity as they are out working with customers. Getting them to spend 1 hour per day on this, is the real challenge).

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Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales consultant based in Cork, Ireland. Creating a synergy between consultation, training and coaching helps our clients to achieve the best results.

Double your sales in 2015 – 11 ways to grow your sales revenue

Our new programme, Double your sales in 2015, is now online and next to some applications we’ve also received some inquiries of how we’re going to double sales. I want to take this opportunity here to talk a little bit about how we can help achieve double your sales figures.

Of course there are companies out there who are doing great and there is not much room to get more out of people. But let me assure you that 85% of businesses are not running on full capacity. They are not even running on 20% of their potential.

I would like to provide you with some facts that I found with my previous and current clients that we easily corrected and the outcome of this:

1. No proper sales techniques or strategy in place (some of our clients didn’t ask sales related questions or showed interest in the customer) – 75% of businesses face this and this equals a min of 25 – 35% of additional revenue once this behavior is changed.
2. No up-selling or cross-selling opportunities taken – 85% of businesses don’t take up-selling opportunities and lose out on nearly 35 – 60% in additional sales revenue. Cross-selling is another factor that is easily overlooked. When this behavior changed, cross-selling amounted for another 10 – 15% of additional revenue.
3. No online presence – It doesn’t matter if you sell online or not, having an online presence is a must nowadays and counts for at least 10% of additional revenue.
4. Use of old (impersonal) marketing techniques that no longer work – Using proper marketing techniques is crucial. We had some clients where we brought in a marketing specialist and this brought another 40% in revenue over 6 – 12 months.
5. Not enough prospecting (no prospects, no sales) – This is the biggest factor. In all businesses we found that prospecting is not done properly and could improve. With every client, we have found that doubling their prospecting activity was not only possible but many of our clients even tripled their prospecting behavior. This lead to over 3 times the amount of contacts made by our clients in a week and revenue skyrocketed within a matter of months. This is the main ingredient to double sales. 200% – 350% additional revenue generated (and no, this is not out there…those are realistic figures that we have come across. One client of ours contacted 3 customers per day, after he went through our extensive programme he contacted between 12 and 15 customers per day. Another client simply switched from a passive behavior to a more pro-active behavior. This shop owner went from order taker to a sales specialist and expert and is now actively approaching customers in his shop moving from serving 20 customers per day to nearly 40.
6. No proper customer service in place – Another big factor, if the service and friendliness in a place is not given, then customers choose to shop elsewhere. Having a proper customer service approach was something nearly 60% of businesses lack. Changing this, made customers come back and spend money in their shop. This resulted in growing revenue by nearly 30%.
7. Too competitive thinking – Competition is good but a lot of people think too competitive. Sometimes customers want a specific product that you either don’t stock or you ran out of. In either case, who’s to say that you can’t source it for your customer with a competitor? Doing so will result in a better service that customers appreciate but also will help keep the spending in town. Talk to your neighboring businesses and help customers to buy locally. Customers will appreciate your help and effort and come back to you for other or additional purchases. This resulted in 10 – 15% increases and helped other businesses to thrive as well.
8. Motivational energy too low with employees and management. – Motivational energy is something we can easily measure. Many employees and managers go into coping mode and this results in low motivation and less focus on goals or targets. Motivation is a funny thing, it’s like bathing if you don’t do it regularly, you start smelling out of your pores. Regular motivational sessions with our clients and their employees resulted in higher performance, less sick leaves and created more employee loyalty to the business, meaning less employee turnover. This resulted also in additional 20 – 25% sales revenue because if the staff is highly motivated it transfers automatically to the targets or goals at hand and makes customers want to buy from you.

9. Not asking closing questions (no pushing or even pursuing of the sale) – I’m not talking about pushing a customer over the edge to get a deal done, but it is sales and sometimes we have to push our customers to help them make the best decision. A lot of sales people don’t ask closing questions. They do everything else right in the sales process but when it comes to ask the final closing question they failed. The customer simply chose a different seller because buying signals were ignored. Over 80% of sales is lost. Increasing the closing ratio is only possible if you get your sales people to ask closing questions and sometimes pushing the customers to buy (gentle because a little nudge can work wonders). Over 50% of sales growth is possible with the right strategy and tactic. Pursuing the sales is another factor that we can and should count in. A lot of sales reps give up after the 2nd or 3rd attempt of contacting a customer. Getting your sales reps to contact them at least 8 times before giving up (12 is recommended) will result in a higher conversion rate as well. This could amount to at least 30 – 50% higher sales figures.

10. Responsibility was handed to ‘lazy staff’ – And finally, if things don’t go right, the management blamed the staff. Taking all other points into consideration, this one was a big factor among our clients. However once we got the management to see the errors of their way, we found the mistakes and corrected them easily (usually getting the Manager to become a leader). This resulted in happy and satisfied staff and resulted in higher motivation and brought along a 10 – 15% increase in sales.

11. No customer loyalty programme in place – Loyalty programmes are great but many businesses don’t have them. It seems they don’t value their customer or they think it’s a waste of time and money. Using the right loyalty programme is key and giving back will always drive more sales. Having a loyalty programme specifically designed to your needs could result in 50 – 70% more revenue simply because customers choose to go back to get that little extra from you.

There you have it. 11 reasons how we can drive more revenue and grow sales by at least 200%. We found most of the points above were missing with our clients and changing their behavior (and in some cases habits) helped tremendously to grow sales revenue.

Our projects take a long time (each project can take up to 3 months) but because we do it thoroughly we not only find the problems in our clients business we can easily correct them. And yes, we guarantee results with our SalesGrowthGuarantee™.

If you are interested in what we do then you have the chance to apply to our “Double my sales in 2015” programme. Have a look, you will find all details here and apply online. www.salesclinic.biz

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more up to date information.

Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales consultant based in Cork, Ireland. Creating a synergy between consultation, training and coaching helps our clients to achieve the best results.

