A new angle on Lead Generation:
 
Finding good B2B leads has been and always will be difficult. With all the competition constantly popping up like mushrooms, it’s not a wonder as to why you’ll have a hard time with making your brand known within your target market. But with social media, you can still do that. Rather than sticking to just direct marketing approaches like B2B telemarketing and email/direct mail marketing, businesses have taken to the Internet and have begun to promote their brand on social networks. Because of the fact that millions of users are online everyday, it makes being seen by your target market and prospects all the more easier. If you are selling a product that the public is looking for, then they will certainly find you. If you are offering a service that many are in need of, the same goes for you. Nowadays, people spend most of their time online in order to research about products and services they may be in need of. That being said, your company may just pop up in the search results when they open up Google. Establishing your presence online and using social media marketing is now part of the key to your success, as well as a new avenue you can learn to use for lead generation.

Online presence – As per what has been said, establishing an online presence is part of how a company can and will succeed in today’s B2B world. Without a strong online presence, or at least the capability to be found online, then a company will be stuck in a rut where they don’t generate leads and not even make sales. People nowadays just adore search engines. If they are looking for something, then off they go to Google, Yahoo!, or to Bing. A few keystrokes after they hit the search engines and next thing you know, they’re looking at an entire list of results. However, they usually only ever stay and rely on the results on the first page. So if you don’t have a strong online presence, your position in search engine results will, of course, be relative to your ranking. If you want your B2B leads to find your company, then establishing your presence online will definitely aid you in lead generation as well as to draw in more business opportunities.
These are just of a few reasons why social media is becoming one of the biggest things in both B2C, and B2B marketing in the present time. What’s your take on why social media marketing is a hit?
By Charlie Rudd, Corporate Developments.

Corporate Developments: How to keep consistent with Sales.

Corporate Developments: How to keep consistent with Sales.: The sales profession is a wonderful one, if you can deal with the psychological aspect of dealing with the constant pressure and the ups...

How to keep consistent with Sales.

The sales profession is a wonderful one, if you can deal with the psychological aspect of dealing with the constant pressure and the ups and downs of sales.
For those of you who know what I mean and have experienced those peaks and valleys, I have great news – There is a way to avoid the lows. It took me awhile to figure out the key to getting consistent results. For years I would experience the ups and downs associated with sales. The ups were of fantastic but the downs were excruciating. You have the pressure from your manager and feel as if you need to press more and more, only to get more and more “no’s”. Then comes the self-doubt…and the spiral downward begins. Once the confidence is lost, a salesperson goes from thinking, “I am going to get the sale” to “I need to get the sale!” Somehow, it comes across, the prospect senses it and in the long run, your pressing too much, you lose credibility and ultimately you lose the sale. 
How do you avoid this trap that is often the demise of many a sales folk?  It is easy; all you need to do is continue to feed the sales funnel. The best way to do that is to have consistent activity. Consistent activity leads to consistent results. In order to figure out how to have consistent activity, it is helpful to understand why there are often inconsistencies in your activity levels.
One of the reasons there tends to be inconsistencies is when the sales are high. A salesperson tends to divert their focus from prospecting to making sure everything gets set up properly for their new sales. They stop filling their pipeline and then come out of the great sales months with a very weak pipeline.  Again, when the pipeline is weak, the salesperson then starts “pushing’, often times trying to fit round pegs into a square holes. This is another destructive behavior, since close ratios go down and the confidence levels go down as well. Then it is hard to get back up that hill once again.
Another reason for activity levels to go down is the natural inclination for a sales person is to take their foot off the petal when the sales start coming in. They convince themselves that they deserve it and take a mental break. Unfortunately, often times it is hard for them to get it going again…, resulting in months of poor results.

You can get phenomenal results by just doing one thing, make sure all of your efforts are focusing on maintaining high activity levels and consistently fill your pipeline. By doing that, your results will be consistent, you will maintain confidence and you will ride the success wave for a very long time.  

Can You Rule The World of Sales Using Your Imagination?

Can You Rule The World of Sales Using Your Imagination?

Napoleon once said,” Imagination rules the world. “

In some industries, imagination is essential to success. Designers, writers, photographers, illustrators and others need constant creativity and ingenuity to stay ahead of the competition. Without it, they and their businesses fall flat.

The very same prinicple applies to sales. While most people don’t consider business a creative industry, imagination is just as important in business as in other fields. The best salespeople look beyond the obvious to generate good ideas, then work and strategize to make them come to fruition and utlimately their company more profitable.

Imagination is one of the most important things a salesperson can have, and the benefits go beyond dreaming up new ventures. Successful salespeople are also imaginative in problem solving. They see multiple solutions to a problem, even when some may not be obvious, and their creative solutions usually generate better outcomes than would be possible otherwise.

