Business Development

If you look at the traditional Pattern of the Sale in an earlier post, you’ll see that once you have successfully gained your customer’s or prospect’s attention you need to start finding out about his business in order to define any problems and establish any needs that your product, service or solution could potentially satisfy.

We will do that but we will use our updated version and break the Interest stage down into TWO specific parts:

Skimp on this part at your peril!

Here you use ‘open-ended’ questions which result in the prospect opening up and giving you information (as opposed to ‘closed’ questions which will give a “yes” or “no” answer).

We’ll return to our hypothetical example to see what questions could be used in this instance:

(V = Vendor, P = Prospect):

V “Thank you. So tell me, how have you gone about getting customers in the past?”

P “It’s been mainly referrals. The website, Yellow Pages, and the occasional mail shot and advertisement in magazines.”

V “And what methods do you reckon work best?”

P “Definitely recommendation and word of mouth, but that route seems to have somewhat dried up lately.”

V “What about the other ways you’ve used?”

P “Mm… The website isn’t bad and we try to get good search engine rankings, but so is everyone else! The other stuff doesn’t really seem to achieve much for the outlay.”

V “I see, so who’s responsible for sourcing and bringing in the business for your company?”

P “It’s mainly me.”

V “Have you had much sales training or is your expertise mainly in specialist IT?”

P “My knowledge is really IT. The company I worked for before had a separate sales team. I started this business on my own with a few clients I brought with me and grew it from there, and I’ve never had the time or need to go on a sales course. But it’s slowed down a bit recently and I’ve got six people on the systems implementation and support side that I need to keep busy.”

V “Right. So what areas of selling do you find difficult?”

P “Incoming enquiries are fine. It’s getting enough of them. I have customers who will vouch for the company and the service we provide. I’m not so hot on calling people I don’t know and trying to get in front of them. I tried getting a telemarketer in for a while but that didn’t really work.”

V “Okay. Are there any other thorny aspects that bother you?”

P “It’s not really selling, but identifying the companies in the first place that could need my services – that’s not always easy.”

V “How do you normally go about doing that?”

P “I look for companies that have a heavy reliance on computers, like design shops, within a 50 to 75 mile radius. Then I send a letter that explains what we do.”

V “Out of interest, would you describe that as a sales letter?”

P “I suppose it’s more a letter of introduction.”

V “And would you normally follow that letter up with a telephone call?”

P “Sometimes. But I don’t always get very far.”

V “Why do you think that is?”

P “I’m not a salesman, I’m not good at it and I don’t feel comfortable doing it, especially over the ‘phone.”

V “How often would you say that you get through to the person you want to speak to and get a chance to explore what headaches they have IT-wise and how you could possibly help?”

P “Maybe a third to half the time, if I’m lucky.”

V “Okay. Are there any other sales activities that cause you concern?”

P “Not that I can think of.”

Okay. All of the questions so far have been ‘open’ ones solely geared to helping the prospect to identify and expand on his problems.

Take the questions you normally ask your prospects at the beginning of a sales call and try to adapt them so that they concentrate only on achieving this one goal.

Prepare problem identification questions

that apply specifically to your business using words like:

• What
• When
• Where
• How
• Who/to whom
• Why
• Add them to your repertoire and try them out on your prospecting calls

A couple of tips

• Don’t be too terse – you don’t want your prospect to feel that he’s being grilled! Use linking phrases such as:

“Out of interest, what …?”

“By the way, when …?”

• Use the past tense occasionally for these questions as it is often the best way to overcome resistance in selling, which is resistance to change:

“So what methods have you traditionally used to…?”

“So why do you think that happened?”