How the right training can boost your company’s image

I think everyone will agree that the right kind of training (sales and/ or customer service/ management/ leadership training) can be a great way to enhance your business.

A lot of companies hire an outside sales or customer service training company to deliver just that. Helping their employees to come up with new sales strategies, better customer service options and overall suggestions on how to enhance the business.

The key issues that I found in my research however show that many companies are not happy with their training provider due to lack of support, changes that are not implemented properly and the motivation of the team starts going down after a few days and revert back to their former self. Also in many cases sales and customer service training is kept very generic and is not developed to the need of the client but rather using off the shelf programs.

So, the big question is, who is responsible? Is it the trainer who seems to fail to deliver on his/ her promise or is it the attendees of the training who fail to implement what they’ve learned on a daily basis? Is it the company which doesn’t want to take on board the trainers advise or simply doesn’t want to spend more money on additional training or consultation/ coaching?

The answer might be shocking: It’s a little bit of everything. Let me elaborate:

Lets say you attend a sales training, the trainer gives great examples, clearly defined strategies (or helps you develop a strategy), great new ways of thinking and even adds how to improve on your customer service skills. You spend 2 days at this training and you come out, highly motivated and ready to roll. You go to your boss, tell them all about what you’ve learned in the training and why things are not working for the company (because now you believe you have the solution) but your boss shuts you down. He hasn’t been in the training, so he doesn’t really understand and from the bits that you remember he can’t really make up his mind if this would be a good way to go or not. So, he says, we stick to the old ways. Or maybe you are lucky and he doubts that this will work but will give you a chance to prove him wrong. So, off you go, thinking about what your boss said, and maybe even agree with him after seeing his point of view. Still you want to give it a try and now, with your boss’s point of view in mind you try your best and after one day fail to deliver. 2 days after you find yourself in the same misery as before, training is long forgotten and nothing changed.

Did you ever experience something like that?

Maybe you are the boss and your company sent you to a sales training to come back and deliver this training afterwards to the employees. You come out of the training, you think you know it all and give now your answers to the employees or sales team on how things should be done from now on. You’ve done your job, and now it’s up to the team to take your (crippled) information and make the best out of it. And to your surprise, it doesn’t work. Did you ever experience that?

Or a third scenario, you are the boss, you and your team have been trained by the company, you all agree on the changes that are required in order to make this work but find that after a few days, nothing really changed? You may have meetings about it, how to implement the new changes, you uncover some challenges on the way and suddenly decide that maybe it’s not such a good idea or you are stuck for answers?

Now, here is the reason of why this is happening:

1. You are capable of only remembering approx. 15% – 25% right after the training (this is the moment you step out of the training room and somebody would ask you what do you remember). No matter how good or bad the training is, and how much you keep writing during the training, it will not help you deliver the entire programme to your team or your boss.

2. Within 24 hours after the training your memory will even more deteriorate to approx. 5 – 10%.

3. 5 days after the training your memory will get worse and you remember approx. 1 – 3% of the training.

4. You are not a trainer or coach. Unless you went through extensive training becoming a business coach or sales trainer (and lets face it, barely any managers are) you are not capable of delivering the training to your staff (no matter how good you think you are).

5. Without any follow up coaching in place, no matter how many training sessions you’ve had, you will not be able to make it work.

6. Without the buy in from management about any changes that the training company suggests, you will have no chance of succeeding and make the training work for you.

There you have it. 6 points of why things are not working. In order to make any training work let me summarize in a more positive way what you could do to make this happen:

1. The right consultation is key

Training needs have to be assessed first. It’s important to understand the needs of the company as well as the individual needs of the attendees. (Interviews with management and key personnel (or maybe even all personnel that need to be trained) should be done to understand the training requirements.

2. Get management to buy in first

Buy in from management is crucial and in order to see the point of the sales trainer or consultant it is important that the management understands the changes that are required (if any) for the training to work.

3. Get agreement from management on necessary changes

The company should agree upfront on the changes that are required or needed in order to drive more sales or customer service and be happy with them. No matter how good a sales trainer you hire (or if you are a trainer then it doesn’t even matter how good you are), the trainer can only deliver on the information you provide and the changes that you are willing to take. If you don’t want to take certain risks, then the trainer need to know this information before hand in order not to make any suggestions on how to sell or improve your services.

4. The training should be created around the key areas and changes.

Training can only be successful if it is created with the companies needs in mind.

5. Training should be delivered to management first and staff second

It is important to deliver first to the management (if possible entire management) to make sure all points that have been agreed on are covered, to see if anything is missing and to get the entire management behind the concept. Afterwards training needs to be delivered to the remaining staff/ employees.

6. Follow up coaching to help implement the changes and discuss any challenges that the team might face over the coming weeks

Follow up coaching is probably the most important aspect of the training. It empowers the team and managers to find the best solutions on how to implement the changes and will provide the success that is needed in order to get the team to the next level.

So, how can this boost your companies image? Imagine you’ve had a training, a great training and you had somebody help you implement what you’ve learned during the training on a regular basis? That will give you the focus that you need and helps you drive sales and customer service levels. Your sales team will not be required to make any drastic changes right away but will continue to improve over a certain period of time until peak levels are achieved. Your company’s image will now rise to become the best in their field and the reason? Because you understand the training needs of your employees and now you can find the right training and coaching company to help you achieve greater results that you could have hoped for.

One thing I would like to add is that remember how long it took you to learn anything in school? No matter what the subject, but to get a complete understanding it took you years of learning and practice. So, why do we think that sending our staff to a one off sales or customer service training will do the trick? Let me assure you, it won’t. In order to implement what they’ve learned during the training course, follow up coaching needs to be provided. Only then will you see the results. It takes approx. 28 days to change a habit. If your sales people have bad habits, then the training might be a way in to create a new more positive habit, but only by doing the things that need to be done on a daily basis can your team start to excel. This can only be done with coaching the person (or group) on the required changes. And isn’t that why you spend the money on the training in the first place?

