Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Get Your Foot in The Door With My Cold Call Method (50%-70% appointment rate so far)


Hey Business Owners, this could be a fluke, but …

I’m getting a very high number of appointments from people I don’t know personally. In other words, I get a chance to demonstrate my service and get leads without spending money on advertising. And best of all, using the phone to call people is almost F-R-E-E.

And it’s as simple as talking to someone like a normal human being.

It’s old school and people hate it – but your phone is sitting right there in your business and it could be your biggest marketing asset. I think you are atleast missing out on 20-30% more revenue if you do not use the phone.

Now people hate using the phone to get business. Funny thing is, the calls I am making now are the most pleasant calls on earth. Really. It’s like calling up and old friend and just talking. It feels so natural. Words are failing me to describe it. And it’s fun!

I’ll give you my little method in a moment. But the first thing I think you ought to know is that there are two ways to use the phone. It’s the difference between karate and judo. You can either use a LOT of persistence, rebuttals, smart comebacks and a very thick skin to do cold calls or do it the low pressure and low key way – it depends on your personality. But both methods work.

I prefer the low key way. It’s just who I am. Anyways, here’s my method. Let’s call it…

Raymond’s Way To Get Business With The Telephone:

Start with your intention and expectations. Remove your expectation from the outset. You are not selling over the phone. In my business I can’t sell over the phone, because I don’t know what the client truly needs yet. Therefore I would be doing him a disservice by selling directly over the phone.

Besides, I don’t really care about the sale. Sounds funny doesn’t it? What I really care about is forming a relationship or a partnership with my buyer. Let’s put it this way, I’m more interested in keeping the client’s business than getting it. Know this:

When you start to sell over the phone you will be met by resistance. And the person who “outlasts” the other will make the sale – either the prospect or the salesman. That’s just not my style. There has to be an easier way … and there is!

In my ‘style’ you don’t meet force with force. You don’t seek the sale. You never push for the sale. You never hammer the prospect with well thought out rebuttals. You never rebut. You never disagree and argue. You never become adversarial.

But…

You redirect and you give value immediately. In fact, you get permission to give value and then follow up. 

The method in short is:

Ask for permission to give value > Send value > Get feedback from the buyer > Ask for the appointment

Also:

Seek the truth not the sale. You can’t sell everybody. And all those salesbooks saying you’ve got to keep closing and sell, sell sell are crap. Heck I don’t want to sell everybody, because everybody is not the right client for my service. Next:

Don’t make any assumptions. I made that mistake once. Lesson learned. If you go in and say “oh I can help you, I can do this, why aren’t you doing this” you are going to make your buyer look foolish. Buyers have ego’s. Ask for permission to give value first.

If he is not open to it, then … he is not a qualified prospect anyway. See you don’t want to work with people who are not open to suggestions and who knows ‘better’. Such a relationship is doomed from the start.

So right before I pick up the phone I think “man I hope I can give this guy a killer suggestion to help him increase his business and I hope he has an open mind – but if he doesn’t that’s okay too.”

That’s the mindset I go in with on each call. Your mindset is key. Because your prospects are smart. Your buyer might be a troll in real life, but when it comes to purchasing descisions he is Einstein like clever. You can’t disguise your intention. And if your intention is on selling him right over the phone – you’ll get resistance.

So what is my intention?

My intention is just to get permission to give value. Not sell. Not push a report. Not push a consumer guide. No. There is no pushing involved. Infact the more you “push” the more your buyer “pulls”.

My goal is just to ask for permission to send the buyer some tips on how to improve his ad. See most advertisers want some advice on how to improve their ad. Their paying for it, so they will naturally be open to advice that could help them. See how that works? 

Now ask yourself:

What advice can I give my potential buyer that would be valuable for him?

Are you in real estate? Perhaps you can assemble a little buyers guide for bachelors and call on bachelors looking for cool houses. Are you a tax planner? Maybe you can make a report on 27 ways to save money on tax? Heck if I’m getting smacked with a large SARS tax bill I’d sure want to know how to cut back on my taxes.

Oh I almost forgot! Very, very important. You need to give a solution to someone who has a predetermined need that he knows about, cares about and would like help on. No point in sending your tax guide to a 1 man band when he really doesn’t pay any tax. Get it?

Okay your almost ready to make that call. “Radical Raymond” has one more golden nugget for you. The inspiration comes from Malcom Gladwell in his bestselling book blink. In a nutshell we make descisions instantly. Food good. Salesman avoid. Gang in alley bad. It’s almost caveman like. So it’s important not to identify yourself as a salesperson in the beginning of the call.

“HIII, my name is Daaaavid, how are you this morning”

SALESMAN! LOCK UP!

“I’m from XYZ Consulting, I sure hope it’s going well today”

SALESMAN ALERT!

“Hi, are you interested in abc”

HE’S OUT TO TAKE MY MONEY, RUN!

Don’t come across like that. It’s an uphill battle like trying to break into a bank that can see you coming.
You are not a salesperson, because you don’t know if there is a need yet. You are merely asking for permission to send value to your buyer. There’s much more to this so …

I’ll see if I can upload a video of me doing these calls so you can get a feel for how to do it the no pressure & easy way.