Plus a Big Sales Tip

This does not appear in the traditional Pattern of the Sale as it was taught to me and thousands of ‘professional sales people’ like me, many years ago but if you use it you will find that the whole sales process proceeds much more smoothly:

• Having gathered enough information that you believe you have uncovered your prospect’s problems (or pain) in principle, check your theory out and attempt to get committal to them

Only one of two things will happen:

1. You have interpreted them correctly and you get agreement
2. You haven’t got it quite right and the prospect will correct you, thereby giving you his real problems

Now we’re ready for the second part:

So let’s return to our example call to see how Fiona does this:

V “Right. The way I see it we have three main issues here:

* Your main source of new business – referrals and recommendations have dried up – possibly because they’ve been fully exploited

* The other sales activities you’ve attempted haven’t been a resounding success to date, with the exception, perhaps, of your website

* And you now have a predicament where you don’t have enough work to keep your people on systems implementation and support busy

Is that about it?”

P “Yes.”

V “Okay. Now that I have a clearer idea of your company’s situation, shall we look at some possible solutions?”

P “Yes.”

She has now:

• Identified the problems (pain) with Mr Johnson
• Committed him to them
• Committed him to the idea of doing something to solve them

How did she do it?

Having used ‘open’ questions to gain the information she needed she then switched to ‘closed’ questions (those with a positive or negative potential answer) when she was trying to gain his agreement.

Let’s return to the call to see what happens next:

V “The way I see it, we need to

* Explore whether your referral and recommendation channel really has dried up

* Focus on how to identify the best potential prospects within your catchment area

* Adapt your written communication with them to include some compelling sales messages

* And get you comfortable selling your service over the ‘phone – or at least to introduce it and arrange meetings with prospective customers

Don’t you think?”
P “Yes.”

V “Have I missed anything?

P “No, I don’t think so.”

V “How would you list these in terms of their importance?”

P “Pretty much as you have.”

V “Okay, so if we can establish a course that will enable us to do all this then I guess we’re in business, right?”

P “I suppose so, provided it doesn’t take me away from the business for too long.”

V “Right, I’ll add that to the list, shall I?”

P “Yes… please.”

Fiona presents each of the main points as a statement but then turns the statement into a question by the use of tie downs.

So a tie down is when you make a statement but, instead of just leaving it as a statement you add a phrase which is seeking agreement or committal, such as:

“couldn’t you?”

“wouldn’t it?”

“don’t you think?”

Take five sales statements
that you use or could use for your business offer:

• Turn each one into a committal question by adding a different tie down, I’ll start you off:

“You need to explore whether your referral and recommendation channel really has dried up.”

Becomes

“You need to explore whether your referral and recommendation channel really has dried up, don’t you?”

• Practice using varied tie downs both in general conversation and on your sales calls and see the difference they make!

Now, in the next stage of the sale, Fiona is ready to present the offer:

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

The first phase of The Pattern of The Sale is to get Attention as soon as possible when Opening the call (or meeting).

Your Opening will preferably be a question (although it could be a statement). It follows immediately after you have introduced yourself and is encompassed in the reason for your call. Your choice of question will be influenced by several factors, e.g.

• Whether this is a new prospect, established prospect or regular customer
• How skilful you are at telephone sales
• Your personality

Let’s take a simple hypothetical example where a company is following up some information that has been requested. So it’s not a completely cold contact. It’s three working days since it was sent first class so the prospect should have received it and hopefully had a chance to look through it.

(V = Vendor, P = Prospect):

(Ring, ring. Ring, ring.)

P “Roger Johnson, Johnson Associates.”

V “Hello, Mr Johnson, my name is Fiona Williams – I’m calling from Learning For Success. We recently sent you information on our ‘Successful Selling’ course that you requested. Do you have a few moments or would another time, like this afternoon/later this week), be better?”

Having introduced yourself always ask if the prospect has a few moments to speak with you. This is not the Opening question; it is a preparatory question. Sure it gives him the chance to cop out of the call but you have no idea whether you’ve called at a good, reasonable or awful time for him.

I have observed instances where would-be sales people don’t get past first base, purely because their timing has been completely off and they’ve just carried on regardless. Demonstrating a little consideration for the prospect’s circumstances doesn’t go amiss.