What is your experience with training companies? Or maybe you are a trainer and would like to share your opinion? I would love to hear your opinions on the subject.

Thank you for reading.

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Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales consultant based in Cork, Ireland. Creating a synergy between consultation, training and coaching helps our clients to achieve the best results.

 

The importance of Up- and Cross-Selling

Many businesses seem to neglect up- and cross-selling opportunities and fear that if they would try to up-sell or cross-sell that the customer might leave and not return. The fear is that the initial sale will fall through and that customers might feel pushed to buy additional products or services.

Before we dive in, lets see what it means to up-sell and cross-sell:

Upselling

Up-selling is usually when a customer asks about a specific product and the seller includes other products, upgrades and services to enhance the initial item the customer asked for. Take a computer for example: You may see a laptop that you like, it has the specifications that you as the customer believe it needs. The seller now might try to sell you additional memory, a bigger or faster hard drive, better graphics card, an extended warranty etc. The seller also might recommend additional soft and hardware depending on your requirements such as external printers, external hard drives, or specific software. The need should be established by asking the customer lots of questions and listen to what they have to say. This can be established for example by asking “Why does the customer need this specific product? What’s the purpose or what do you need it for? Why did the customer chose this particular machine and not a different one? What software does the customer have or would require in order to use this machine fully. The next step would be to provide information about the product and the benefits or if required, move the customer to a more suitable product for what he/ she needs to accomplish. You may show the customer “What comes with the product, what’s not included etc. What additional products would the customer need in order to use the machine fully etc.” Imagine you don’t ask those questions and the customer gets home with his machine and discovers it’s not the right machine for him/ her. Or that items are missing that are crucial for him/ her to work with the machine. The customer then would feel disappointed by the seller and might need to either come back at a later stage or (the most likely thing the customer will do) buy the additional products elsewhere. In many cases because products have been mis-sold the customer will even return the product and goes to a different seller who (hopefully) will then provide the customer with the product(s) the customer really needs.

Cross-selling

Cross-selling is usually done once the initial sale and up-sell is finished. Cross-selling is when we divert the customer to a different product or service. To give you an example: Lets say as a customer you want to buy life insurance. The agent has finished the life insurance, got your signature, took care of additional up-selling opportunities such as included a pension scheme in your life insurance cover etc. Now the agent might ask you about your car: “I’ve seen you have a nice Mercedes out there. Do you mind me asking which insurance company you use? If the agent knows that he can beat that insurance quote he might add that to his sale. This can be done at any stage even if the car insurance is not due for some time. Of course this could be done for house insurance, public liability etc.

Any business (unless they only have 1 product to sell) will have these kind of opportunities.

What we as a business society need to understand is that up-selling and cross-selling is not an evil thing to do. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is certainly sales people out there who would take advantage of customers. But those usually don’t last very long and customers will see right through it.

And it’s not only about selling more products. Up-selling and cross-selling is about establishing the customers real needs and requirements. Providing more value and benefits to your customers is the key. Asking relevant questions will not only elevate your sales but your overall customer experience will become more positive and this in turn will bring loyalty to your business.

If you’re not telling your customers about current promotions, things they need with the actual product that they intend to buy, additional benefits and features and how this enhances their experience then you’re loosing out, your customer is loosing out and the overall experience within your establishment will become less valuable to your customers.

This is a service that you “HAVE TO” implement in your daily sales activity. Your customer will thank you for it. And no, this is not to push the customers over the edge, this is to help them have the best possible experience and value that their money can buy and that you can provide.

As a sales person it is your responsibility and duty to your customer to provide them with the most accurate information and establish their real need. Just because a customer is asking for a specific product doesn’t mean they really want it, need it or can even use it to their full extend.

I will give you one more example that a great sales person will do for their customer:

Imagine a customer comes into your shop and wants to buy a nice 60″ TV. He saved over a year for it to finally be able to buy it. He comes to your store and picks out the TV of his dreams. You may even deliver. Now imagine your customer comes home, the TV is delivered and he sees that his living room is far too small for the TV. The TV fits just about in the corner where his former 32″ TV stood. His living room however is so small that he was already sitting very close to his 32″ TV, say 2 – 2 1/2 m away. Because of the size of the new TV it needs to stand further out from the corner and now he sits 1 1/2 m away. He can’t enjoy his new TV as he sits too close. He also discovers that his TV stand doesn’t fit or former wall mount is too small etc. One disappointment after another. What do you think is now going to happen? The customer will most likely return the TV and feels disappointment with the shop. If the sales rep would’ve done their job right he would’ve discovered all this by asking simple questions such as “What size TV do you currently own? is it on a stand or wall mount? How far are you currently sitting from your TV? Will the new TV stand in the same corner/ hang on the same wall etc. By asking the right questions the sales rep would’ve discovered all of the above and could’ve avoided the disappointment for the customer, directing him/ her to a different or smaller size product, explain the why’s and may even use the left-over money to up-sell DVD/ Blu-ray/ Surround System/ Wall mount/ TV stand etc. Yes, he would’ve probably made less money but would gain a happy customer that most likely will return to him for future purchases.

Honesty and asking the right questions, making the right recommendations are crucial to build a great service and create customer loyalty.

Are your sales people using proper questioning techniques to establish the customers real needs? What is your experience with your sales team? Let us know.

Thank you for reading.

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Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales consultant based in Cork, Ireland 

What to do…what to do…no more leads…

Are you running out of leads? No idea where or to whom to sell your products or services to? I think every single sales person has been at that stage during their career. But what did they do to get themselves out of it?

Here is a list of things you might want to consider:

1. Contact former customers again to discuss future opportunities. You never know, one of your former customers might need to buy additional products or services from you. Or you can inform them about new developments, activities, events or just want to meet up for a coffee with them to see how things are going after they bought from you. Follow up is a crucial part of sales and a proper after sales service can go a long way and generate new business for you.

