Five Days To Successfully Selling When Nobody’s Buying

Day One

No cold calling today. Ha! You thought I was going to tell you to make calls to a bunch of new prospects, but I’m not . . . not yet, anyway. Instead I want you to follow these instructions:

• Call 25 clients from your inactive client list. Talk to them about engaging with you again. If they are inactive because of issues with the company, get someone busy, including you, resolving the issue if it will lead to a sale. Ask them the question, “If I could get this resolved right away, would you have a conversation about moving forward together again?” If the answer is yes, get busy. If the answer is no, send the problem to someone who can resolve it and get him on the case; your clients may change their minds once their problem is solved.
• Call 10 of your existing clients and don’t ask them if they would consider buying something additional from you; instead, present them with an offer. Sell them an upgrade, an additional service, a new product. Have a plan and pitch. I don’t care if they bought from you last week and you know they’ll say no; call anyway.
• Call someone who is not a competitor but supplies complementary products or services to clients like yours, and tell them you have five great clients you’d be willing to introduce them to and endorse them if they’ll do the same. If they say no, keep calling until you get someone smart enough to say yes.
• For the hour before you leave the office tonight, review the action plan for tomorrow and get everything you need in place so that you can hit the ground running. Creat a list of 10 people you can ask for referrals, 5 people you can ask for a testimonial, and 20 people who’ve asked for more information but to whom you haven’t spoken in the past 10 days. I also want you to get the names and addresses of 10 prospects you’d like to be doing business with.
• Make all your client follow-up and prospect calls today, before you leave the office.
• Just before you walk out the door, sit back down and leave five voice mails for people who’ve requested information in the past month and tell them that you’ll be calling them tomorrow because you discovered something important that will impact them.

By the way, I don’t care if you sell doughnuts, diamonds, or document processing, the rules are the same, no excuses.

Day Two

Today is going to be busy again; you need to turn up the focus. If you found yourself getting distracted, today is not the day for that. Stick with me; this is easier than a diet. Massive focused activity leads to massive results, so here we go!

Call 10 people who could give you a referral and say this specifically; don’t cheat, read it. “Hi, <insert name>, I’m calling because it is a tough time in our industry and I wanted to know who I could refer to you right now that would help your business grow. As you know, I talk to a lot of people every day, and I want to be able to send you some good referrals.” Listen, take notes, and then if you know someone right away who would be a good fit, give him or her one referral on the spot. If you don’t know anyone off the top of your head, that is okay, too. Then say, “Because these are such odd times, I’m wondering if you’d mind doing me a favor, too. Who do you know that would be a good fit to work with me? Someone like you who has the same sort of needs you do, or someone who you know would be an exceptional fit. Is there anyone like that you could refer me to now, while I’m searching for a referral for you?” Then wait for a response.

Now, the caveat here is that you really do need to try and give them a referral as well, so don’t call on people that you know you wouldn’t feel comfortable referring others to. When you call their referral, you are going to say to the gatekeeper or on voice mail, “<Insert name of person who referred you> said he respected you and that you’d be a good person to ask a question about using <insert your product>.” Then move into your pitch.

One of the big things that costs you time during the day is all the little things that you need to do: appointments to get the car serviced, finding addresses and phone numbers for prospects, all that stuff. I want you to take a brief break and go to www.asksunday.com right now and sign up for a free trial for one of their personal assistants; then I want you to dump off all the stuff you have to do the rest of the week that someone else can do for you. Need an oil change? Let them find someone to come to you to do it, and while they’re at it, ask them to find a coupon, if there is one. Let them do it. I’m serious about this; give yourself a break. If you need to research something, have them do it and give you their compiled research. Your time is more valuable focused on selling. Be creative with how you use these guys; they can take a lot of the burden off you and help you be much more productive.