I am aware that this advice goes completely against the majority of telephone sales training, but it has always worked for Linda Mattacks and those she has trained. We’ll assume he agrees now is OK…

V “I noticed that this appears to be the first time you have contacted us, and we like to welcome new enquirers and answer any questions you might have. Tell me, Mr Johnson, what was it that prompted you to contact us?”

P “I run an IT systems management and support company and we need to get more customers. I saw the advert for the sales course and thought I might as well find out about it.”

The Information Opening, demonstrated here, is the most widely used opening question. It is an easy to use, extremely successful way of opening the sale.

However, it’s very easy to get stuck in a rut and use the same opening question in the same way, in call after call, without realising it. Consequently, after a while it can sound mechanical and dull, so it’s vital that you learn to vary your approach.

Organise your opening questions

Write down all the different Opening Questions you currently use on your prospecting calls.

• Take the most successful two or three and disregard the rest for the moment
• Try and come up with at least three more new ones, aimed at getting the prospect’s attention and providing you with information that will progress the call
• It might not be easy at this stage, but have a go and try them out. Incorporate the ones that work for your business and use them to ‘ring the changes’ so that you don’t sound stale and bored right at the beginning of the call

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

The framework
Now you will see the traditional framework for the sales call: The Pattern of the Sale.

There are two mnemonics commonly used for this. One is for selling on the telephone and the written word (A.I.D.[c]A.); the other is for face-to-face sales (D.I.P.A.D.A.)

Funnily enough, the first one is the most well known, (often as A.I.D.A., without the ‘c’) though far fewer people possess the skills to apply it successfully! But the purpose of each is the same – to act like a road map, showing you where you are, where you want to be and how to get there.

But times change, some old roads are closed off, new ones are built and new signage comes into use. You can’t rely on an old map to get you where you want to be.

So we have taken the process of the traditional Pattern of the Sale and updated it for 21st Century use:-

As you can see, Our Pattern of the Sale

• Highlights the emphasis much more strongly on the questions at the Opening and Interest stages of the sale and the changes probably appear to be slowing down the process but wait and see
• We’ve moved ‘gain committal’ up into Interest and you will learn that from then on ‘gain committal’ recurs throughout the entire sales process
• You also get a whole load more help in the closing stages of the sale

In effect Our Pattern of the Sale provides a state of the art navigation system that tells you about important things along the route, notifies you where you have taken a wrong turning and alerts you to any impending snarl ups.

We will use and refer to this version throughout.

You will learn how to use your own navigation system to guide you safely and successfully through your sales activities. And with practice you’ll find that you can develop a natural style that’s unique to you.

When studying Our Pattern of the Sale, initially you may see terms under “Openings” and “Closes” that are unfamiliar to you. Don’t worry; as we progrss we will look at them in more detail and see how and when they can be used to best effect.

“Take charge of your thoughts – you can do what you will with them”
Plato

Breaking down the Pattern of the Sale
…and how to apply the techniques. We will be providing further posts that will be most valuable to those of you who have little or no formal sales training and who want to kick start your telephone prospecting activities.

As you progress and become more experienced at making sales calls you will want to investigate and experiment with more advanced techniques.

For now, in our early example we use simple ways which come naturally to most of us, and that you should immediately feel comfortable with.

As this is a telephone sales call I have deliberately omitted the D.I.P.A.D.A. (face-to-face) reference to Our Pattern of the Sale – you will see that reappear in further posts.

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

Telephone sales and telemarketing in general have a horrible, grubby, even somewhat sleazy reputation.

Unfortunately by and large that reputation is deserved. You don’t really expect to see the words “professional” and “telephone selling” or “telemarketing” in the same sentence, do you?

However, as you know, one of the many things you should learn to do properly and professionally is just that.