So, what can you do to put your imagination to work for you? When talking to a prospect, use your imagination to help them visualize the ease of doing business and all the profits they’ll make when they use your products or services.

Tell them a story that weaves in the facts about your dedication, your services and your willingness to send them ideas and help fulfill their needs.

A constructive imagination will sweep away your competitors like yesterdays trash. Imaginative stories and ideas will seem like a breath of fresh air to customers who’ve only been “entertained” with dry details, facts, figures and me-me-me-ness by your competitors.

If you’ll develop your imaginative powers to the utmost, you’ll develop your sales numbers in the same proportion.

Not selling but beginning a relationship.

Major success in cold calling is to take an approach of not selling but beginning a relationship that adds value to that company or person to whom you are targeting. Open with a statement that allows for them to begin sharing information with you. Do not over power the conversation with your own ideas or thoughts. Be natural and genuinely interested in their business. Selling is about relationships and the value to which you bring. Not how good you can close from a call script. And always know when to move on to the next prospect and not waste time trying to force something that is not worthwhile.
Advice for the day by Charlie Rudd.

Whats going on with Lead Generation?

 

 

 

Lead Generation Has Grown Up

• The role has been elevated from being viewed as a low-skill phone resource to being viewed as an important element of a sales strategy.
• Today, quality is key and lead generation is becoming a proper part of the sales cycle. It is about identifying REAL opportunities which match with the model/strategy. For us, the group reports to Marketing and that is in question. At some point, it might have to be moved to sales.
• Lead generation used to be volume based; it was mostly about a pure appointment setting activity. Now it’s about quality and not quantity. It’s a more critical part of the pipeline generation/overall sales process than most people give it credit for.

Crazy Busy Buyers

• There’s less direct contact with key buyers. So there’s more emphasis on value messaging and specific insight from lead nurturing, trigger events or insight gleaned from speaking with lower level folks (day in the life pains).
• It’s increasingly more difficult as c-levels hide behind AAs, voicemail and even e-mail. It takes more dogged determination and creativity.

Do You Know Why Your Doing What You Do?

The powerful question in Sales is WHY? why do we care?why do we want to change? why will this benefit you and your company? why are you doing it? why should we trust you? to find a solution to Why, this must come from within yourself and the solution for me is to believe.

Do Business with people who believe what they believe,hire people who believe in what you believe.
As the great Simon Sinek states, Apple would not state "we make great computers with simple design do you want one" they would say "Everything we do challenges status quo and we just happen to make great computers want to buy one" the same thing different langage.
Apple believe in their products and know they make excellent computers, thats what they do and how can that help your business. People buy Why your doing it.

You must Believe in your services, products and skills, You may have Talent but this alone will not create long term success without developing your skills, "Talent will fail if you don't work to develop your skills"

If your inner diloge is telling you it's too hard, a wase of time, or the econnomy is shafted nobody is spending, you are creating negativity within yourself and this will most certainly effect your sales.

It's a nessesaty to make a difference in your attitude to potenial clients, it's vital you communicate and build good rapport, understand their believe as a business and know WHY their doing it.

How can 2mm change things?
If your playing Golf and you constantly swinging into the rough, the 2mm angle of the club head can change the hole game of golf, if you go for surgery on your face, 2mm can change your ugly face to beauty, so if your sat in a call center not getting the results on the phone, move your torso up 2mm and listen to the change in your voice, its more possative and confident in its self.

Successful people do what failures wont.

By Charlie Rudd Corporate Developments.

Are You Missing Sales Opportunities Because of Your Follow-up Skills?

 

 

Are You Missing Sales Opportunities Because of Your Follow-up Skills?

As sales people I think that a lot of us don’t follow-up enough because of a common fear we share...the fear of rejection. Sometimes we feel more comfortable with no feedback rather than hearing that dreaded word "NO". I teach my salespeople and customers all the time that hearing no isn't necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact it is the second best answer you can hear behind "YES". Truth be told, by hearing the word "NO" does three great things for you:

1. It lets you know where you stand. You don't have to guess what your prospect thinks of your approach/solution/pitch/etc. I will take 10 "NO's" over 10 "Maybe's" any day of the week. At least with "NO" you can move on to another prospect where a "MAYBE" might keep you hanging around and wasing valuable time.

2. It opens up a lot more options and opportunities for you than not hearing anything.

3. It allows you to learn from your mistakes, uncover missed customer needs or obstacles, answer any of their objections/hesitations (real or perceived), clear up any misunderstandings, or change your sales tactic.

Follow-up should be exctiting for both you and the client. This is an opportunitiy for you both to continue to build a meaningful relationship and establish yourself as someone of value. After all, you are selling service, not cemetery plots...have fun with it.