2. Ask your former customers for referrals. You may be able to combine this with step 1 but most customers who are happy with you and/ or the service/ product you supplied, have no issue recommending or referring you to some other potential customers. This is probably the best option in order to keep your business going. Especially when you’re selling b2b, business owners/ managers understand the meaning of referrals and some might be happy to help.

3. Look over your old prospects, the one’s who didn’t buy yet from you. What was the reason? Maybe they didn’t buy because of an un-established need? Or maybe they just didn’t like your approach. Contact them again and get some feedback. Yes, it might be hurtful (in some cases) but it’s a learning curve. Feedback is valuable and most people are willing to provide you with feedback of why they didn’t buy from you. If it was you, maybe hand the account over to a colleague. We can’t get along with everybody, sometimes it’s as simple as that. This has nothing to do with you personally. It’s business. And if it’s a great sale, maybe you can even share the commission (if possible) or get an account from the other sales reps to deal with some of their clients. Selling may be competitive, but you’re working in the same company so the goal is the same: Increase the companies turnover and ensure future growth.

4. Re-establish your target market. Have a look again at your old prospects and other companies similar to your target audience in your area. If you don’t know your target audience, or you say, everybody should use my product, then think again. You may think your product is suitable for everybody, but who is actually buying? Make a list of your current customer traits and find companies or audiences that are fitting (age/ type/ gender/ company size/ industry/ country etc.).

5. Try a different target market. I know this one doesn’t correspond to point no. 4, however sometimes if you depleted all your options you may need to rethink your target market and make it more suitable for a new audience. This means, redesigning your pitch, values etc. It’s a lot of work but may be worth your while. If you’re targeting the IT industry for example and you have no more companies to go to (which I doubt but there is always this one sales rep…) maybe a similar market may be suitable for your products or services. Maybe automotive, pharmaceutical, retail etc. could also be a fit for your products. Yes, sometimes we need to adjust certain aspects of our presentations or sales pitches but hey, that’s life. Think why this audience may be able to use your products as well and what are the benefits for them? Maybe they are not in the IT industry, but have an IT department??? Food for thoughts…

6. Go to networking events, join social media networks, groups etc. This will get your name and trait out there. I’m sure a lot of you doing this already but as a sales rep or manager who is employed, how many of you actually go to business networking events to meet new people? A lot of people who are employed wouldn’t go because their company is not paying for it, meetings are held outside office hours / late in the evening or even weekends. If you want to make money, you need to hang out where your clients hang. Easy as that. And if you’re not willing to go the extra mile for your customers, what are you doing in this position? (Sorry for being blunt, but if you are in sales, and no longer have enough customers you need to look at activities that will bring you new clients).

7. Join Networking groups. You can also join local/ national or international networking groups such as BNI (Business Network International). They might be costly, but a lot of people get great value out of it. It’s all about meeting new people and getting referrals, and that’s what those networking groups are all about. Referring business to each other. So, get in there, yes, they are holding meetings usually early in the morning, but honestly, how much do you want to grow your business/ sales?

8. Ask your family and friends. Yes, I’m serious about that. Even if you believe they have no use for your products or services or that they are too expensive for your family and friends. Think about it this way, we all have a network of people and most of us know at least 250+ people that are hanging in our social (media) networks. Besides that we all know between 30 – 100 people which we consider acquaintances, friends etc. Ask them to help you out to introduce you to some of their friends or acquaintances. A lot of sales people don’t want to mix personal life with business life however you are leaving out a massive amount of people that you could easily tap into to get introduced to or do business with. Don’t be shy, get in there. It’s not about convincing your mother to buy your health insurance. It’s about convincing your mother to help you find people who would be interested to buy health insurance from you (I guess you catch my drift here). This is your network as well 🙂

9. Hit the phone. I mean, seriously now. If you have already tried points 1 – 8 and you’re still out of options, then there is only 2 things left to do: Either hit the phone or quit. Sometimes it requires drastic action in order to get back on track. And if that means to open the telephone book or yellow pages to get out there again, then by all means, do it. It will not be the most fruitful time in your life, but usually 1 out of 10 will listen to you and may even invite you over for a coffee to meet. In order to ease the pain of just calling, you could create an email list of companies that you haven’t targeted yet and send them an email first. You may want to do some research but this will take the (extreme) cold out of cold calling. Read my article on successful email marketing and you will see what I mean.

10. Still no luck but haven’t quit yet? OK, here is one last thing you might want to try: PRAY. I mean it, seriously, go to church and start praying. Well, maybe not literally. But talk to your local priest. Even if you’re not a church goer, an atheist, have different faith or religion then what’s locally available, go anyway. Talk to the local priest or pastor. They know a lot of people and they are in the business of guiding and helping people in their most desperate times. Having faith is one thing but maybe the local priest knows somebody who you could talk to to get your business off the ground again? If that doesn’t work you may also want to try chamber of commerce, other business owners/ entrepreneurs, talk to other sales reps even from different companies, join clubs, health and sport clubs etc. Don’t give up. There is a lot of things that you can do that we haven’t even mentioned yet.

A lot of people saying that we as individuals like it comfy. We stay inside the box where it’s cosy, comfortable and nice. But sometimes we have to go to different lengths in order to succeed and need to stick our heads outside of our own box. And most of the times it works. If it doesn’t who’s to say that you can’t take the box, throw it out the window and redesign a complete new box for you? Brainstorm with colleagues, co-workers, managers and/ or other business owners on how to increase sales and get more leads.

You might also want to consider a business or sales coach to help you find new leads.

Thank you for reading. Follow us on facebook or twitter for more current news.

Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales consultant based in Cork, Ireland 

A simple guide to networking events

Have you been to a networking event recently? Here is what happens most of the time:

People meet at networking events, talk briefly and go their ways. Afterwards not much is happening and many people complain that it wasn’t really fruitful. Nobody contacted you afterwards to do business with you. Nobody send you an email or called you to buy your products or services.