So we’re going to get some of the horrors associated with it out of the way right up front. If we look at a couple of definitions of telemarketing we see nothing sinister there:

“Telemarketing n. – the marketing of goods or services by telephone calls to potential customers.” – Oxford Concise Dictionary, 10th edition

“Telemarketing is any measurable activity using the telephone to find, get, keep and develop customers.” – Robert Leiderman, “The Telephone Book”

Whilst each of these definitions of telemarketing is fine as far as it goes, I’d like to take it a stage further and say, briefly, what professional telemarketing is not.

1. It has nothing in common with the telephone sales calls that most of us are subjected to on an almost daily basis in our business and home environments.
2. It is not related to the pressurised, hard sell individual who implies, and sometimes actually says, that if you don’t take advantage of this offer immediately then you’re an absolute fool and you deserve to fail.
   (I have seen how some of these people operate and wonder how they can sleep at night)
3. It bears no resemblance to the ill-prepared soul who telephones you to sell you a product or service about which they know only the very rudiments and haven’t really a clue as to how it could be of value to you
   (I have some sympathy with these people because they are put on the front line with little or no training, doubtless have to cope with numerous ‘hang ups’ of the telephone in any given shift, and their enthusiasm swiftly and audibly dwindles along with the chance of making a sale.)
4. It does not involve telephoning someone, reading from a script, and expecting them to patiently wait until you have delivered your ‘pitch’ before they can get a word in!
5. Finally, it certainly does not include that little gem in consumer marketing whereby a pre-recorded message is played to you as soon as you answer the incoming call. The purpose of this type of telemarketing appears to be to inform you that you’ve won something and get you to call a premium ‘phone line to find out more… (I believe this is actually illegal now)

“Professional telemarketing at its best provides a cost- and time-effective way to bring buyers and sellers together, and, through the art of intelligent conversation, gives them the opportunity to explore a potential ‘fit’ between offer and need.” – Linda Mattacks

Using the principles voiced above, I hope you are totally comfortable in the knowledge that we are not going to try and get you to do anything tacky or to use cheap tricks.

However, if you like, we’ll try and stay away from the word “telemarketing” altogether wherever possible. You will soon start to see the difference and the potential benefits of its use to your business.

Out of interest, and this is a personal thing, I never thank someone for their time at the end of a telephone call. I’ll often thank them for their help or information, but not their time.

Why? Because I honestly believe that they value their time as much as I value mine and the only reason that they’re speaking to me is because there may be something in it for them. That’s what we explore together as the conversation progresses. If we decide at the end of the day that the ‘fit’ isn’t there right now, fair enough, we’ve both probably learnt from it and the door is usually open for contact in the future.

By the way, I get calls all the time from telemarketers and every now and again I receive one that is a bit more memorable than the rest, usually for the wrong reasons.

I’ll include these occasionally just to demonstrate how even the most well known companies sometimes get telephone activity completely wrong and do themselves more damage than good – there’s one coming up now…

I just received a telephone call from my bank where I have had various accounts for over 25 years – During the past few months I have been gradually reducing my usage of the remaining accounts and switching transactions to another bank.

The caller said his full (?) name and where he was from very rapidly and then stumbled over whether he wanted to talk to Mr, Mrs or Miss/Ms Mattacks despite the fact that I am a customer and they have my records!

I asked the nature of the call, to which he replied:

“Oh, it’s just a customer service call”

Not very important then, is it? So I said:

“Thank you very much, everything’s fine and thank you for calling.”

Whether this was indeed a representative from the bank or an outsourced call centre on its behalf, what a missed opportunity!

There is no way that guy had a clue about my history or customer status with the bank, nor did he strike me as being in any position to discuss anything of any relevance.

You can ensure that nobody in your company makes wasted, pointless calls that do nothing for your image or reputation and we’re here to help you.

It’s time to prepare for the call and the first thing you need to do is get yourself into a positive frame of mind and ensure that you project a favourable image right from the off. So we’re going to revisit the tips that you should be utterly familiar with if you are regularly incorporating use of the telephone in your business communications.