Remember, follow-up often with your clients or another salesperson will!

By Charlie Rudd Corporate Developments.

Lead Generation

Finding new leads, leads that haven’t yet found you, and preparing them for sales is tough work. Rewarding people to do it well is even trickier business. A good lead generation team keeps your sales team fed and focused on closing deals. It fills your pipeline, creating a steady revenue stream. The lead generation team members develop unique skills and learn how to carefully track leads to pass only the best to sales.
It’s a job with two objectives, right? Pass lots of leads to sales. Pass quality leads to sales. This is where the rewards get tricky.
Since the goal of lead generation is to bring in new leads, you want to reward prospectors who do that. But it doesn’t work to only reward for the number of leads. A prospector who isn’t focused on the final process (sale!) may bring in great volume of poor quality leads.
In the end that will waste sales executives’ time, force the company to pay out when it isn’t receiving revenue and drag down the sales process.
So how do you motivate prospectors to do two things at once?

Charlie Rudd Corporate Developments.

The Appropriate Appointment:

The Appropriate Appointment:
The appropriate appointment, how is this acquired for a client? Many companies outsource there B2BTelemarketing/appointment setting,and many receive incorrect information, appointments which are not saleable or indeed appointments with no reference to the business products of services.
To ensure all your appointments are saleable and importantly relative to your client, then a degree of home work, research, communication and organisation must be done before your team even pick the phone up.
I believe, any manager needs to be confidant that they know their clients Business inside out, in the respect of product knowledge, maintenance of services, always knowing of changes within the service or products that the company may be making, and to communicate with the field team and get a personal angle on the way they like to market  and sell the product and service.

The appropriate appointment, also requires research, on the buyers market your team will be contacting, to generate the appropriate appointment for your client, I believe an element of understanding of why your product or service is appropriate to the buyer.

For the appropriate appointment it is important your team are not only well trained with how your company operates and sells, but importantly they do their home work; and each of your clients have but one appointment Manager per client, so there is continuity and a business relationship can develop and you can represent your client to the best of your ability and provide the perfect appointment and see it through to the close.

Essentially, Knowledge and the correct management of communication between the three parties is the key to the appropriate appointment.

 By Charlie Rudd
Corporate Developments.

The First Question I ask My Salespeople!

The first question I always ask my salespeople is "What are you selling? 

The answer I'm looking for is yourself. The client won't buy anything if they don't like you. 

Learning about the different personalities, how to sell them and make them comfortable with you is the key to selling. 

The second question I ask is "How do you treat others"? 

I don't want to hear "As I would like to be treated" because then you will alienate 75% of the people you deal with. You are a just one of the 4 different personalities and the other 3 don't wish to be treated the same way. Of course there are some standard things like honesty, kindness, and sincerity but different personalities have different needs in order to feel good about themselves and you and if you don't know what these needs are then you lost the game. 

Within 2 - 3 sentences I can tell which personality you are, the best way to sell you and make you feel comfortable with me. After that I need to know my product and how that product/service will help YOU. 

I think any good sales trainer will know the above and teach it if they really want the salespeople to close more often but I suspect it is the one thing never covered.


By Charlie Rudd Corporate Developments.

A New Angle On Sales Generation.

Finding good B2B leads has been and always will be difficult. With all the competition constantly popping up like mushrooms, it’s not a wonder as to why you’ll have a hard time with making your brand known within your target market. But with social media, you can still do that. Rather than sticking to just direct marketing approaches like B2B telemarketing and email/direct mail marketing, businesses have taken to the Internet and have begun to promote their brand on social networks. Because of the fact that millions of users are online everyday, it makes being seen by your target market and prospects all the more easier. If you are selling a product that the public is looking for, then they will certainly find you. If you are offering a service that many are in need of, the same goes for you. Nowadays, people spend most of their time online in order to research about products and services they may be in need of. That being said, your company may just pop up in the search results when they open up Google. Establishing your presence online and using social media marketing is now part of the key to your success, as well as a new avenue you can learn to use for lead generation.


Online presence – As per what has been said, establishing an online presence is part of how a company can and will succeed in today’s B2B world. Without a strong online presence, or at least the capability to be found online, then a company will be stuck in a rut where they don’t generate leads and not even make sales. People nowadays just adore search engines. If they are looking for something, then off they go to Google, Yahoo!, or to Bing. A few keystrokes after they hit the search engines and next thing you know, they’re looking at an entire list of results. However, they usually only ever stay and rely on the results on the first page. So if you don’t have a strong online presence, your position in search engine results will, of course, be relative to your ranking. If you want your B2B leads to find your company, then establishing your presence online will definitely aid you in lead generation as well as to draw in more business opportunities.
These are just of a few reasons why social media is becoming one of the biggest things in both B2C, and B2B marketing in the present time. What’s your take on why social media marketing is a hit?
By Charlie Rudd, Corporate Developments.

