Building rapport quickly is crucial in sales, especially when cold calling.

To close a sale, the prospect must like and trust you. Otherwise you will have a non-product/price barrier to overcome.

Rapport is simply the act of connecting with someone to build a sense of trust. If done correctly, your prospect will like you and feel as if they've known you for a while.

If this step is skipped or done incorrectly, everything you say afterward will be taken with great skepticism.

Get To Know You

One of the best ways to get someone to like you is to like them. If you've read the classic, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by the late Dale Carnegie, you know that the quickest way to build a connection with a stranger is to genuinely take interest in them.

This could be as simple as admiring an achievement they've had or a well designed office. But it must be genuine in order to be effective.

Once you show your prospect that you're truly interested in them as a human being and not just a commission check, they will naturally take interest in you and start to like you.

Speak Their Language

There has been a whole new generation of training lately revolving around Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). While it seems most of it is smoke and mirrors, it does have some important points you can use.

To simplify some of the important parts of NLP, remember that most people are stimulated by either sight, sound, or touch in their thinking. If they use words like "I can see" or "this looks," you can assume they are visually inclined and you should use visual references when talking about your product. If they say things such as "I like the sound of that" or "that sounds good," they prefer to hear things and you should present in those terms. And finally, if they talk about how something feels such as "feels like something is missing" or "what's holding you back," they respond to touch and you should state your solutions in a physical sense.

While this might sound extremely basic... and even like a gimmick... remember most people like people who are like themselves. Which leads into the next technique:

Mirror and Matching
Have you ever felt uncomfortable or even annoyed when someone talks to you with high energy and enthusiasm, while you're having a bad day?

That's exactly what mirror and matching attempts to solve. Match the energy and enthusiasm of your prospect to truly connect with them. If they are slow and dry, talk to them in a similar way. Likewise, if they are talking a mile a minute and are full of energy, do the same or close to it.

The closer you get to their state, the easier it will be for the other person to make a connection with you.

If you do talk about their likes and interests in the beginning, be sure to transition into the sales call within 5 minutes or you risk turning the visit into a social one instead of a business call.

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Hard selling has had a bad reputation these days. Every sales trainer and newbie sales rep is standing tall, claiming hard selling is through. They will tell you that might have used to work in the 1970's, but today's prospect is smarter, your product is different, and so on.

But the truth is, hard selling is more important than ever. Most of the proponents of soft selling are those who never really sold. At best they were over paid order takers during the last boom cycle. When a prospect is chasing you down with a hand full of cash, it doesn't take any selling to get the order.

Now that the economy has gone from expansion to contraction, sales skills are once again needed. Especially how to close the deal.

To open with cold calling or leads, you need to use stealth. In all actuality, the fake enthusiastic sales pitch opening has never worked effectively... not in the 1950's, and especially not now. The only correct way to open a sales call is with a real conversation.

The famous Chinese axiom goes "dress like a pig to catch a lion."

This could literally be the definition of cold calling!

Just like pick up lines don't work when trying to ask a girl (or guy) on a date, cheesy openers don't work for getting sales. To open a conversation you need to start with an indirect question or observation. This gets the conversation started.

Once, you get the prospect to start talking, you need to become the detective. Gently probe for clues about their needs, wants, frustrations, embarrassments, failures, difficulties, etc. Some of these will be obvious, some you'll have to read between the lines, and others you will have to create (this ability is the sign of a master sales professional!)

When you have uncovered the real, emotional trigger, you then proceed to aggravate this pain to make sure it is the real one and then summarize it and see if they agree. If they do, you got the right hot button.

Next, you want to match only the benefits of your product or service that correspond directly with the emotional trigger you discovered in the previous step. Offer the solution you provide and frame it to them as:

"You have a problem. Lucky for you, I have the exact solution. It's a good thing we talked today."

Sounds cheesy? No way. When a doctor tells you she found a lump under your skin and she can remove it with a new procedure and reminds you how lucky you are that you went in that day... is that cheesy?

Didn't think so.

Now many sales professionals mistake hard selling for sleazy selling. This is because a real blockbuster sales close is transparent. Meaning, you never knew you were being sold anything. You came to the conclusion to buy by yourself.