10 Tips on how to create a positive telephone image

• Let your voice project the image of a smile – your voice will automatically get a ‘lift’
• Let your listener know who you are right away, and the reason for the call
• Don’t rush your words as though trying to win a race (it’s usually nerves that cause that, so just take a few deep and calming breaths before calling the number) – speak reasonably slowly and clearly
• Keep your mouth free of obstructions – no food, sweets or gum
• Be a good listener – you have two ears and one mouth – use them in that ratio. Listening intelligently prompts you to ask relevant questions which in turn can provide interesting and useful information
• Project an aura of friendly professionalism
• Be sincere – insincerity is one of the easiest things to pick up by voice
• Be direct – don’t use long complicated words when everyday short ones will convey the meaning
• Be interested in what your contact has to say – a lively interest creates goodwill
• Know when to hang up! Believe it or not you can actually lose a sale by not courteously and speedily wrapping it up once you’ve achieved your goal. The prospect then has time to start thinking about whether he has made the right decision and, more often than not, will reverse it

Then, after each call, take a couple of moments to dispassionately review your performance, using 6 Check Points To Evaluate The Call. Did you:

• Identify yourself immediately and clearly?
• Talk to the person you wanted to contact?
• Have a specific goal and plan to achieve it?
• Give information clearly, ask relevant questions, and listen to the answers?
• Achieve your goal?
• Put over a good, positive personal image?

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

Learn from your failures as well as your successes!

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

I know that this may appear to be an extremely intense example of prospecting activity for those of you who are not used to it! But you can scale it up or down according to your needs, the day to day demands of your business, and number of individuals involved in the activity. You will see that if you follow the pattern in principle, by the end of week one you will have telephone checked and cleaned 100 to 120 records, of which you have:

• Sent a ‘cold’ sales letter to 50 to 60 prospect companies
• Commenced telephone follow up of the ‘cold’ sales letters
• Telephone qualified an additional 50 to 60 prospect companies
• Sent personalised information to qualified prospects who expressed an interest in your offer or confirmed an appointment to see them

Keep this level of prospecting activity up for two or three weeks and it should become clear whether one of the approaches is notably more effective and successful for your company.

You may think that this is all very well but can we really find, or make, that kind of time to generate new business? And do we need to?

I can’t answer that. But in return I would ask you the question:

How important is it to you to grow your business, make more money and increase your profit?

This is a very exciting and beneficial activity. Each time you speak with a new prospect you will learn more about their industry: Their concerns/ problems/ pains. You can use this accumulative knowledge on each successive call and position your product or service to show ways that you can add value to their business.

The more prospecting activity your company undertakes the more you will understand your prospects’ needs, the better they will respond, the more business you will win and the more confident you will become.

For example, you will very quickly discover:

• Which raw data sources work best for you
• Which are your prime prospect industries/areas of activity
• Whom within those companies you should be targeting
• The most important perceived benefits of your product or service
• The propositions that work best

So I will now ask you another question:

Can you afford not to spend the time?

It’s a vital area to get to grips with if you are to successfully grow your business beyond a certain stage. I understand that, for most people, this is the most daunting part. Yet it needn’t be – treat each contact you make as part of your voyage of discovery to see if they have a problem or pain you can fix rather than “I’m going to sell this person something” and you’ll see the difference in their response. Your confidence will grow and, before you know it, you may even find that you’re having FUN!

Plan your routine for prospecting

• If you can involve other members of your team, so much the better
• Allocate specific tasks
• Allocate specific times
• Stick to them
• Be realistic – If your routine is too demanding to achieve around the needs of your existing customers you’re setting yourself up to fail
• It’s better to start gradually and step the activity up as and when the opportunity presents itself

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

Plan a routine for prospecting activity

Week One
Just spend a few minutes reading through this sample plan.