It’s time to call those people who’ve asked you for information but with whom you haven’t followed up within the past 10 days. Call each and every one of them and either talk to them and move them forward or disqualify them. If they are not available, leave them a voice mail with one strong, compelling reason to call back . . . and leave them two times; you’ll try them back once today and once tomorrow. I know that this is going to be a challenge for you. There is a reason you haven’t followed up with these people in the past 10 days; maybe it was because you didn’t think they were interested or because you just haven’t gotten around to it. Whatever the issue, get it done. Where there is fuel, there is the potential for fire, so make the calls.

Once that is done, you are going to call five people you can ask for testimonials-people who are thrilled to be working with you and who are willing to say so. Your goal is to convert all of them and get them to agree to doing the testimonial. Ideally, you’d like to have it on video, but that may not be practical, so go to www.conferencetown.com and sign up for a free conference call line. There you’ll be able to record their testimonials as an MP3 that you can e-mail as an attachment to other prospects, put on your web site, and include on a CD that you send out later. It is more impactful than a written testimonial because the listener can get more dimension from it; it is a real person speaking about your product. You can also transcribe it and put the written portion up on your web site, and you can send your referrers the text and ask them if they’d mind putting it on their corporate letterhead as well. Now you’ve got a powerful testimonial to use on all your future calls.

It’s time to set up 10 prospects that you’d really like to do business with, to get them to take your call and do business with you. First, go to Starbucks and buy 10 $5 coffee cards. If you need approval from someone to buy the cards, show them this book and this quick-start guide and tell them that you are following it step by step, verbatim, and that you’d like to get the cards. If they won’t buy them, I want you to strongly consider buying them yourself. If you can’t afford $50 right now, then feel free to only buy five cards, but that is the very minimum. You are going to create a letter that says the following:

Dear <insert prospect name>,

I’m sending you a one-page letter because I’d like to earn your business. I’m sending you a Starbucks card because I want to help you think; more about that in a minute. I made this letter only one page so you could hear me out quickly. I only want one thing: a chance to talk to you on the phone for exactly seven minutes. Before you say yes, I want to share three ways I think my company can help you, and I’d like you to think about them:

<Insert three bullet points about how you can help them>

<Insert one testimonial from a high-visibility client>

I look forward to having an opportunity to talk to you in the coming week. When I call I’d like to schedule a time on your calendar; if you’ll let your assistant know I’m calling, I’ll book everything with her, or if you book your own appointments, I’ll be courteous, professional, and brief, schedule the appointment with you, and wait to talk on the appointed day.

I get some of my best thinking done in the morning with my first cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate (depending on the mood); it just seems to help. And I just found out that caffeine stimulates thoughtfulness and creativity. Anyway, I wanted you to have a beverage on me in the morning as you consider my proposal. I’ll be calling on <insert a date after which you know they’ll have gotten the letter> to schedule our appointment. If you’d like to contact me earlier, here is my cell phone number; call me any time it is convenient for you and we’ll schedule the appointment or talk right then.

Best regards,

<Insert your name and cell phone number>

Now, do the following:

• Make all your client follow-up and prospect calls today, before you leave.
• Get prepared for tomorrow; you have a big day ahead of you. You’ll need the name of three local prospects that you’ve been trying to reach and the contact info for 10 prospects who said no to your proposal in the past 90 days. You need to leave for work early tomorrow, so get a good night’s sleep.

Day Three

Bring a pair of scissors to work with you today. On your way to work you are going to stop at a store and buy some scotch tape and a roll of two-inch-wide red, blue, or purple ribbon and three matching bows. You are then going to go to the local doughnut shop and buy three dozen doughnuts, a dozen in each of three boxes. Then:

