Prospects

This week, join host Mike Montague as he engages in a compelling conversation with Steve Spiro, renowned as the Master Connector, unraveling the secrets to transcending the digital barrier and fostering genuine virtual connections.

Mike’s list of “active” prospects was always long and detailed, and he was sure everyone knew this during his team’s sales meetings. But when his manager Jacqueline did a little digging, she was surprised to learn how few of Mike’s “active” prospects matched up with the ideal sales cycle. Some were taking two or three times as long to reach a decision as the prospects of other salespeople on the team.

What was going on? The answer, it turned out, was pretty simple. Mike was spending a great deal of time on “opportunities” that he should have been able to realize were going nowhere.

All things being equal, people tend to buy from people they like and trust.  All things being unequal, the same principal applies. 

Bert’s major frustration was dealing with prospects who couldn’t seem to make a decision.

During a weekly coaching session, he told his manager, Elaine, that one of his biggest difficulties was dealing with prospects who indicated the desire to make a decision, and who pledged to do so by a certain date. When the date rolls around, though, they invariably needed more time. “They’re driving me crazy,” Bert said.

Elaine asked: “Bert, are they driving you crazy? Or are you?”

THIS IS YOUR JOB!

How many times have prospects told you, “I need more time to make a decision?” Too many?

THE RESULT:
Tim ignored three chances handed to him by the prospect that would have led to the prospect believing that what he said matter. The prospect was in pain, Tim ignored the pain, and now the prospect is going to ignore Tim.

DISCUSSION:
Despite what customers and prospects say, they buy from you to get rid of some pain that either is present or will be present without your product/services. They do not buy the product/service because you are a wonderful person. Of course, this does not mean that you should be anything less than wonderful. The point is that your customers and prospects can buy when you are selling from any number of other vendors at any time. So why do they buy from you?

Learn how to uncover and understand the prospect's buying motivations. What could be more important in sales than understanding why people buy? Mike Crandall, Sandler trainer and author, talks about the key factors for motivation. 

Getting started in sales, or increasing your success once you’ve established yourself, can be a very challenging task. One of the hardest parts of this process is securing leads. What’s even harder is ensuring those leads are qualified.

To grow as a salesperson, mastering this aspect of your career is key. Below I have identified three ways to get qualified referrals. Incorporating these simple tips will help you step up your referral game and uncover a path to new levels of success.

This blog will illustrate several techniques to nurture those prospects in your funnel and how to effectively turn them into clients. The ability to do this is what separates good salespeople from just good networkers. Below are four keys to developing a successful nurture funnel and how to convert your prospects into clients. 

A while back I attended a one-day Prospecting Boot Camp for salespeople in the heart of downtown London. After nine days of visiting attractions abroad, I decided to let my wife do the final day by herself, so I could endeavor to learn the differences (if any) in the mindset of British salespeople from their American counterparts.

Tim, a new sales hire, was having trouble setting appointments. Miguel, his sales manager, wanted to know why.

After just a little one-on-one role-play, one of Tim’s challenges became clear. During his discussions with potential business partners, Tim was focusing almost exclusively on the features of what his company offered: in-house recycling equipment for users of manufacturing-grade solvents.

Having passed his firm’s product training program, Tim was ready, willing, and able to tell potential customers all about the design specs of the recycling units, their power source requirements, and even the details about ordering their replacement parts. What he couldn’t yet do, Miguel realized, was explain why the company’s customers had opted to pay a premium price for the equipment in the first place!

Miguel set aside a half-hour on his weekly calendar to work with Tim on becoming more familiar with the company’s success stories. He also helped Tim create and memorize a concise, powerful, user-friendly explanation of the problems that the company’s products had a demonstrated track record of solving: high solvent costs and burdensome record-keeping requirements.

Is It Time To Clean Out Your Pipeline?

Mark’s sales manager, Irene, asked him to forecast the number of sales he would close over the coming month. Mark came up with his best guess. Unfortunately, Irene didn’t find his best guess very helpful. As it happened, the new monthly forecast was identical to Mark’s previous month’s “best guess” – a figure he had failed to come close to reaching.
In a private meeting, Irene asked Mark to be candid with her. Was the number he’d provided based on something more concrete rather than wishing and hoping? Mark thought for a moment and had to admit that it wasn’t.
“Maybe the problem we’ve got,” Irene said, smiling, “is that we have people in the pipeline who aren’t qualified. Let’s take a look at how to fix that.”

Welcome to the "How to Succeed Podcast." The show that shows you how to get to the top and stay there. This is "How to Succeed at Preventing Objections."  The show is brought to you by Sandler Training. The worldwide leader in sales, management and customer service training. For more information on Sandler Training, including free wi-papers, webinars and more, visit Sandler.com and look under the resources tab.  I'm your host Mike Montague and my guest this week is Joe Ippolito He is a Sandler trainer from Boston. And we're gonna talk to him about how to succeed at preventing objections. Joe, welcome to the show. Tell me a little bit about objections and why you picked this for a topic and who should be paying attention today?

Have you ever simply fled the scene of a meeting gone wrong?

Wednesday mornings are tough enough without our most annoying client calling in with the usual simple problem that he is over-reacting to. We sigh and answer the phone - all while making the facial gestures of a person eating oysters for the first time in their life. WHY does that client seem to be determined to drive you insane? It's your fault ... Every morning the manager from the operations department stops in to tell you how your team messed up his operations this weekend. She is soooo abrasive. You answer in abrupt sentences and quite rudely push her out the door