1. The activities outlined here happen to concentrate on eliciting business from companies that are new to our prospector, but there’s plenty of unallocated hours to spend additional time attempting to grow existing customers.
2. The chart only shows what one person could achieve in a week – you might be able to multiply that by two or three
3. As you progress you can start to monitor your prospecting activities more closely to enable you to plan more effectively, for example:
   • Telechecks – calls made to number of companies checked
   • Telechecks – number of companies checked per hour
   • Telephone qualification – number of calls made to number of companies qualified
   • Telephone qualification – number of companies qualified per hour
   • Follow up cold sales letter – number of calls made to number of follow ups achieved
   • Follow up cold sales letter – number of companies followed up per hour
   • Follow up cold sales letter – number of companies qualified to potential customers
4. Then, as you continue, you can further track your activities:
   • Number of telephone-qualified contacts to sales letters sent/appointments made
   • Length of typical sales cycle
   • Etc. – basically anything that helps you plan without overloading you with useless data

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

Clean the raw data
Depending on where your raw data came from, and the amount of information that came with it, you may not know the size of the companies you will be calling, so you don’t necessarily know who will answer the telephone. Even though the first part is just a fact checking and finding mission and you want to zip through this exercise as quickly as possible, you nevertheless need to get into the right frame of mind and give a good first impression of your company.

Regardless of the size of company, you can usually check and enhance your information by speaking with the person who answers the call. You don’t necessarily even have to introduce yourself for this stage, just go straight in with, for example:

“Hello, I just wanted to check your details, (don’t pause here or you may well get a rebuttal) I have Johnson Ltd, Fairweather House, 19 Bloomsbury Avenue, Chester, is that right?”

“No, it’s 190″

“Thank you. And is that still Chester CH2 9XY?”

“Yes it is.”

“Is ‘Fairweather’ ef for Freddie, ay, eye, are, double u, ee, ay, tee, aitch ee, are?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, and your website is…?”

“www.fairweather.com” or “We don’t have one.”

“Thanks, and I have Mr Brian Whelan as Managing Director, is that correct?”

“Yes”

“Is Whelan double u, aitch, ee, el, ay, en for Norman?”

“Yes, and it’s Bryan with a ‘why’”

“Oh! Thank you. And is he based at this address?”

This is an important question but one most people don’t think to ask. You may be on a relatively safe bet with single-site companies, but it is always best to check.

“Yes.”

“One other thing, if you could help… Is it Mr Whelan who would ultimately decide on building security issues/human resources/(whatever)?”

“Who’s calling?”

Notice it’s only when you start to focus in on specifics, rather than generally available information, that there is a sudden interest in who you are and what the call is about. This is a perfectly natural and normal human reaction.

“It’s Richard Trent, from Saferway Security/Elite Personnel/etc.”

“Yes, that would probably be Mr Whelan, although we do have an Office Manager…”

“Ah, could I take his or her name?”

“That’s Frances Hope.”

“Thank you. Is Francis a chap or a lady?”

“She’s female.”

“That’s great, thank you. Do you know whether she prefers Ms, Miss or Mrs?”

“She’s Mrs.”

“Thanks very much for your help. Goodbye.”

The chances are that you’re not really going to want to target Frances initially but you don’t know how easy or difficult it’s going to be to make direct contact with the MD. Neither do you know how much influence Frances has. Also, you are gathering information at this stage and you want to store away anything that could be helpful in the future.

The “Goodbye” after you have the information you want forestalls the receptionist offering to put you through to the Office Manager.

If you are dealing with larger companies you may well come across:

“I’m sorry. It’s company policy not to give out names/information over the telephone.”

That’s okay. Keep your cool and, depending on the function of your intended target, just say:

“That’s fine. Can you put me through to Marketing/IT/Accounts/the Managing Director’s PA, please.”

Once you are through to the right department you can usually find someone who will be quite happy to help you.

You should always have enough raw data prepared to provide you with a good two hours’ worth of telephone checking at a time.