Well, here is a shocker: One of the most important fundamentals of networking events is the follow up that comes afterwards. You may have made great connections but if you don’t follow up with them, no one will.

Here is a few tips of things that you can do before, during and after the event:

Before the event takes place:

Get your 60 second pitch ready. Yes, have a pitch or elevator pitch ready that you can deliver in 60 seconds or less. Make it interesting and make it count. Rehearse the pitch until you perfected it. If you need help designing a pitch for you then I would urge you to do some research.

Dress for success. Dress for the occasion. Business smart is good but (for men) a suit would be better. Proper business attire is the key for both men and women and it doesn’t really matter what your profession or business is all about. You want to get in with investors, meet new potential customers, get business referrals etc. In order to get those, you need to look the part. Nobody is referring someone who is dressed like a teenager that want’s to score.

 

Show up before. Make sure you show up on time, maybe even 5 – 10 min early. This could give you a head start by already talking to some potential new customers before others are joining the group. I personally make it usually about 30 – 45 min earlier. And as people come in, I’m already there to introduce myself before the event starts and have time to talk to more people.

During the event

Use your pitch. You have rehearsed your pitch now talk to potential new customers. These events are usually filled with different types of businesses and may not even resemble the target market that you have however this is about making connections. Maybe they are able to introduce you to some of their key customers. Keep this in mind when talking to people.

Go around. Don’t spend too much time on one or two people. We all tend to find the people who are a bit like us. And networking events are no exception. We may have the best intentions to introduce ourselves to everybody however we mostly stick with the people we either know or meet who are like minded. This is not (only) about meeting like minded people. This is about looking for business opportunities with as many people as possible. You can mingle afterwards if you wish but use the time wisely. Many business networking events have a set agenda such as speed networking or any other games that will engage the crowd. If this is the case and you followed my advise of being early, then you already have made a good bunch of connections and can enjoy the games of the evening. (Just a thought…)

After the event

Send an email. A few days after the event (no more than a week after) send an email to each of your new contacts. Introduce yourself again and of course mention that you’ve met and ask if they are available to meet for a coffee. Don’t make a big pitch of why they should meet you or what the benefits are to your products or services. Keep it short and simple.

Use the phone. Max. 2 days after you’ve sent your email, pick up the phone and again, introduce yourself, mention that you’ve met during the event and that you’ve sent an email and you were wondering when it would be best for them to meet with you. Here you may need to have a small pitch ready because some people might wonder why you would want to meet up. Many people however will most likely agree to meet with you especially if you had a connection with them during the event. But in general keep it simple. Having a coffee to find common business interest goes a long way and doesn’t scream sales right away. Yes, you may want to sell your products or services but you may also get some referrals out of this in case they are not interested. And obviously this goes both ways.

Prepare yourself. Book the meeting and prepare a small agenda of what you would like to get out of this meeting. This is mainly for yourself. You may want to send it over to your new contacts to give them a chance to prepare something as well. Remember, they give you the courtesy to show you what you’ve got so it’s only fair that you provide them the same benefit.

No sale at first meeting. Key again is to not make a full pitch. The first meeting is not about selling your products or services but to see if there is a general or common interest. Yes, you may want to be prepared for somebody telling you straight away, that they need exactly what you’re selling, but honestly, how often does this happen? You can show off what you do, who you are, what your company does, benefits, strengths etc. but take it slow. Also give them the time to tell you what they do. Afterwards establish the grounds of going forward. Book another appointment if they want to hear more about the products or services you offer, or see if you can exchange customer details in form of referrals. If you provide a handful of customers to them, they might do the same for you.

The key point I would like to make is that barely anybody follows up after networking events and wonder why no business comes out of it. It is vital and important to keep business going and if you want to not waste your time going to those events, then maybe it’s time to follow up with your new connections. Because barely anybody really follows up after those events, there is a lot of business left undone. If you’re one of the people who will follow up you can be rest assured, that something positive will come out of it. Give it a try and let us know how you got on.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more up to date information.

Thank you for reading.

Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales consultant based in Cork, Ireland 

How to find the right sales job

There is a lot of confusion of what would be the right sales job for me. Well, I can tell you that there is not really a right or wrong to this. However there is something like a preference. In today’s world we have multiple choices of different sales careers.

Here is a list of some of them:

Sales Account Manager

Field Sales Representative (B2B or B2C)

Business Development Rep/ Manager

Lead Development Rep/ Manager

Telesales (inbound/ outbound)

Retail sales (assistants, managers, clerks etc.)

This is just a handful but it represents most of the current sales jobs available on the market. Here is what you need to know about those jobs:

Sales Account Manager – This role is usually a more passive sales role. You mainly deal with current customers/ clients also known as install base customers. You usually get assigned a territory and a list of accounts and it’s up to you to keep those customers happy and informed. In most cases they already purchased from the company and you need to provide maintenance renewals, contract renewals, additional product information etc. Why passive? Well, you do have to call or visit them (depending on the preference of the company you want to work for) usually at least once a quarter to build a relationship and to keep those customers happy and buying from you but normally you don’t have to develop leads. This is a great role for people who are strategic in thinking and are capable of implementing up-selling/ cross-selling techniques. Closing a deal might still be part of your job but the main focus is to make sure these customers will remain customers to the business. Usually paid a higher base salary and commission (60/40 split is quite common).

In rare cases you might need to develop new accounts as well but again, this is depending on the company and their route to market.

Field Sales Representatives – This is a more active role in selling. You are responsible to sell directly to either business clients or consumers. It involves booking meetings with potential new customers, create small campaigns to drive sales such as email campaigns or events. This is an outgoing role and usually not suitable for people who have a fear of cold calling or door to door sales. If it makes you uneasy this role might not be for you. However if you like being out of the office most of the time, travel a lot (either inside the country or even outside) and have unregulated working hours than this is a great job to be in. The rewards? Usually high commissions but a very low base salary. Some companies offer additional benefits such as a company car/ petrol card/ laptop and mobile phone.