• Wrap the ribbon around the doughnut box once the long way, top to bottom; cut it and tape the ends to the box so you have a nice flat piece of ribbon around the top and down the sides of the box, taped to the box on the bottom. You’ll now repeat the process with your secondpiece of ribbon, this time side to side, creating a cross on the top of the box. In the center of the cross you’ll place one bow. Do that to all three boxes.
• You’ll now drive each box of doughnuts to each prospect’s office. Walk in with the wrapped box of doughnuts and announce that you have a personal delivery for your prospect. Ask if the prospect could come to the front so you can give him or her the delivery. When he or she arrives, deliver the doughnuts and introduce yourself. Then say, “I’ve been trying to reach you and haven’t had any luck; I was worried I’d been too gruff, so I thought I’d take the sweet approach. I figured you and your team might enjoy the doughnuts. I don’t want to take a lot of your time right now, but I’d like to schedule an appointment to talk to you on the phone this week. Which day could we schedule?” Then wait for the answer. He may be willing to talk to you right then, or he may want to schedule the appointment; take either option. Leave him with any collateral material you feel is appropriate.
• When you get back to the office, you’ll call 10 prospects who didn’t buy from you. They may have purchased from someone else or they may have decided not to buy. Your job is to find out if what they bought instead of your product is serving them well or if they are still in need of what you sell.
• The rest of the day is devoted to writing a 500 to 800 word article that you will submit online. Write the article and submit it at www.ezine.com; be sure to include your name, a brief bio, and a link back to your web site so people who are searching for information in your category can contact you. The key to the article is to write about something timely and topical, showing how your product or service is solving a problem a lot of people in your industry are having.
• Make all your client follow-up and prospect calls today, before you leave. Plan your schedule for tomorrow by making a list of the top 25 sales that, if you could make them, would make your whole year, maybe more. Write those down; tomorrow you’ll need them.

Day Four

• Today you are going to research your top 25 prospects. I want you to read everything you can find about these companies on their web sites, Google them, call any vendors you know and where you have contacts who work with them, and get any insights you can. I want you to spend the day today becoming a subject matter expert on your top 25 prospects.
• Make a list next to each of the prospect’s names of ways you can help them based on what you’ve found. Include creative ways of connecting with them as well as interesting tidbits you can use to open the conversation and any other material you find useful.
• Gather the contact information for each of the prospects so that you can start contacting them in earnest on Monday.
• Make all your client follow-up and prospect calls today, before you leave.
• Prepare for tomorrow; finish the week hard.

Day Five

Finishing the week hard is the sign of a true champion. When your competition is preparing for the weekend, I want you to turn on the juice; you’ll have time to cool down over the weekend. Remember, the home stretch is where winners win while losers quit. Now:

• Call five satisfied customers and ask them about other ways you might be of assistance. Talk to them about other products or services you have, and discuss how they might integrate them. Ask them what else you can do to support them, and be willing to pitch in and help.
• Pay off at least three referral exchanges. Give people who gave you a referral a referral in return.
• Do your research and try to find two networking leads, groups, or events that you can attend in the next 10 days where prospects will be. Schedule yourself to attend.
• If you haven’t already used all your asksunday.com tasks, give them something to do for you over the weekend that will save you time or make you more productive next week.
• Write five thank-you letters to people who have purchased from you recently.
• Make all your client follow-up and prospect calls today, before you leave.
• Plan next week’s activities.
• Congratulate yourself and reward yourself for following this plan all week (if you really did)—go out for a nice dinner, do something you enjoy, and know that you made a solid effort this week.

If you’ve followed this quick-start plan for a whole week and done everything that I’ve outlined for you, you’ll have created tremendous momentum. That momentum is what it takes to make sales when times are challenging.

This quick-start guide will give you the emotional energy to do the rest of the processes in the book that will make you successful when everyone else struggles. The only material in this book that doesn’t work is the material you don’t implement.

The fastest way to improve yourself and your sales is to focus more; do one thing extra every day and be willing to step out side your box. If you do, you’ll find more success than about 99% of the rest of the salespeople working today. The only thing standing between you and your next sale is you.

Now let’s get into the really good stuff so that you can systematically improve your game!

Sumber : David Lakhani - How To Sell When Nobobdy’s Buying