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Casual Articles - Is Phone Sales Skill a Lost Art?
One of the most critical things in life that one may have to negotiate is water rights in a water court. Failure to properly negotiate water rights can cause future catastrophic issues for one's family or the future of their family businesses, lifestyles or endeavors. Often someone is called to negotiate their water rights and without the proper negotiation skills they can indeed blow generations of hard work in a single afternoon. In doing so they will cause future hardship.When negotiating water rights it is important to first show a long-term timeline of the area in the most simplest of details; broken down year by year. Next it is important to show that the other party is not entitled to the water rights by breaking down their history of the water usage in the region year by year. Then it is important to show that the other party has failed to reach an honorable settlement in past negotiations.Once these have been established then the real negotiation can begin. Failure to agree upon the historical background will later cloud the negotiation process and could hurt you and third-party rulings
Login: jdhgroup Password: 1414
Me: (Phone call to rep;2:00 PM)
“This link to the Admin tracking panel does not seem to be working. Can you go over this with me?”
Rep:
“It’s working fine from here.”
Me:
“Do you think you should consider why it’s not working for me from here?”
Rep:
“I’m stepping into a meeting right now.”
Me:
“I see. What about tomorrow morning first thing, so I can see what’s going on with my investment?”
Rep:
“That’s fine.”
· Thursday, 1 Day AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
No call back from sales Rep… ADMIN tracking link still not working
· Friday 2 Days AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;9:05 AM)
Jim, give me your President’s name and direct phone line please. Jeff
Rep: (E-mail to me;9:52 AM)
Are you going to call me so we can
Every business works within the context of core beliefs. We have developed beliefs that define how we relate to projects. We consider them to be guiding principles that, if applied, will improve the quality of your business plan as well as the quality of your relationships with others. We share them with you in this article in the hope that you will find these beliefs worthy of adopting in your business as well.Belief 1: A project is neither good nor bad--only fundable or un-fundable in its present condition.Some organizations look for a few "good" projects. In reality, they really look for those few projects that are prepared--the ones that are fundable. The reality is that most projects are fundable. They may not be prepared with enough information to be fundable right now. They may have enough information but not be formatted properly. When you take on the role of the investor when looking at your project, you begin to answer this most important question: "Would I feel comfortable investing my own money in this project based only on the information in the business plan
Well, maybe. That is if you want to leave a bunch of money on the table at the end of the year. So, what do I mean?
Here’s an example that happened just today. And it happened to me. I picked out a permission-based e-mail marketing company to market my new SalesSpeakerPro.com web site. I thought I’d test the waters with a small e-mail blast to beta the overall results and determine how this SEO company will partner with me in line with my strategic company goals. Because as Popeye says, “I yam what I yam what I yam”.
If they fulfilled their service promises and I received a return on my marketing investment, I’d expand the campaign and spend more money with them. “Business 101”.
In my first career as a professional Pilot, I came to understand that it’s not just one human error in the flight mission that will cause the plane to crash, it’s a series of human errors and miss-judgments that lead up to the aircraft’s ‘Sudden Stop’. And 98% of airplane accidents are directly caused by human error, not mechanical failure.
As professional sales people, here’s what we know to be true. Any product or service implementation has a finite number of scenarios that can and will arise. A percentage of them are not good. Things like bad cutovers, faulty installations, mechanical bumps, network outages and software spikes to name a few. But understanding that, you might think service providers would have contingency plans in place to identify problems as they arise and communicating to the customer a pro-active internal process to remedy the situation. You would think.
In my case, my sales rep sent me a contract that stated I would have a web-based admin panel to view the results of my e-mail campaign; because if you don’t measure it… you can’t improve it. The standard result benchmark for e-mail campaigns is measured in e-mail ‘Open rates’ and ‘Click-through’ rates to the web page URL you wish the e-mail ‘Call to Action’ to take your prospect. And the results should be viewed over 24-48 hours to campaign completion.
For my industry and my type of target prospects I was told I could expect an e-mail open rate of 15-25% and a Click-through rate of 7-15%. Based on a test campaign of 35,000 targeted permission-based e-mails that should bring 367 sales and HR executives to my new sales speaker website at a minimum and at a maximum I should expect about 1312.
So here we go. Here’s the blow by blow sequence of events that led to the ‘Sudden stop’ of the airplane.
· Monday, 1 Day before the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;2:57 PM)
Good to go for tomorrow (Tuesday).
Send me the password for tracking. Jeff
· Tuesday, 1st Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;11:31 AM)
Send me the password for tracking; 2nd attempt.
Rep: (E-mail to me;11:40 AM)
I’ll have it within 24 hours …thanks.
· Wednesday, Final Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;12:31 PM)
And???