Look at the master sales professionals out there. They are the billionaire investment bank brokers, the software entrepreneurs who get 8 figure contracts, the oil executives who get rights to entire gas fields in unstable countries.

Do you think they got to that position acting like a little mouse, asking politely if they could maybe do business one day? No way, they are the definition of hard sell closers.

That bad misconceptions you might have had came from those who were never good at selling. Usually they were selling you pyramid schemes, used cars, phone service, and other entry level sales positions.

The famous sales trainer J. Douglas Edwards used to say the only difference between a salesman and a con-artist was the product.

If you are selling a product you truly believe in to a prospect you know needs it, then it's your obligation to do everything in your power to close that sale... and yes, that means the hard close.

Hard selling simply means not stopping till you get the order. It's like the line from the old Sinatra song, "your persistence wore down my resistance."

The debate over hard selling versus soft selling will go on for a while. You might even go back and forth depending on the sales position you're at and how much you believe in your product, but always remember, your customer doesn't win unless they exchange their energy for their desires.


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Cold calling and prospecting... the foundation of sales success

If you could point to one single aspect of selling, that is directly responsible for 90%+ of your sales success, what would it be?

Cold calling, of course!

But what if you found out that cold calling, as the foundation (and disgust) of the sales profession, might actually be less important than you previously thought.

Tom Hopkins put it the best in his classic book, "Master the art of selling." He stated the secret of all success in the selling field boils down to one simple rule...

Talk to 20 people a day!

That's it, that's the big secret.

When you're just starting a sales career or are currently in a sales "dry spell," this means you're going to be dialing for dollars to have those 20 conversations. But, let's be clear here, cold calling should be your last resort, guerrilla warfare technique for stirring up new business. In fact, if you've been selling your current product or service for more than 6 months and you're still cold calling... you're doing something wrong. Cold calling should just be used when you don't have 20 people to talk to everyday.

"Well if cold calling is the last resort... where should my 20 conversations come from?"

The best, and I mean absolutely best source of people to talk to are always going to be referrals. These prospects come to you pre-sold and ready to do business. And if you've been in business for a while, AND have been servicing your customers with 110% value, you'll steadily be building up your flow of referral business.

But what if your new and don't have enough referrals to talk to?

Then you concentrate your efforts on the second best source of people to talk to... hot leads.

As soon as you possibly can, setup an effective lead generation marketing system. Create a free information packet about the most commonly asked questions about your product/service and offer to send this information to your prospect in exchange for their contact information. Advertise this offer everywhere your prospect might be... trade journals, newspaper, fliers, internet, radio, TV, etc. When they contact you, collect their information and send them your free information. Then contact them and make sure they received the information, and at that point you can begin your sales method.

To break down the secret of sales success, think of it as a big funnel.

Step 1. Cold call to have 20 conversations daily and start running your lead generation advertising.

Step 2. Call on your leads and keep cold calling to make your 20 conversation goal. Use the cold calls to fill the gap until you have 20 leads to talk to everyday.

Step 3. Once you have at least 20 leads a day to call on, keep focusing on the best customer service you can deliver to create a 99% referral based business, then you can tone down on the advertising.

And there you have it, the secret of sales success in three easy steps.

If you follow these steps, and use a decent sales method, it's virtually impossible for you not to break all your sales records and have massive financial success.

Remember cold call only until you have enough people to talk to everyday through the other sources.

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In closing sales, which technique is more effective...

The hard sell or the soft sell?

The hard sell takes chutzpah.

The sales professional is determined their prospect absolutely needs their product and will get great benefit from it. The hard sale practitioner will go for the throat until the sale is made.

Some sales will be lost.

Others will be made.

The real question is whether the sales were made BECAUSE of the hard sell, or regardless of it?

For most of us in sales, we've seen miracle stories of a sales pro who took the most difficult prospect, overcame every possible objection, and saved the day with the sale no-one thought was possible.

We were mesmerized.

This guy (or gal) must have some special trick or technique. Obviously.

No one else would have been able to sell this difficult prospect.

But what about the opposite?

How many times have you seen (or maybe personally experienced) a WILLING buyer, cash in hand, turned off because of the hard sell.

You know who I'm talking about.

The one who would have bought regardless of the salesman. The one who just wanted someone to take his order. The one who was pre-sold before you ever met him.