P.S. Like I said in the beginning, this could be a fluke. I just made a handful of calls and didn’t need to do anymore so I don’t have a very large sample – but I’ll test it some more and be back with those videos.



Stick around,

Raymond


Monday, March 12, 2012

Simple But Overlooked Facebook Marketing Strategy Wins Referrals for Businesses

A really simple but overlooked way to get referrals for your business is by using facebook. I’ll give you the exact steps on how one of my clients was able to churn out atleast 100+ referrals per day with this method (and how you can too).

Best of all – it’s free, gratis, mahala and you can use it right away.

This idea invaded my brain right before bed, so much for trying to sleep <(-_-)>. But more importantly is the question that led to the idea and not the idea itself (oh boy I’m starting to sound like Mr Miyagi from Karate Kid).

See it’s one thing to think how do I sell, how to get rich, how do I make mooooneeeeyyyy out my business – but these questions often leads us into a brick wall only to pound our soft and squishy heads on hard concrete like the many victims before us. No – we must think differently.

[Note: I’m not talking about thinking “positive thoughts” or any other wushu type of think happy pink bunnies and you’ll be rich. Children below the age of 10 think happy thoughts all of the time and they aren't raking it in. And yes The Secret is crap, thanks for asking.]

What I mean by thinking differently is to think outside of the box. Changing the thought process from:

“How can I generate more business”
To…

“How can I get more sales"
Towards...

“How can I get more referrals which will then allow me to sell”
And then…

“How can I use my salesforce to get more referrals?”

Bingo! If we can simply use the salespeople, the receptionist, the order takers, the people that interact with the customers to get a referral – we’d be golden right? So my client, Ocean Basket in Capetown (an awesome seafood restaurant by the way) have waiters that interacts with the customers (the salesforce if you will).

The customers love the food, the owner and the place. So the question is – why not ask the customers to update their facebook status and recommend the restaurant to their friends? Most of the customers are happy to do this, because they had a nice evening.

So the customers simply went to the counter (where the owner had his laptop), and updated their facebook status and then say to their facebook friends what their evening was like. This not only reinforces the enjoyable evening in their mind, but also promotes Ocean Basket on facebook for free.

And since facebook mostly consists of wall posts … the friends of the customer will most likely have a facebook wall populated by praise for Ocean Basket. This not only increases sales but branding and top of mind awareness as well.

The average facebook user has around 200 friends. And if only half of them see the status update, it means that each update is viewed 100 times per referral. So if the client gets 100 referrals per day, he gets 10 000 (100x100) people to see his brand every day.

That’s more people viewing his brand than the amount of people in my town! And if you have a salesforce or a bunch of customers or clients or an email list … Ask for a recommendation via facebook to help others realise your value and make yourself some paper.

Peace.



Thursday, March 1, 2012

1 Liners

When either selling, pitching, negotiating, forming marketing alliances or teaming up, people sometimes sit on the fence. I hate that, because time is money. But often, a single sentence can move a couple of hesitating turtoises off the fence. I call these “1 liners”. It won’t get you the business or sell you or your product all by itself.

But I’ve seen it time & time & time again close deals which could have gone either way. Let me give you an example. 5 Minutes prior to writing this post I was one the phone to form a marketing alliance with a local printer. I want the printer to introduce me to their clients and pay them for it. Here’s the conversation:

Me: Can I speak to the owner please

Owner: Speaking

Me: Hi, my name is Raymond, we haven’t met yet, I’d like to know if you want to add marketing coaching to your printing business

Owner: No, no we are not interested

[I could have given up at this point, but somehow I got the idea that the owner thought I was a telemarketer]

Me: No, no the service is not for you, I’m not selling anything here [That’s the 1 liner retort]

{Warning >>> Don’t say you are not selling anything if you are, got the tshirt}

Me: I’d like to pay you for adding my services to your business, if we can have a 3 minute meeting I can show you how, but it may or may not be for you either way – when would you like to meet?

That’s more or less how the conversation went. The meeting is on Monday, can’t wait :).

So here’s the lesson – think or dream up one liners that you can say when you get a little bit of resistance (resistance is normal).

I’ve seen Daymond John from Shark Tank threw this one: “Work with me and I’ll make you filthy rich”. Nice. Now that we are on the subject of Shark Tank … WATCH EACH EPISODE! It’s amazing even if it’s just for Kevin O’Leary’s laser like expressions on cash. My favourite is … "don’t cry for money, it won’t cry for you".

Back to the 1 liners. Let’s crank it up a notch. We can move from 1 liners to automatic 1 liners. These are simple retorts you can say no matter what type of objection your prospect gives you. This … is … gold. 

Why? Well because when you are pitching, selling or negotiating you can’t wait 5 minutes, 2 minutes or even a minute to think of something to reply with.

You’ve got 2 seconds. Take any longer and you lose perceived value. Imagine somebody trying to sell you something and you ask them a basic question and they go hmmmm for 5 minutes. Daai kite gan nie vlieg nie. Not gonna work.

So let’s say somebody says to you:

You are too young > That’s exactly why you should hire me
You are too expensive > That’s exactly why you should hire me
Your business is too small > That’s exactly why you should hire me

Obviously this isn’t the magic bullet to save your skin, get rich, get the car and get the girl. However: it buys you 5-10 more seconds for you to stay in the game. And that’s all you need right now…