Business development representative or manager – This is also a very active role. It might not require you to travel as some companies offer this role as a inside or internal role. But it does require you to make new connections on a daily basis. You are usually free to network and implement new ideas in order to drive customers to the business. However it needs to be pointed out that this role has it’s rewards of medium commission and a higher base salary. The 60/40 split is also very common in this type of role.

Lead Development Representative/ Manager – This role is usually done in larger companies such as medium to large size multinationals. It requires people to be constantly on the phone and generate new business through certain lead generation tools. This could be that leads are coming in through a website that need to be followed up and qualified, re-qualify old leads or even some cold calling or follow up on email and other marketing campaigns. Again, this is more an active and outgoing role that requires the rep to deal with new potential customers every day through phone conversations. The lead development rep is usually not in charge of driving campaigns and is merely there to initiate contact with potential new customers. However it needs to be pointed out that this is a very low paid and ungrateful role to have. As a lead development rep you are usually not required to close deals but just to generate interest. You will have a low to medium base salary and low commission or a bonus. In many cases leads get handed over to sales reps or sales account managers. Relationship building is usually not part of the role and you will talk every day to new potential clients. Many companies even have a min calling rate that you would need to achieve (such as 40 or 50 calls per day).

Telesales (inbound/ outbound) – This role could be pro-active or in-active depending on the organization. If you are applying for a job as an inbound Telesales rep then all you have to do is take calls and close the deals over the phone. Providing information is key and asking for the sale is a must in this role. You will also have up-selling and cross-selling opportunities to increase your sales revenue. As an outbound rep you might have to do some lead development on your own but usually you receive a list of clients that might be interested in the products or services offered by the company. Your job is to just call and see if there is a real interest and then close the deal. In many cases outbound telesales reps need to do a lot of cold calling. In both cases the salary is a medium base and medium to high commission. One of the main aspects to look out for is the commission structure. Most companies offer capped commission. This is on 100% of the target and some might offer an additional bonus if you achieve more than 100%. However capped commission also means that you may not be able to earn more. If it’s uncapped commission the one thing I would urge you to do is to look at the teams performance. How likely is it to achieve target and what is the highest that people can earn? Many companies claim that their commission structure is uncapped however the target is rarely achievable. So, do your homework and look out for these things.

Retail sales – Retail is one of the purest forms of selling. For most people (unless you are the business owner) it doesn’t require much prospecting work. Customers are coming into the premises and (hopefully) leaving with some new products that you are selling. The downside to this? If you are a trainee, clerk or shop assistant you might only get a base salary. Commission is rarely offered in retail (which I have to say is a real shame). But it still provides a decent enough income and lets you deal with potential new customers as well as “regulars” on a daily basis. Product knowledge is asked and many retailers establish themselves in a retail niche market. Such as electronics, computers, toys, men’s or lady’s wear etc. you can nearly find anything in retail. However a lot of retailers are suffering from not knowing their products well. This is the downside to retail. Too many products and competitors out there. In order to make a difference to your shop it is important to keep you and your team well trained and informed on new products. Knowledge is key in retail as well as driving a great service and friendly staff. As a business owner it is vital to get customers into the premises. This can be achieved by looking at your shop and make sure it attracts the right customer (gender/ age). However prospecting doesn’t stop there. Your staff is also required to prospect however this again is a different type of prospecting. It requires your staff to be outgoing and actually talk to the customers. Over 80% of customers leaving retail premises because of low or no attendance from the shop assistants/ owners.

This is only a handful of potential sales roles out there in the market. However one thing is for sure: No matter what type of sales role you currently have or are looking for, make sure it is the one for you. Nothing is worse than being in a sales job that you hate or don’t like because of the nature of the role.

Prospecting (making connections every single day) is a big part of sales no matter what type of role you’re looking for. Just because you are looking to become an account manager doesn’t mean that you don’t have to prospect. Prospecting in this case is just done in a different way and you still need to be outgoing enough to make this job work.

I hope this is helpful in finding the right sales job for you. If you need more information or require help in finding the right job for you, you should consider taking our Selling Style Profile Analysis.

Thank you for reading and please follow us on Facebook or Twitter with more current sales news.

Carsten Schnier

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales consultant based in Cork, Ireland 

First step to a successful sale – Prospecting

I’ve been asked a lot of times what I would think is the most important part of the sales process.

The answer might be shocking but simple: Prospecting. In order to initiate contact with a potential new customer we need to prospect.

 

Here are the first steps that in my opinion will help you find more customers:

1. Define your niche.

Every product or service can be defined in a niche market. If you already know what your niche is, great. Move on to step 2. If not, make sure you define what it is that you are really good at. What benefits bring your products or services to your customers? Why should they buy the products or services and most important what need do they fill for your customer.

2. Define your target market.

It is important to know who your target audience is. Not every product or service is meant to attract every single person. Make sure you know your target audience. Your niche can help. By establishing a niche you can find customers who either offer similar type of products (make sure you are not competing with them) and could benefit the customer if implemented or bought from you or you attract customers who could use your products/ services because they are looking at your niche in particular. Look at your current customer base. What do they have in common? Now find similar type of customers. Because if one car manufacturer can use your product, maybe there is another one (again, just an example). I understand, that if you are just starting out and don’t have any customers yet, you might be in for a challenge. But this is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

3. Do your research

You shouldn’t spend too much time researching your customers but to know a bit about their business goes a long way. What do they do? What is their product range? Who is the decision maker in that company for your products/ services? Who is the gatekeeper? Did their sales figures improve or decrease compared to the last year(s)? Knowing your customer can go a long way in order to help you sell your products. And don’t dismiss the gatekeeper (aka receptionists, secretaries, assistants). They can become your most important ally in order to place your products/ services with the company. If you get them on board then usually the decision maker is ready to listen to you as well. (Create a list of potential customers)

4. Develop an elevator pitch

An elevator pitch should not be longer than 60 seconds. The pitch should contain who you are, what you do, the benefits to your customers and a close (in order to get more attention or to book a meeting). You can find 3 great elevator pitches at speakingppt.com. Make it unique and interesting for potential new customers to get to know you better.