Rep: (E-mail to me;1:37 PM)
Here we are:
www.XYZinfo.com
Login: jdhgroup Password: 1414
Me: (Phone call to rep;2:00 PM)
“This link to the Admin tracking panel does not seem to be working. Can you go over this with me?”
Rep:
“It’s working fine from here.”
Me:
“Do you think you should consider why it’s not working for me from here?”
Rep:
“I’m stepping into a meeting right now.”
Me:
“I see. What about tomorrow morning first thing, so I can see what’s going on with my investment?”
Rep:
“That’s fine.”
· Thursday, 1 Day AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
No call back from sales Rep… ADMIN tracking link still not working
· Friday 2 Days AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;9:05 AM)
Jim, give me your President’s name and direct phone line please. Jeff
Rep: (E-mail to me;9:52 AM)
Are you going to call me so we can
Time management is still one of the most frequently searched times as a solution to improved performance. A Google search (September 2006) indicates 19,200,000 hits. There appears to be a lot of individuals seeking answers from training such as workshops to purchasing tools such as PDA’s in their ongoing quest to improve performance specific to this limited, fixed, constant.During the last 10 years in my performance improvement and executive coaching work, I have consistently asked the following simple question to even the busiest of CEO’s, entrepreneurs, small business owners, executives and front line employees: Do you waste 12 minutes a day What is surprising is the consistency of the answer at all levels: Yes! This consistency suggests that individuals at all levels need to better self-manage their activities so that they can achieve the results being demanded of them.Businesses understand the economic impact of wasted time. Those 12 wasted minutes each day translate into 1 hour per week or 52 hours per week. Using an average salary (without benefits) of $30,000 amounts to a
If they fulfilled their service promises and I received a return on my marketing investment, I’d expand the campaign and spend more money with them. “Business 101”.
In my first career as a professional Pilot, I came to understand that it’s not just one human error in the flight mission that will cause the plane to crash, it’s a series of human errors and miss-judgments that lead up to the aircraft’s ‘Sudden Stop’. And 98% of airplane accidents are directly caused by human error, not mechanical failure.
As professional sales people, here’s what we know to be true. Any product or service implementation has a finite number of scenarios that can and will arise. A percentage of them are not good. Things like bad cutovers, faulty installations, mechanical bumps, network outages and software spikes to name a few. But understanding that, you might think service providers would have contingency plans in place to identify problems as they arise and communicating to the customer a pro-active internal process to remedy the situation. You would think.
In my case, my sales rep sent me a contract that stated I would have a web-based admin panel to view the results of my e-mail campaign; because if you don’t measure it… you can’t improve it. The standard result benchmark for e-mail campaigns is measured in e-mail ‘Open rates’ and ‘Click-through’ rates to the web page URL you wish the e-mail ‘Call to Action’ to take your prospect. And the results should be viewed over 24-48 hours to campaign completion.
For my industry and my type of target prospects I was told I could expect an e-mail open rate of 15-25% and a Click-through rate of 7-15%. Based on a test campaign of 35,000 targeted permission-based e-mails that should bring 367 sales and HR executives to my new sales speaker website at a minimum and at a maximum I should expect about 1312.
So here we go. Here’s the blow by blow sequence of events that led to the ‘Sudden stop’ of the airplane.
· Monday, 1 Day before the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;2:57 PM)
Good to go for tomorrow (Tuesday).
Send me the password for tracking. Jeff
· Tuesday, 1st Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;11:31 AM)
Send me the password for tracking; 2nd attempt.
Rep: (E-mail to me;11:40 AM)
I’ll have it within 24 hours …thanks.
· Wednesday, Final Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;12:31 PM)
And???
Rep: (E-mail to me;1:37 PM)
Here we are:
www.XYZinfo.com
Login: jdhgroup Password: 1414
Me: (Phone call to rep;2:00 PM)
“This link to the Admin tracking panel does not seem to be working. Can you go over this with me?”
Rep:
“It’s working fine from here.”
Me:
“Do you think you should consider why it’s not working for me from here?”
Rep:
“I’m stepping into a meeting right now.”
Me:
“I see. What about tomorrow morning first thing, so I can see what’s going on with my investment?”
Rep:
“That’s fine.”