You will probably find that after a couple of hours of this kind of telephone ‘conversation’ you’ll want a break. That’s fine. Time it over the lunch period (when you would normally want to avoid making calls anyway) and make the amendments to your raw data resulting from the calls you have made. But it’s actually better to have a proper break and come back to that task later. If you continue making more calls in the afternoon, you can wind down gently by making all of your data amendments at the back end of the working day.

A word of caution – If the data amendment task is delegated to another individual:

• Ensure that your handwriting is legible and
• The person inputting the amendments can spell

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

Let’s remind ourselves of approaches to prospecting:

1. Affirm that you have the right contact and telephone-qualify each prospect then only mail (or make an appointment to see) those who express an interest (check that the contact information is correct during the call). Follow up with telephone sales call.
2. Telephone to check that the data provided is correct and perhaps glean additional or alternative contact names and job titles of those involved in the Decision Making Unit first. Then mail all, respond to any ensuing enquiries and follow up non respondents with a telephone sales call.
3. Assume that the data is correct and direct mail all on the list. Follow up with a telephone sales call and respond to ensuing enquiries.

Whether you decide to go for option 1 or 2 (above) in your chosen approach (it doesn’t come into play in option 3), I would ideally break this exercise down into two stages. The first stage would be purely to:

1. Check the accuracy of the basic contact data, get the website address and correct any errors
2. Ensure that the name provided is that of the person who would ultimately decide on the purchase of your product or service
3. Gather additional names and job titles of those involved in the decision making process

Although you don’t actually want to talk to the person at the moment, you do need to identify who that person is because, no matter how good the offer, it’s wasted if it is made to the wrong individual.

Whilst it may normally be fairly obvious in consumer sales, it sometimes takes more digging to establish the right M.A.N. in business to business. This is the person with the Money, Authority and Need.

A typical Business-to-Business buying model looks something like this:

There are many elements that dictate the size, shape and complexity of the Decision Making Unit of the Buying Model but in general the main ones are:

• The size of the company
• The Return On Investment (as well as the initial cost of the purchase to the company)
• The importance of the purchase to the company and potential ramifications throughout it as a result of the purchase

Let’s take each of these in turn.

Company size
Typically, the smaller the company the more roles each individual will assume, the larger the company the more levels there will be and the more structured the roles will be, with strict limitations on individual responsibility and authority.

Out of interest, the Federation of Small Businesses has some interesting facts and figures from the UK Department of Trade & Industry, Spring 2003 that show the Profile of UK Businesses to be thus (the precise percentage points may vary slightly from year to year but the overall big picture remains much the same):

Percentage of businesses by employment:

• Over 99% of companies in the UK employ less than fifty people
• 95% of companies employ less than ten people
• And two thirds of businesses in the UK are individual entrepreneurs

But even with such a predominance of zero employee and micro businesses, going back to the business-to-business buying model, any company will usually have at least one layer of ‘padding’ between you and direct access to the Decision Maker, even an independent consultant or sole practitioner, in the form of a domestic partner.
Return On Investment

The price of your product(s) or service may be important in terms of who does the buying within the prospect company, but it is definitely NOT what they will buy on.

They will compare your prices against the income (and/or savings) it can achieve for them in a defined period of time. This is their Return On Investment (ROI).

For example – if your product costs £7000 and your competitor’s £5500 for a fairly similar product then you might think that you have no chance.

BUT – if there is just ONE feature of your product that will bring in or save a little more than your competitor – say £1250 rather than their £1100 a month, then, although it will take a few months longer for your product to pay for itself – in a 3 year period your customer would be nearly £4,000 better off. Your product has a superior ROI in a three year period.

Importance of purchase
The more impact the purchase of your product or service will make on the prospect company, the higher up the organisation you need to aim.

You may well need to ultimately deal with the owner or Managing Director together with the Initiator, Influencer, Financial Director and User. And each of these will view your offer from the perspective of the needs of his or her role within the company.