But you couldn't resist. You pulled out all of your training. The questions. The "yes three times". Even worse... the canned closes. (Please tell me you didn't try the Benjamen Franklin close with the line down the middle)...

And what happen?

Your willing buyer turned around and walked out... WITHOUT buying!

Am I saying the hard sell doesn't work?

Of course not.

I've seen it work way too many times to discredit completely.

But from what I've gathered... it works only in certain situations... to an extent.

In my opinion, the hard sell works great when you have an indecisive buyer, with a pocket full of cash and no idea of what they want. We all saw this type of consumer during the run up of the bubble. "I just want to buy something" was their mantra and the hard sell worked beautifully on this type of prospect.

Fast forward to the current economy. That type of buyer is long gone. Their pocket full of money is GONE. The only one's buying right now (almost) are the prudent consumers. The one's who smell sleazy salesman from a mile away... which is also why they still have money to spend.

The old Wall Street adage still holds true today, "a fool and his money are soon separated." And as a sales professional, that means the fools are gone, or better stated: the easy money is gone.

Now you're dealing with prudent, intelligent, buyers who understand all their options. They know your competition. And worse of all (for us sales people)...

They have all the time in the world to make their buying decision.

Here's where soft selling comes in. You DON'T go for the throat. You provide value in the form of service, consistency, information, and dependability. If you are the best at what you do or sell, show your prospect with cold FACTS. Don't hype them, they can see right through you. Show them with proof, and lots of it.

Give them everything you possibly can in terms of value. If you charge 10% more than your competitors, give them at least 30% more value.

This is not an economy you want to focus on the quick buck.

Soft selling will get you through this slump and back on top by focusing on the CUSTOMER, not you. Your soft sell approach should incorporate value with consistency... the key to ALL success. Keep yourself on your prospect's doorstep day-in-day-out with useful information, service, and most importantly, a smile (as cheesy as that sounds, it's the best way to open ANY door)

Your prospect will appreciate your effort (and consistency because your competition isn't sticking around too long) and will reward you with their business.... over and over.

If you're currently using the hard sell and aren't getting the results you want, try the soft sell technique for closing sales. See if that doesn't improve your business in a short period of time.
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How many salespeople have a technique for sales, or a system for selling that works effectively?

Most of the successful sales professionals have a step-by-step plan for selling. From the very first contact to closing the deal and getting the check, sales pros are following a tested, structured system. They know exactly where they are with their prospect and what they need to do next to get the deal done.

New and unsuccessful salespeople just wing it every time. They'll try a false close, or start 'mirroring' their prospect, maybe even throw some NLP (neuro linguistic programming) they picked up from the latest fly-by-night guru. And their results will be all over the place. Sometimes they'll close the sale; in spite of making all they wrong moves, which reinforce more desperate selling behavior.

When you use a step-by-step sales technique, it enables you to actually control the sale. You're no longer on the defensive with the prospect. Instead of scrambling to come up with a response to an objection or trying to read minds, you know exactly where the prospect is in the sales cycle and what you need to do next.

The greatest benefit of using an effective technique for sales is that it produces consistent results every time. This removes almost all the stress from sale situation and makes the prospect more comfortable as they perceive you to be a professional solutions provider, not a desperate salesman. If a prospect doesn't feel comfortable around you, their "salesman armor" will come up, making it that much harder for you to communicate the value you are offering.

Proper sales technique is just like a recipe for your favorite meal; if followed, the outcome is virtually guaranteed. You go from step-to-step, adjusting where necessary, until you finish... leaving you with a hot delicious meal (or a big fat commission check).

Selling without a proven system leaves you stressed out. Your results will be different every time so you never know if you're going to make the sale. This is where all the fear and frustration of the sales profession comes in. You will hear many unsuccessful salespeople complain about it being the company's fault, or the economy, or XYZ... when really the problem is they never had a proper sales technique. If you don't know where or when your next paycheck is coming from, how can you expect to enjoy selling as a career?

Having a step-by-step sales method is one of the key techniques for sales success. Make sure you are using a sales method that has proven to work regardless of the industry, the economy, or uncooperative prospects.

To your bigger commissions!

Ron

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When you think about cold calling, what is the universal purpose of interrupting a stranger and delivering the right few words?

It's to open up a dialog, right?

Well your cold calling skills need to be good to great in order to make an elevator pitch that has any chance of succeeding. When you are crafting your pitch, whether on the phone or in person, its always important to avoid anything that sounds like a sales pitch. But what's even more important... the person you are talking to.

You know by now that the key to good communication is to listen 2x more than you talk. Meaning, you should be focused on what the other person is saying by listening, then summarizing and asking questions relating to their story.

If you did nothing else but followed that simple technique, you would be in top 10% of sales professionals.

But here's how to take basic communications and make it an effective sales tool.

There are two general approaches when making an elevator pitch or even a cold call. Direct and indirect.

An indirect approach is when you are having a casual conversation. Here's how to turn that into a possible sale. If you are at a trade show where your potential prospects are gathering, you have a great opportunity to make some new contacts. You start by making a normal greeting and introduction. And here's how you incorporate your pitch. You make a statement like...

"You know how some people have a problem with [problem]...? Well, I offer a way to solve that with [solution leading to your product/service]

This method allows the conversation to stay casual, but at the same time plants a seed of curiosity into your potential prospect's thoughts. If they are interested, most of the time they will usually jump right out and say "Hey! I have that problem, can you help me fix it?" or sometimes you'll hear "You know, my colleagues in accounting have had that problem, do you think you can help them?"

Using this approach, you completely 'tamed' the sales talk and left it open ended. If they bite, you can talk about your products, if not, nothing lost and the conversation can remain casual.

A direct approach is when you are having a conversation that either you initiated or the other party did. When you get to the "So, what do you do?" part, you respond with:

"I help [type of prospect] who have a [problem you fix] achieve [desire result] without [common pain or inconvenience]. Do you know anyone who [summarize]?"

This is more of a direct pitch, but by stating it in the third person, you stay away from the obvious sales talk and tricks. If they are interested, they will tell you immediately. If not, you can resume to the conversation and move on to the next prospect.

Developing a good elevator pitch is great tool to have that will carry over to your cold calls and help you move away from sounding "salesy" and instead you'll sound like a professional problem solver.

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If you want to learn cold calling techniques that will put you in the top of your sales team, then you'll want to read this article.

You might not enjoy cold calling, but you know that prospecting is a necessary evil of any sales position. Most of the old sales techniques concentrate on opening a phone book and dialing for dollars. The problem with this approach is that it is abrasive and you have to put up with the rejection that comes with bothering people.

Here are the only cold calling techniques you need use to remove the rejection of talking to strangers, and improve your closing ratio significantly. The technique is warm calling and this is simply finding people with some kind of interest in your product and service.

The easiest way to find these people is by giving away free information either in the form of a report or free consultation.

To give away your valuable information, you'll need to set up some type of capture page that can be as simple as a free Google blog or website. Once you have this site, offer information about your product or service and provide quality content for the people looking online... hoping to find a solution to their big problem (your product).

When someone requests information from you, simply give them a courtesy call. Be sure to ask them questions about their problem and offer to give them a free consultation to see if you can help them solve their big problem.

At this point, you have identified someone is in dire need to a solution that you happen to sell. Use a friendly, non-adversarial sales approach to take your new prospect through the different stages of the sale.

It's important that you qualify your prospect early on to make sure there is an ability and commitment they can pay for the product/service once you show them that you're able to solve their problem. Otherwise, you become a free consultant that no one will respect or buy from.

Using these cold calling techniques allow you to turn your cold call prospecting into a warm, solution-finding call without the rejection, stress, or low sales that normal cold calling brings. You'll also notice that using these cold calling techniques makes prospecting a fun activity and that calling fear disappears. Try it out... once you talk to warm prospects, you'll never make another cold call again!

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Learning how to sell, as you know, offers the biggest financial reward in any industry. Top salesmen will always write their own terms, and make what they're worth. The problem that seems to plague the sales ranks has nothing to do with the rewards of selling, but the process. The 'how" becomes elusive to the majority, and fearful to the rest. Most sales training conveniently forgets that professional level selling requires a great deal of persuasion and negotiation, gently masked with finesse. Here are five ways you can immediately make your sales situations more persuasive (and more profitable):

1. Talk less
Have you ever encountered the slick, sleazy salesman that won't stop talking while giving you the fake smile? More than likely you have. When salespeople get nervous... they tend to talk and talk without ever giving the prospect a chance to respond. Some sales training out there actually suggests to talk more! The training stated "telling is selling." Nothing can be further from reality. It was explained to me years ago that our creator gave us two ears and one mouth... meaning the prospect should be doing the talking 2/3 of the time.

2. Stop trying to close...ABC is Wrong
Some of the old school sales trainers used to emphasize closing as selling gospel. The term "Always Be Closing" was coined and a whole generation of closers were born. What someone forget to tell this breed of salesman was the internet kinda changed the game. And by "kinda" I mean completely. Look, with a simple Google search, your prospect can find out everything about your product, your competitor, your cost, etc. There is no point using outdated closing gimmicks and assuming the close, and other sales techniques from the 70's... the game is changing. Either adapt or find a new profession.

3. Use questions like a strategic missile
What happens when a salesman or advertisement jumps out at you claiming to be number 1? If you're anything like your prospect... your reaction is "Ya, right" or "Who cares?" Bragging and hyping up your product will not sell it. The only reason anyone buys anything depends on their belief of the product having more value than the money in their pocket. Period. Find the real pain by asking subtle questions and price will never be an objection.

4. Deep benefits sell subconsciously
Most people involved in sales and marketing know that you sell the benefits not the features. But what separates the salespeople who are just getting by from the sales sharks that are million dollar producers... can be summed up as 'Deep Benefits.' While the shallow benefit of a exotic German car might be "the soft, hand stitched leather seats provide full back support, that make your commute as comfortable as possible." The deep benefit will always trump the shallow one because deep benefits almost always "stroke the ego." And you know all too well that desires of the ego have 100x the power of all other emotional desires (Well, almost all other desires...). The sales professional knows this and will use it to make the register ring. Our German car example becomes emotionally charged with the deep benefit of "imagine offering that new temp that has been on your mind a ride, and the look on her face when she opens the door and notices the luxurious fine leather seats..." Logic is no longer an obstacle.

5. Know thy prospect
To really improve your closing rate, there is no better way then learning about who exactly you are selling to. This often forgotten foundation of sales and marketing produces a crystal ball into the world of your prospect. Put together a complete picture of your typical customer. Find out her fears, his desires, her goals, his frustrations, etc. Everything that makes this person tick. Once you know them... and really know them, selling to the subconscious will be subtle, persuasive, and deadly effective. No more fake bonding or fake rapport building. Master this step and you have a secret door into their psyche.

Use these steps in your next sales encounter and pay attention to the changes they have with your prospect. All these methods use subtle sales negotiation to find the subconscious desires and then sell to those desires. Remember the phrase "Sell the sizzle, not that steak?" We took it a step further with "Sell a full stomach, not the sizzle." Learn how to sell and everything in the world becomes attainable.

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Are you struggling with your cold calls?

Chances are you are making one or more cold calling sins. Pay close attention next time you are prospecting to see if you catch yourself making these sales-killing mistakes. All are easy to fix and will almost immediately improve your results.

1. Using a Script

This might be considered blasphemy to sales trainers around the world, but if you are reading off a script... your prospect can tell. Many of the old techniques of cold calling revolve on developing winning scripts. The problem with that is it comes off sounding fake. How many times have you been transferred to a call center abroad and talked to someone reading word-for-word to you? Did it sound authentic or enthusiastic (two of the most vital selling attitudes)? Chances are you didn't have much patience with that operator. Guess what... that's what it sounds like to your prospect.

How do you solve this problem without winging it, either? You create an outline for yourself. Work on your introduction, your probing questions, and your objective/closing statements. Keep the actual words dynamic so they always sound fresh. This way you'll be able to maintain your enthusiasm and won't sound like a telemarketer selling you long distance phone service.

2. Premature Presentation

There is a problem many salespeople seem to run into on a constant basis... we call it premature presentation.

This is the tendency to immediately pitch your wonderful product or service, and blab on about all its wonderful benefits. You quickly put the prospect in "Salesman Alert" status and quickly encounter the oh-so dreaded "not interested" response before you even finished your sentence. You fix this by learning the most important sales skill every discovered-listening.

