How to Make Friends by Telephone
Written by Brandon Hull on March 27, 2007
Want to stroll back to a time when phone etiquette was taught — not just phone skills? Read this great little booklet from the 1950s titled, How to Make Friends by Telephone.
Be ready to talk!
Visualize the person you call!
Be attentive!
With all the training workshops, DVDs, and articles on telephone skills, you’d think we’d better at this in our profession. The fact is, it’s the basic people skills and principles that matter most. And nearly all of them listed in this little tome still apply.
Be the Right Thing at the Right Time
Written by Brandon Hull on March 23, 2007
In sales…
There’s a time to be a prospector.
Time to be an investigator.
Time to be a presenter.
Time to be a student.
Time to be a teacher.
Time to be a networker.
Time to be a consultant.
Time to be a skeptic.
Time to be a realist.
Time to be an optimist.
Time to be an individualist.
Time to conform.
Time to stand out.
Time to be on the phones.
Time to be in front of people.
Time to get administrative work done.
Time to be an initiator.
Time to be a finisher.
Time to look at the big picture.
Time to pay attention to the details.
Time to think and talk things out.
Time to simply get things done.
The very best sales professionals know intuitively to be the right thing at the right time. Do you?
Highrise Contact Management Reviewed
Written by Brandon Hull on March 21, 2007
While I’d love to share my review here, I’ll instead point you to our updated Online Contact Managers overview, where you’ll find we’ve added a summary and rating of the much-hyped, long-awaited Highrise, from 37Signals.
Check it out now: Online Contact Managers.
A Brief Lesson on Business Relationships
Written by Brandon Hull on March 21, 2007
Tim Connor once shared a great lesson that will always be true:
If people want to do business together, they won’t let the details get in the way. If people don’t want to do business together, any detail will get in the way.
Maybe it’s worth considering that you’re focus is on the wrong things when you sell. Maybe you’re currently focused on product, product, product, right out of the gates, when you should first be selling you, you, you, and your company. It’s about credibility.
Monotone and hum-drum your way through a presentation thinking your extraordinary product or service will save the day and you’ve overlooked the power of emotions and human relations.
People want to feel something from you if they’re going to make a switch.
Highrise Contact Manager Debuts
Written by Brandon Hull on March 20, 2007
The long-awaited Highrise contact management application from 37Signals made its surprise debut yesterday. (We’ll post a summary to our updated Online Contact Managers review within the next 48 hours.)
Now, while the debut was a small-scale surprise (37Signals never announces launch dates), what a lesson in how to draw people in. If you subscribed to 37Signals’ blog, you would have noted that over the course of the last few weeks they published eight posts detailing the product, including screenshots — and it wasn’t even available yet. Talk about building want.
Many online companies now let you demo their services, which is great if you want to spend time learning the product hands-on. But study 37Signals’ product websites — Highrise, Basecamp, Backpack, Campfire — and you’ll see that they offer a detailed tour of each product aside from the demo, so you know how to use them before clicking your way around. They also include examples and case studies as well, to help you find a way to use the product.
Great sales and marketing. And again, our summary and rating is coming by Thursday afternoon.
Contact Management Summary Updated
Written by Brandon Hull on March 16, 2007
Just a quick note that we’ve added a brief overview of the Etelos CRMforGoogle product to our summary of Online Contact Managers.
The bottom line up front: advanced features, advanced setup and customization required. Not for the faint of heart to initiate, but powerful once it’s up and running.
Up next: Highrise from 37Signals.
iBegin: New Tool For Business Lists
Written by Brandon Hull on March 16, 2007
If you’re looking for a faster way to get access to statewide or nationwide business data, check out iBegin.com.
Most of us have used InfoUSA or Hoover’s or Jigsaw. But you might take a look at this. In short: you can instantly download all business data for any state for only $1,000, or the entire USA for $40,000 — or free if you’re not using the data for commercial purposes.
But what also makes iBegin unique is the fact that you can take part in updating the listings, as the site is being run as a wiki (a website that allows visitors to add, edit or remove content). There are over 10,800,000 listings nationwide currently.
Individual owner or other contact information is not shared, only company name, address, city, state, zip, phone, and fax. But as the directory evolves, it is setup to hold the company’s “category,” website URL, date added to the database (and date updated), latitude, longitude, and major intersection.
How to Get the Next Sale
Written by Brandon Hull on March 15, 2007
It’s one thing to make a sale, it’s another to create a customer.
How you wrap things up with your customers before and after the initial transaction or experience will make the second sale, and all future sales, either automatic, probable, possible, or doomed.
Here are six practices (among many) you can employ to make that customer relationship blossom, build repeat sales, and avoid a one-and-done with new customers.
Sales Fundamentals
Written by Brandon Hull on March 14, 2007
“Line upon line, precept upon precept,” is a great Old Testament phrase.
So many early- and mid-career sales professionals are anxious to pick up “advanced” selling techniques. They want to hear the 43 new closing techniques they didn’t learn at Professional Selling 101 back at the corporate offices. They want to practice the latest, powerful tricks of persuasion. They want to know what magical new things to say to get past the price objections they already feel inadequate to handle.
Of course, their excitement overshadows the fact that they’ve not yet mastered the basic fundamentals of selling that will never change.
The tendency to overlook or underestimate the importance of relating to people, showing an interest in them, asking questions to understand their business and their challenges, and then positioning your product or service correctly is alarming. Line upon line, precept upon precept. Crawl first, then walk, then run.
What makes a good salesperson better is nailing the fundamentals.
Dislocated Selling
Written by Brandon Hull on March 14, 2007
A common mistake of new and poorly trained sales representatives is selling to the wrong person in the wrong way. It’s dislocated selling.
What you’re asking or saying in these instances may be relevant to someone, somewhere, to sell something, but it won’t work here, to this person, right now.
Whether you’re selling the greatest solution to the world’s problems or an everday commodity, you’ve got to be flexible. You’ve got to talk to people on their terms. You can’t stick rigidly to your sales process, and by now hopefully you can appreciate that you can’t cram features into buyers’ ears.