· Thursday, 1 Day AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
No call back from sales Rep… ADMIN tracking link still not working
· Friday 2 Days AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;9:05 AM)
Jim, give me your President’s name and direct phone line please. Jeff
Rep: (E-mail to me;9:52 AM)
Are you going to call me so we can
I have this lingering summer cold, complete with a hacking cough that has overstayed its welcome by at least a week.Soon enough, I’ll be back at 80% or whatever my typical efficiency rating is, so there’s no need for self-pity.When we get sick of being sick, generally, it’s a good sign. We have whatever is tormenting us on the run, and we’re ready to make a comeback, so overall, my spirits are improving.But there is a point between illness and health, a forbidden zone, in which we shouldn’t bother trying to get any serious or subtle work done, because we’ll probably do more harm than good.For example, I just dispatched an email declining an invitation to network tonight at a trade association mixer. I think my note may have sounded a little terse, uptight. I know for a fact it wasn’t all that friendly, and certainly not chatty.Why did I send it? The mixer is TONIGHT, so I waited, as it was, and not replying would have been even ruder.But now, I have two serious business building relationships that I should attend to.Because my voice is a little froggy and I’m cou
In my case, my sales rep sent me a contract that stated I would have a web-based admin panel to view the results of my e-mail campaign; because if you don’t measure it… you can’t improve it. The standard result benchmark for e-mail campaigns is measured in e-mail ‘Open rates’ and ‘Click-through’ rates to the web page URL you wish the e-mail ‘Call to Action’ to take your prospect. And the results should be viewed over 24-48 hours to campaign completion.
For my industry and my type of target prospects I was told I could expect an e-mail open rate of 15-25% and a Click-through rate of 7-15%. Based on a test campaign of 35,000 targeted permission-based e-mails that should bring 367 sales and HR executives to my new sales speaker website at a minimum and at a maximum I should expect about 1312.
So here we go. Here’s the blow by blow sequence of events that led to the ‘Sudden stop’ of the airplane.
· Monday, 1 Day before the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;2:57 PM)
Good to go for tomorrow (Tuesday).
Send me the password for tracking. Jeff
· Tuesday, 1st Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;11:31 AM)
Send me the password for tracking; 2nd attempt.
Rep: (E-mail to me;11:40 AM)
I’ll have it within 24 hours …thanks.
· Wednesday, Final Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;12:31 PM)
And???
Rep: (E-mail to me;1:37 PM)
Here we are:
www.XYZinfo.com
Login: jdhgroup Password: 1414
Me: (Phone call to rep;2:00 PM)
“This link to the Admin tracking panel does not seem to be working. Can you go over this with me?”
Rep:
“It’s working fine from here.”
Me:
“Do you think you should consider why it’s not working for me from here?”
Rep:
“I’m stepping into a meeting right now.”
Me:
“I see. What about tomorrow morning first thing, so I can see what’s going on with my investment?”
Rep:
“That’s fine.”
· Thursday, 1 Day AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
No call back from sales Rep… ADMIN tracking link still not working
· Friday 2 Days AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;9:05 AM)
Jim, give me your President’s name and direct phone line please. Jeff
Rep: (E-mail to me;9:52 AM)
Are you going to call me so we can
Nowadays, great significance is being given to Performance Management, as companies incorporate them in their effective management strategies. However, a lot of people find this process a complicated one, mostly because of the many options that it offers – on the organization, a specific department/branch, a product or service, and employees, among others.In order to minimize this confusion, the items below will give you a general idea of what Performance Management is all about as well as the activities that are involved in this process.What is Performance Management?Performance management is a process that provides both the manager and the employee (the person being supervised) the chance to determine the shared goals that relates to the overall goals of the company by looking into employee performance.Why is it important?Performance Management establishes an outline for employees and their performance managers to assess and to come to an agreement on certain concerns and aims that are in accordance with the overall structure of the company. This enables both parties to have
So here we go. Here’s the blow by blow sequence of events that led to the ‘Sudden stop’ of the airplane.
· Monday, 1 Day before the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;2:57 PM)
Good to go for tomorrow (Tuesday).
Send me the password for tracking. Jeff
· Tuesday, 1st Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;11:31 AM)
Send me the password for tracking; 2nd attempt.
Rep: (E-mail to me;11:40 AM)
I’ll have it within 24 hours …thanks.
· Wednesday, Final Day of the E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;12:31 PM)
And???
Rep: (E-mail to me;1:37 PM)
Here we are:
www.XYZinfo.com
Login: jdhgroup Password: 1414
Me: (Phone call to rep;2:00 PM)
“This link to the Admin tracking panel does not seem to be working. Can you go over this with me?”
Rep:
“It’s working fine from here.”
Me:
“Do you think you should consider why it’s not working for me from here?”
Rep:
“I’m stepping into a meeting right now.”
Me:
“I see. What about tomorrow morning first thing, so I can see what’s going on with my investment?”
Rep:
“That’s fine.”