Many sales people, especially those in technical sales, believe that the role of senior management/board level directors is pretty much to rubber stamp the purchase. Consequently they direct their sales efforts lower down the line right from the start, little realising that by so doing they are reducing their offering to a commodity, one that at board level can be:

• Accepted or rejected
• Subject to haggling over price
• Held up to be checked against competitive offers

You have the advantage of being first and foremost a business person who appreciates the importance of understanding the bigger picture, and that understanding will only come from the top, so bear this in mind when you put your sales hat on!

In most cases you can never really aim too high when approaching a company you hope to do business with.

Big Tip

• It is much easier to go to the top and then be passed down the ladder to a ‘lesser’ individual than it is to start off lower down the chain of command and be passed upwards to a more authoritative one

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

The most successful people in the world today not only set goals, but also are experts in time management (among other things).

So this is potentially a huge subject in itself and not one I shall address in any great depth at the moment. But part of successfully managing your time involves planning and scheduling activities. Now, despite the fact that your brain is more powerful than any computer, you would go mental if you had to remember every single little thing you were meant to do at a given time on any given day.

Keeping a diary is one of the central tools necessary to the successful management of any business. Whether you keep a separate diary for your telephone activities, prefer an electronic or hard copy diary, doesn’t matter. Just keep one and refer to it every day.

The same goes for your staff. What happens if someone is sick? How do you or your line managers ensure that essential activities don’t slip through the net because “it’s not my job” or “I didn’t know it hadn’t been/needed to be done”?

A friend of mine follows most of the organisational tips outlined here but recently admitted that, although her business involves prospecting, where she falls down is that she often forgets to diarise a call back. So what happens?

A big fat NOTHING is what happens…ZERO…NOT A THING…NAUGHT…ZILCH

And guess what… She loses business time after time and struggles to stand still. Get the picture?

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

Get ready

1. What time of the working day are you at your most alert, most ‘up for a challenge’? That’s when you should plan to make your calls but use your commonsense: Don’t plan to cold call prospects at 9am on a Monday morning (unless you’ve agreed with a specific individual to do so then)!
2. Have you ‘cleared the decks’ of Any Other Business which might distract you from making the calls?
3. Have you set your answer machine, switched your mobile to divert or let let your switchboard/ receptionist/ boss/ colleagues/ staff know you won’t be taking calls for a set period of time?
4. Have you set aside at least two hours at a time for each telephone session? Allow up to an hour on top for admin/ follow up work resulting from the calls
5. Have your prospect companies/individuals been TPS checked? For more information on TPS view our article Useful Legal Information for marketers
6. Do you have enough prospect contact details? This is important to consider, as:
1. List checking and cleaning: You should be able to telephone check and clean about twenty-five company records per hour, getting the information at switchboard level
2. Cold canvassing (prospecting for new business from people whom you’ve never spoken to before): When cold canvassing, a good rule of thumb is that you will initially get through to your desired contact in about one out of every five calls you make (this ratio may improve as you incorporate the use of a diary and call back system). An experienced telephone sales person will make three to four Decision Maker contacts an hour

Big Tip once you start
This applies to ALL telephone and computer activity:

• Take a break and wander around to relax your head, neck and shoulders once an hour

It is extremely important that you establish some kind of routine for your telephone activity otherwise you will find that it just won’t happen. You might start off with the best of intentions but you’ll find that you allow yourself to be distracted and somehow just don’t quite manage to get back to telephoning…

Discipline is equally important whether you are performing these activities yourself or have delegated them to a team member. If you allow distraction from the task at hand you are sending out the wrong message and saying, in effect “This isn’t that important; it can be fitted in later.”

Be focused.

Get organised
Plan blocks of two hours at a time through the week and see how you get on initially – get your diary out now.

• Allow separate time for administration resulting from your telephone activity – don’t kid yourself that you are doing more than you actually are by letting it cut into the calling time
• Stay focused and try to keep each telephone activity separate -
  • Checking and cleaning raw data
  • Cold canvassing
  • Follow up calls to mailings
  • Customer service
  • Customer/prospect research
  • Etc.

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks