Strategies For Success, Inc

You Make the Call

Mark — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:07:18 +0000

Sandler Training

Situation : You’ve been contacted three times by the Director of Warehouse Operations for a local manufacturing company. The first time he revealed that the company would be upgrading some of its materials handling equipment and requested a full-line catalog. In response to you request for an appointment, he explained that the company was only in the preliminary stages of planning and an appointment would be premature. However, he committed to getting in touch with you when it was appropriate. So, you sent the catalog.

A few weeks later, the Ops Director again called, this time requesting spec sheets for specific roller conveyors and cantilevered storage shelves. He was quick to point out that the company was a bit further along in planning, but not ready for a meeting…and restated his commitment to get back to you when appropriate.

The third request came via e-mail – this time for pricing information. Your phone call got no further than the Ops Director’s secretary who only repeated the request for the pricing information. What should you do?

Provide the pricing information and wait for the Ops Director’s call?
Inform the Ops Director that pricing information is only provided during a face-to-face meeting and press for an appointment?
Call the company’s CFO and request an opportunity to discuss how your company might help with the warehouse upgrade project?

Action : If you wait for the Ops Director’s call, you may be waiting a long time. Pressing for an appointment as a condition of supplying pricing information will likely be met with more put-offs and excuses.

Calling the CFO is the most appropriate course of action. The CFO may not play a part in the final selection of equipment or the company from whom it is purchased, but he or she can most likely provide you with information about the scope and timing of the project and point you in the direction of someone higher in the chain of command than the Ops Director with whom to discuss the opportunity.

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Make the Most of the Ones That Got Away

Mark — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:01:30 +0000

Sandler Training

In the normal course of business, things slip through the cracks. Sometimes those things are your prospects:

An appointment needed to be moved, but it was never rescheduled
You met someone at a networking event who said, “We should get together”, but an appointment was never set
Someone requested information, but you couldn’t immediately get them on the phone and they were forgotten
You were given a referral, but after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to contact them, they, too, were forgotten

Once youíve identified the ones who got away, commit to contacting them within the next
week. Whatever it takes – a phone call, an e-mail, or a knock on their door – make the contact
and qualify them and schedule an appointment or disqualify them and ask for a referral.

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Eliminate Stalls and Objections!

Mark — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:50:06 +0000

Sandler Training

Stop handling your prospects stalls and objections – eliminate them.

Start by identifying the most prevalent stalls, put-offs, and objections you receive from prospects.

To develop a strategy to eliminate them, examine the sequence of events that leads up to each particular stall or objection. Is there something you could have said, done, or asked that would have prevented the stall or objection from surfacing?

Once you’ve identified what it would take to preempt the stall or objection, the appropriate up-front agreement, action, strategy, question, or response: then rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse some more with a colleague, your sales manager, or perhaps your spouse.

You must internalize the responses and actions until they are second-nature. The next time events that typically precede a stall or objection start to unfold, you’ll be prepared

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Sandler Rule: A life without Risk, is a life without Growth

Mark — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:43:04 +0000

Sandler Training

Repeat orders from your existing customers are getting you close enough to your monthly quota to keep your sales manager off your back. You are relatively happy with the predictable amount of your monthly commission checks. Life is good, or is it?

Your best customers are at the top of your competitors’ prospect lists.

Things could change overnight. You are either growing or you are dying. There is no in between.

If you want to grow, you’ll need to take some risks. What will you have to risk?

Being abused by gatekeepers who believe their sole mission is to prevent you from talking

to the company decision makers.

Being rejected by prospects who have no interest or need for your product or service.

Hearing a prospect say no after you made your most polished professional presentation.

None of the risks are life-threatening, though some may bruise your ego. However, if you learn from your experiences, you and your ego will become stronger and your life will become richer .

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Go for the Goal

Mark — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:00:48 +0000

Goal setting is a job.

Sandler Training

It takes time and effort. The very act of

setting goals can be threatening to some people. They don’t

set goals because they are afraid they won’t fulfill them or

because they don’t know how to begin the process of goal

setting. Not only do these people deprive themselves of

success, they lack the guidance that well thought out goals

provide.

Material goals are worthwhile; however, it is the intangible

ones’ your core value goals, your life goals that really drive

your behavior to achieve the material goals. Intangible goals

never stop evolving. Your tangible goals must be part of your

life goals. Otherwise you may find yourself reaching your

tangible goals and then asking yourself, Is that all there is?

As originally published in Sandler Monthly Newsletter Volume IV Issue VI. Read the most recent here.

Excerpted from President’s Club Professional Development Program (trainer’s

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You Make the Call

Mark — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:26 +0000

Sandler Training

Situation :

You’re in front of your prospect for the first time. He is asking you a lot of

questions about your product: How much does it cost? What is the installation time? What

kind of training do you offer? Is your product the latest in the industry? You have the

answers and a lot of literature in your briefcase. The prospect seems very interested. This

may be easier than you thought . . .

Action:

Dummy up! Your prospect is leading you down the path of free consulting. Instead

of answering the barrage of questions, take control of the sales interaction. Don’t ignore the

questions, but use reversing to begin asking questions of the prospect that will uncover the

pain and other information you will need to present a best-fit solution. Keep your product

knowledge in check until you’ve taken your prospect through the Sandler Selling System .

For other tips like these, view our Library Page and download the Sandler Monthly Newsletters!

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Selling from Ego States

Mark — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:50:30 +0000

According to Sandler’s use of the principles of Transactional Analysis, your selling should be dominated by your Nurturing Parent ego state. The Nurturing Parent produces the most productive behaviours. Just as the label suggests, your Nurturing Parent ego state is warm, friendly and supportive. You can guide the prospect through the selling process without playing games or putting the prospect on the defensive. Added to the Nurturing Parent is the Adult, who communicates intellectually, with the rational statements of fact and data evaluation. Remember the three most important words in Sandler training: Nurture, nurture, nurture!

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Tips for Distracted Prospects

Mark — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:30:34 +0000

Situation: You are in front of a prospect who just doesn’t seem to be paying attention. As you talk about your product, he keeps glancing over to his computer screen to see what new emails have come in, then changing his focus to noise in the hallway, and the traffic in front of the window. You’re becoming frustrated, and are thinking of just ending the sales call.

Action: Stop stating and start asking. Ask the prospect questions. Answering questions will keep the prospect enganged in the sales call, and help you uncover the information you need to qualify the prospect and make the sale. Don’t forget reversing (with softening statements) to keep the dialog active and keep the prospect in the role of supplying information.

If you have any questions, contact me and I will be happy to discuss this with you.

Taken from SandlerBrief Volume IV, Issue IV

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Pain Part 2 – The Shape of Pain

Mark — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:27:38 +0000

When uncovering pain, you move the prospect from the general to the specific – from the surface problem to the underlying reason and the personal impacts. That is why the Sandler Pain Funnel(SM) is just that, a funnel.

Sandler Pain Funnel(sm)

It takes the prospect from the “top”, a statement of the surface problem, through the examination of what the problem is costing, what has been tried in the past, how the problem is affecting the prospect, and whether the prospect has given up trying to deal with the problem. By following this questioning technique for each surface problem identified by the prospect, what comes out the “bottom” of the funnel is a prospect who is well on the way to being qualified or disqualified based on pain

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Pain Part 1 – The Great Motivator

Mark — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:20:54 +0000

Trying to sell someone on change is a waste of time if there is no reason for that person to make a change. The best, the only real, reason for a prospect to make a change is because he or she is experiencing pain. If you can’t uncover real pain with a prospect, getting to an emotional impact, then you’re not talking to a viable prospect, and it is time to close the file.