Cold Calling

Cold Calling

I have heard over and over again that cold-calling is dead.  I do not believe it.  Cold-calling is alive and well and will last until the final sales representative makes the final sales call just before judgment.   So why do so many people want to get rid of cold-calling.  It is not an easy task.

When you cold-call, you are trying to communicate with someone who you do not know and who does not know you or your company.  If this is a business-to-business call, your prospect has their job to do and gets enough distractions and communications without having to deal with you.  If you are calling consumers, well, they have their lives to lead, and in many cases have been mislead by some sales person who called out-of-the-blue.  I know in my case, sales representatives usually call when I am trying to either feed or put my children to bed.  This is not a good time to sell me gutters.

This means you will receive a large dose of rejection.  No one likes rejection.  Thank about that time you wanted to ask that pretty girl out.  Did you have a lump in your throat?  Had you already heard her laugh at you over the phone in your head?  Rejection is not pretty.  We all want to be liked.
It is this fear of rejection that turns the phone into your enemy.  Yes, that phone that is sitting there laughing at you.  It just looks at you and shouts, “Why would anyone want to talk to you, and why would they want your service?”

So, how do you win at cold-calling?  First, you have to come to grips with this fear of rejection.  In my case, I do not take anything anyone says personally.  I am doing a job, and in my mind, the service I represent brings value to my prospect.  They need my product or service.  It is my responsibility to tell them about this value.

Think about someone being in harm’s way.  Wouldn’t you want to help them avoid the danger?  Or think about how it feels to help someone.  A friend of mine just finished a great job interview because I sent her a job posting.  It made my day to hear her happiness come over the phone.
You have to have the same mindset when you start cold-calling.  These guys need my service or product.  I’m trying to help them.

It also helps to have a system in place.  I either use a customer relationship manager software or an Excel spreadsheet to help me know who to call and when.  I try to be careful in building this list only including companies or individuals who I believe could use my product or service.  If you are calling consumers, make sure you use a service that tells you if they are on a “Do not call list.”
Then, each day, my tool tells me who I need to call.  It also gives me a history of past call dates and times.  I keep a record of conversations, so when I get someone on the phone, I can remember what was said and other personal or company information.  This helps establish a relationship and turns a cold-call into a sales call.

You also need a headphone connected to your phone.  Something happens when you hang a phone up.  You get the feeling you need to have a conversation with a co-worker, or buy a drink or get coffee or a snack.  In other words, you want to waste time and get away from that evil telephone.  Don’t do it.  Instead, have the headphone so all you do is enter the phone number and push some buttons to call and hang up.  You want to be a phone calling machine, one call after another.
You also need to have a script of what will be said if you contact someone, and what message to leave if you get voice mail.
Now that voice mail thing.  Many believe leaving a voice mail is a waste of time and serves no purpose.  In my mind, a brief message left on voice mail is like free advertising.  Also, once you do get that person on the phone, you are no longer a stranger.  You are the guy that left the message.  Your voice mail should be brief.  You should have some hook, like,” We are giving away free puppies….”  Not really, but you get my drift.  You mention your name, the company name, and then slow down.  Give your phone number slowly once, then again.  Finally repeat yours and the company’s name.

If you are lucky enough to get someone on the phone, you have 15 seconds or less to get their attention.  Make sure you say something like, “Would you like to increase your sales by 25%?”  “Do you want your execution in the store to reach 95%?”  Listen to their answer, and then have some prepared responses.  Have a goal in mind that you want the call to achieve.  Do you want to schedule a phone or face-to-face meeting for yourself or a sales person?  Do you want them to check out your web site?

If they are not interested now, get them to commit to a time when you can contact them again.  Get their e-mail address so you can send information, reminders, and news.  Send a thank you note after the call.  If they are not the right contact, find out who you do need to call.  Get a phone number and e-mail address.
As a business development director, I have used these techniques to penetrate companies like TomTom@work, Mercedes Benz,  and others.  The system works to get meetings and to find information, like who is the decision maker.

Cold-calling is not dead.  It should be one of your methods of finding new business.  It is hard and it takes a tough skin, but the reward is worth the effort.

Charlie Rudd Corporate Developments.

Hows Your Sales Culture?

Hows Your Sales Culture?

In these tough economic times winning new customers is tougher than ever -every aspect of your proposition will be scrutinised but as importantly your sales culture will be truly tested. I am currently working with a number of clients keen to develop a high performance sales culture across their organisation. Any missing links in this particular chain can be the difference between winning and losing new business opportunities.