5. Prospect

Now the real fun starts. You have to start prospecting. This can be done in several ways but one thing is for sure: Most of the time it should end with you calling your potential new customer. In step 3 you created a list of potential new customers. This is your money making machine. If you don’t feel comfortable just cold calling them, do one of the following:

a) Send an email first with a short pitch. Make sure that pitch is short and to the point. You don’t want to waste anybody’s time. However, the likelihood that your email will be read is very little to none. So, after you send the email, make sure you follow up with your customers a day max. 2 days later. Now you have a reference that you can revert back to and your cold call becomes much easier. Warning: Sending an email will NOT result in your customers calling you nor is leaving a message resulting in your potential new customers calling you back. You have to do the first step: PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL…

b) Invite them to a free or low cost event. Create an event in eventbrite.com (just as an example) and send invitations to your potential customers. Again, after you send the invitations it is important to follow up with them. You won’t get any sign ups by just adding an event. Make sure you share it and market it. But again, use the phone to follow up.

c) Create a social media marketing strategy. This might take some time but once you have build an audience on social media it should become part of your daily routine. Post regularly and inform about events, special offers and other things that you do. Here you have to follow up by making sure you monitor comments and likes. This time there is no need to phone unless you have their numbers already. This should only be a small part of your daily sales activity. You don’t want to waste too much time looking or waiting for comments to come.

d) Create a newsletter/ sign up page or blog. Writing can give you more exposure. So make sure you write about something that you do and are passionate about. If you have a maintenance business write about what you do for your customers, outcomes, what could happen if certain things are not done correctly etc. This is all about exposure and interact with anybody who comments or maybe even likes your page.

e) Lead generation tools. A lot of businesses offer lead generation or you could even use certain tools that might help you get more exposure or even clients. Some of them are costly but depending on your business and audience you can also find some that are great and free of charge. Do some research.

f) Make sure you have a website/ blog page etc.A lot of small businesses don’t have a website and believe it is not necessary. But having a page, even a simple one, can make a massive difference to any business. Websites don’t cost an arm and a leg anymore unless you get it done professionally. But if you look at pages such as wix.com or even vistaprint.com you can get easy to develop websites from approx. 5 quit a month or even for free. A website will give you additional exposure and you can use it as a tool to refer customers to.

g) Go to networking events. Business networking events are usually done in every country, county or town and most of them are being held on a regular basis. Some of them require a small fee but many are even free of charge. This is a great way to meet other business owners, entrepreneurs and like minded people who share a common interest. (Here you can test your newly developed elevator pitch).

h) Join a local/ national or international business network. Business networking is great and could bring new business to you on a regular basis by means of referrals. Referring business to each other is a great way to improve your sales and will help you stay on top of the game.

i) Chamber of commerce or other business related networks. Most countries have support for start up or small/ medium sized businesses. Make sure you know what you are entitled to and how they can help you grow.

j) Get a business/ or sales coach. Getting help should not be the last step a business owner does before he goes out of business. Waiting until it’s too late is the worst you can do for your business. Make sure you have a mentor, or coach that you can go to either regularly or whenever you need to in order to discuss business growth. A coach is definitely the way to go for increasing your business turnover.

Prospecting is the number one process any sales person, entrepreneur and business owner could do on a regular basis (at least in my opinion it is). The more you prospect, the more you will sell. Of course other parts of the sales process are important too. Especially closing the deal, however without prospecting there will be no deals to close. And if you are in retail, you might think that you can’t prospect. Every business can and has to prospect. But using the right prospecting kind is key to success. I will write another article on how retailers can prospect and drive more business into their premises but in the meantime, if you really want to improve your shop’s performance, maybe read my article Road to retail success.

How many calls did you do today?

Thank you for reading.

Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales coach based in Cork, Ireland 

The good old days

Every organisation, entrepreneur and business owner is looking to increase sales turnover. Back in the old days or lets say when I started out in sales things such as facebook, linkedin or other social media didn’t existed or were just in the starting phase. Sales people used to do the hard work or what we call now the old fashioned way. But why is it that this good old ways don’t work anymore? Or do they still work?

I am a sales and business coach/ trainer and I started my business a little over a year ago. I’ve tried both ways of getting sales and this is what I found:

First I started to use social media. I created a facebook page and invited all my friends and family to like the page. I also developed pages on other social media such as linkedin (or my personal linkedin page if you want to connect) twitter etc. (Feel free to like or follow me and my company on any of them).

It wasn’t long until I got my first client and started building the business from there. Or so I thought. After my very first client signed up with me, that was kind of it. No more interest. Yes, I got the sympathy likes as I call them but not much has happened. So, I decided to join a business networking group, went to networking events and again, got lots of contacts and interest in what I do. (I had my elevator pitch all prepared and ready to get some clients).

My thinking was, that I had a great product, fantastic service and I could even guarantee an increase in revenue. But it seems that there was no interest in what I did. I mean, don’t get me wrong, people seemed interested when I talked to them but as soon as I followed up and tried to make an appointment I was hit with the usual: No time, no interest, no money etc. And although I used all my converting techniques it seemed that I was failing at the simplest things. After a few months not getting any business and redesigning everything the way I thought would be good, still nothing happened.

And then it hit me. What if I went against everything I was advised not to do? What if I go back to what I originally learned on how to get customers?

Just to give you some thoughts of what people told me not to do:

– Cold calling doesn’t work anymore. It’s a waste of time.

– Knocking on doors doesn’t work anymore. It’s a waste of time.