· Thursday, 1 Day AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
No call back from sales Rep… ADMIN tracking link still not working
· Friday 2 Days AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;9:05 AM)
Jim, give me your President’s name and direct phone line please. Jeff
Rep: (E-mail to me;9:52 AM)
Are you going to call me so we can
Even if you're not a born entrepreneur, at some point in your life you've probably toyed with the idea of starting your own business. Perhaps you've even opted out of your mainstream career to strike out on your own. If you have, you're among the legions of men and women who have made the choice to start their own businesses. Unfortunately, many dreams of self-employment turn into nightmares, primarily because many of those who start businesses don't know how to critically assess business opportunities, how to create a business plan, how to read a financial report, or how to design and implement a marketing plan. Truly, the difference between those who succeed and those who fail most often boils down to whether or not the person has acquired the knowledge necessary to launch and operate a business.What most aspiring entrepreneurs don't realize is that the skill set necessary to start a business isn't out of reach. It's simply a matter of finding the right tools and using them to your best advantage. These tools can be found in books, through online college courses, through training, or throug
Login: jdhgroup Password: 1414
Me: (Phone call to rep;2:00 PM)
“This link to the Admin tracking panel does not seem to be working. Can you go over this with me?”
Rep:
“It’s working fine from here.”
Me:
“Do you think you should consider why it’s not working for me from here?”
Rep:
“I’m stepping into a meeting right now.”
Me:
“I see. What about tomorrow morning first thing, so I can see what’s going on with my investment?”
Rep:
“That’s fine.”
· Thursday, 1 Day AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
No call back from sales Rep… ADMIN tracking link still not working
· Friday 2 Days AFTER E-mail Marketing Blast
Me: (E-mail to rep;9:05 AM)
Jim, give me your President’s name and direct phone line please. Jeff
Rep: (E-mail to me;9:52 AM)
Are you going to call me so we can discuss the tracking?
Me: (E-mail to rep;10:03 AM)
Please supply the number and name for now.
Rep: (E-mail to me;10:12 AM)
Jeff, All correspondence is to be handled by me, so let me know your concerns and I will address them…thanks.
Me: (E-mail to rep;10:03 AM)
Call me. 740 881 1691
Phone call from rep to me; 10:35 AM
Me:
“Jim, have you ever been to the outer islands in the Bahamas?”
Rep:
“Yes, I have in fact.”
Me:
“What did you think of the service; good or bad?”
Rep:
“It was kind of slow, I guess.”
Me:
“That’s what I thought also. In fact, I left with the impression that if they had it their way, they’d prefer that I just sent my money and not even shown up.
Rep:
Silence
Me:
“The reason I mention it is that’s the way I’m feeling about my experience with your Company. Kind of like; ‘Just send us your money and don’t show up’. Do you feel that’s fair?”
Rep:
“The server has been down and I’ve been dealing with all that. Besides, I assumed that you were going to call me.”
Do you want the word ‘Assumed’ on your career Tombstone?
Now, I can’t make this stuff up folks. And it happens out there all the time. My point is this young man was leaving ‘money on the Table’ and he did not even know it.
Here was my advice to him pertaining to the plane crash anecdote consisting of series of human errors and miss-judgments before the ‘Sudden Stop’ occurs. And in his case, the plane landing was no ‘Walk-a-way’!
Error 1: Promising something you may not be able to deliver for Conditional reasons and not having a contingency communication plan in place in line with all possible scenarios and remedies.
Error 2: Not following through on a contracted service component to the customer in time for the intended service, in this case, the ADMIN tracker. Simply put, not having all your Ducks in a Row.
Error 3: Not training the customer to a critical service component
Error 4: Not following up with the customer as requested
Error 5: When addressed, not ‘Hearing’ the customer’s concerns
Error 6: Not ‘Picking up the phone’ and pro-actively communicating to the customer there is a technical problem
Error 7 (The ‘Sudden STOP’): Not honoring a customer request for direct communication to a higher authority within your company
I gave this sales person my best advice for his career. It goes like this:
“When the stuff hits the fan, and we know it will, pick up the phone and talk with the customer. Don’t bury your head in the sand and think it will all go away. And have a ‘Crisis management’ game plan. It goes like this….”
Here’s a pro-active process for turning a negative situation into a positive customer experience and future sales for you.
· Let them vent
· Show empathy: “I understand what you’re feeling. If it were me, I’d feel the same way.”
· Thank them for bringing this to your attention: “I’m sorry I missed this before you had to call me, but I’m glad you did, because I need to know.”
· Paraphrase their main points and concerns: “Let me take a minute and repeat back to you what I hear your concerns are.”
· Reassure the customer you will do everything possible to resolve their concern: “At the end of this conversation, you’ll go back to work and I’ll start my work for you.”
· Document the facts: “I’m picking up a pen to list all the pieces and parts of our situation. Please
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