Find out what your prospect wants. Find her true needs. Find out if you can fix his most stubborn problem. Then offer your product as a solution.

3. Wasting the Prospects Time

Many sales people forget that they interrupted the prospect when they made their cold call. You might have made an introduction and asked a few probing questions and now you're yapping away. A lot of us tend to speak too much and too fast when we get nervous... and cold calling can certainly put us in that situation.

Keep a timer nearby. Learn to get in and get out. Don't start asking the prospect about his hobbies, her family, the weather...

You always want to be the one who ends the call. It sets the frame and allows you to stay in control of the sale. What you never want to do is force the prospect to end the call because she's been patiently waiting for you to finish so she can go back to what she was doing before you interrupted her.

4. Trying to Close Without an Appointment

Never try to close a sale on a cold call, especially on a big ticket item. There is no possible way you can honestly have presented your product within the few minutes on the phone. The only reason you cold call is to create a lead. That's it. Leave the closing for when you speak again or during a set appointment. If you rush the sale, the automatic response will always want to decline. Set a firm time to talk again and leave the selling for then.

5. Not Following Up

They say fortune is in the follow up.

That statement must have come from a sales professional. Many times you won't be able to get through to the prospect, or maybe they were on there way out when you called. Don't give up that easy. Make a note of it, and follow up. You never want to break contact unless you get a firm "not interested" from the prospect. Anything less calls for more follow up.

Keep a detailed journal or contact management software and be sure to write yourself detailed notes. You never know why or when a prospect will become a customer so stay close by and they'll reward you with their business when the time is right.

6. Selling the Voicemail

There can be an entire book written about proper voicemail strategies. You can successfully approach this in many ways, but instantly ruin it with one common, yet disastrous habit... pitching the machine.

You can be vague; you can ask for a call back, you can even tell them you have some important matter to discuss. But if you sound like you are selling during that message, one thing is for certain... returning your call will not be a priority for her.

7. Cold Calling...

Finally, to contradict everything. The 7th and greatest cold calling sin is in fact cold calling.

"But we just went over all these wonderful solutions to the major problems and now you're telling me not to cold call?"

Yes. I am. Listen, cold calling is not efficient anymore. People don't like being interrupted. They don't have the patience of someone trying to pitch them something they have no intention of buying. And most importantly, cold calling stresses out you, the sales professional. Life is too short to be dealing with rejection all day long. One of the reasons I learned the GUTS method of selling was mainly to avoid cold calling.

The phone will always be your most important weapon when selling. But use it talk to people who raised their hand and said "Yes, I might be interested in what you're offering. Tell me more." Sales actually becomes fun when you deal with prospects who want to talk to you and have a high chance of doing business with you.

Spend your time talking to warm leads and cold calling will never stress you out again.

Yours in bigger commissions!

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One of the biggest challenges I had when I first started in sales was talking to people.

I realized that sales was a 'contact sport.' Explained to me as "the more people you contact, the bigger your paycheck."

While this is true... to an extent... it was still one of the hardest skills I had to acquire. Mainly because any kind of cold prospecting (i.e. cold calling, door knocking, shoulder tapping, etc.) involves a good amount of daily rejection. And when your selling confidence is low from being new or not doing well, that daily rejection adds up quickly.

To conquer this fear, I made two breakthroughs:

1. You have to be comfortable talking to strangers... otherwise there is no point in you being in sales. I made a point to start a conversation with anybody I ran into throughout the day. I also started practicing a random technique I read about in a dating book. It goes like this: Everyday you have to get at least 3 movie recommendations from a total stranger you call at random. Try it. It sounds really silly, but after a week or two, you lose all fear of making a cold call immediately!

2. Life is too short to make cold calls... you can practice and practice and be a lethal phone sales expert, but at the end of the day.... cold calling sucks!

The GUTS Sales Method taught me that your commissions (and your ego) are much bigger when you only talk to warm prospects. People who have genuinely raised up their hands and said "Yes, I might be interested in what you are selling... tell me more." When you spend your days talking to people like that, all the stress, fear, feeling of failure are gone completely. And let's not forget how much your sales improve when you spend your time with only qualified prospects.

Sell with GUTS and and leave the struggle for the cold callers...
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