– Being pro-active and getting clients doesn’t work anymore. It’s a waste of time.

– Coaching is an utter waste of time.

– There is already plenty of training and coaching companies that offer sales training. Don’t go into that field. It’s a waste of time.

It seems everything was just a waste of time. Now, I knew I had the right product. I knew I was the right guy to help increase sales. In fact, because of my background and that I was educated in sales in Germany and had a multinational view on things I knew that I could turn things around for companies. I could see things in businesses that no one else could. I could create a vision of success for others and help them implement it. If they let me in and if they are willing to change.

But for that I had to change my approach. So I took all the advise I got from so called business mentors, other sales training professionals and marketing & pr people and threw it in the bin. In fact, giving advise to start up companies and telling them that they shouldn’t cold call or knock down some doors is in my personal opinion the worst advise one could get. If you have a product or service that no one knows about and you want to get the word out, unless you have already millions on your account and can spend hundreds of thousands of Euro in marketing and advertising your options are a little bit limited.

So, I combined both new and old methods as I do believe once you have a name you will get customers through social media. But you need to get there first.

So, here is what I did:

I knew my product SPQ Gold (Sales Preference Questionnaire) is for everybody out there who is in sales or want to sell something. I also knew that my workshop (Fear-free self-promotion and prospecting) is one of a kind and state of the art and helps people to retain over 12 times more information than any other kind of workshop or training out there. Which also means, that once you attended my workshops you were able (mostly with a little bit of follow up coaching) to implement what you’ve learned on a daily basis and this would help increase your revenue. This is what I had, and I knew it was powerful. But I needed to filter the companies I wanted to work with.

So, I defined my niche even more with salesclinic.biz and use coach-clinic.com only for personal development. Once I had defined my niche I was ready to get some clients.

I looked at companies that are very sales driven and focused only on SME’s (small to medium sized enterprises). I didn’t bother with large multinationals although this was my main expertise but their process is very lengthy to get approval for training and coaching. So, I avoided them up until now.

Once I had my target audience defined I started compiling a list of contacts. It took me a while but after a few weeks I had over 500 companies listed, with the following contact details:

Company name, main business, website, address details

Name, telephone and email from receptionists

Name, telephone and email from decision makers

Name, telephone and email from sales managers/ directors/ company owners

This process took me nearly a month to complete and I had also done a lot of research on those companies in the meantime. But I haven’t called yet. Except if I couldn’t find the information I needed on linkedin or on the company’s website, I called quickly to obtain above details. I didn’t want to talk to any decision makers at that time. I only contacted the receptionist or whoever picked up the phone and asked questions in a market research style. And this was well received. People were really helpful.

Then I was ready and started to call. I already had most of the information that I needed and finally was able to get to the right people. And to my surprise my cold calling worked. I got meetings with high value decision makers.

Now it was up to me to present my information to them and get them to buy my test SPQ Gold or SSPA Test (Selling Styles Profile Analysis) my workshop and coaching. I didn’t get everybody of course. As with every sales pitch, my first few I actually blew. But I got better at it and after only 4 meetings I got my first order.

I believe it is important to say that I overdone my research. And I didn’t need to do that. But for me it was a time to reflect and change my ways. I wanted to show people that this could be done and that with hard work and lots of follow ups you can get the meetings and sales that you require.

If you are just starting out with your business and no matter what your business is, what kind of product you’re selling or services that you are offering, don’t give up. But don’t just go for the new ways of selling. If you are like me and don’t have thousands of Euros or $ lying around then you may want to consider going back to the old ways.

Do your research, define your market (or niche) and target audience and make sure that you don’t give up. Success will follow if you prevail and keep doing the things that need to be done in order to make your business a success. Cold calling and door knocking is still a great way to sell and I realise that not everybody is comfortable doing that, but if you own a business and want to make it successful, then stepping outside of your comfort zone is just the beginning.

Thank you for reading.

Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of SalesClinic & Coach Clinic and professional sales coach based in Cork, Ireland 

Smart Networking

Smart Networking

Lets face it, business in Ireland is not what it’s used to be. A lot has happened over the past years and we find now even more that it is important to generate new leads, build customer relationships and make that so important sale.

Business owners complain that there is no money around as well as people losing jobs and are not able to shop anymore. Yet prices are rising and service is decreasing. In a normal world it may seem that the exact opposite should happen. Prices should fall and service increase. But yet here we are, in Ireland, seeing how bad things really gotten over the past few years. When things where on the rise it all seemed too good to be true. Local shops competing with each other but still referring to other shops if they didn’t have the product on offer. Keeping the money in town was the name of the game but those times are long gone and customers are facing on a daily basis long travel times in order to avoid disappointment with local shops.

A business network could help. Going back to the old referral habit could make a huge difference to local buyers but also would help keep the money local. Because lets be honest, people do spend money not only on food. They still buy their TV’s, computers, DVD’s, tools and other items, just no longer in local shops. The question is, if the money is still there why are they not buying locally? Why go all the way to the next big city in order to find the products they want? The reason being is that local shops overcharge, charge extra on delivery, have a bad customer service attitude and have no ambition to serve their customers and provide them with an outstanding experience. Upsell and cross-sell opportunities are not taken advantage of and giving the customer what they really want is no longer a question.

If a proper local business network is in place referring customers to each other will not only increase the money flow of the town but also increase customer satisfaction. Yes, you may loose a sale if you don’t have the product and your competitor might get it but this works both ways. Think about it. What will you gain from sending the customer away and not making that important referral? Nothing. You will lose, your competitors will lose and the customer has to go to the next town or city to spend their money. The outcome of this is something you can see nearly on a daily basis: Lots of shops and restaurants close and local businesses leave for the bigger city.

Be smart, network smart and your business will flourish.

Thank you for reading.

Carsten

Carsten Schnier is the founder of  Coach Clinic and professional sales coach based in Cork, Ireland