Larson's sales & marketing blog

Even with the push of Social Media and Online Marketing, cold calling is and still remains the best way to go out and make contact with potential clients. It is the only proactive way to start a two way conversation with a prospect. Using every other way you need to sit back and hope the prospect actually picks up the phone, emails or sends back a business reply card. Do you have that kind of time? Now these are all great ways to marketing but if you add in a cold call follow-up in your marketing play your results will be 10% to 22% better.

In case you need more of an incentive to using the phone or picking it up and calling us here at Larson & Associates to do it for you, here are 5 successful ways to mix in cold calling into your sales and marketing attack.

1st. Clearly define your criteria. Get your program put together and aimed towards where you want to go. No brainer but how many times does it not happen. Sit down in a meeting with all your sales and marketing people and determine the base criteria for what is a qualified lead.

2nd Set an agenda to guide you through the steps to start a real conversation. A call without a direction is the path to a failed call. I am not saying use a script but know where you want to go to in the call.

3rd Be relevant to the person you are calling. Ask yourself these two questions. 1) What is the reason for the call? And 2) Is it relevant to THIS prospect? Don’t waste their time. Don’t waste your time.

4th Create a voice mail strategy. I believe in voice mail so much that if I take a project and the client says to NOT leave a voice mail, I might just not take the project. It is almost doomed to failure. A voice mail is a way to send out a mini advertisement right into the prospects ear. With a relative message you will warm up the prospect for your next try at speaking to them. And yes sometimes they call back and if they do 1 of 2 things are happening. Then need what you got or they are calling you to tell you to go away and don’t call back. Either way you win. In the first one you are one step further down the sales process. The other you can take them off your prospect list and you don’t have to waste your time on them anymore.

5th Integration of multimedia and multichannel marketing. Keep in mind the 3 legged stool. 3 channels work best. Cold calling can and will benefit from the use of multimedia, content marketing, social media marketing, direct mail and/or email marketing. You may go the Whitepaper and webinar route as well. It is about exposure and follow-up. You don’t follow up, don’t bother doing it.

Larson Notes & Satire:  Cold calling follow up is just the natural progression of the sales process.  Every product or service has a cycle and a natural progression.  A good well placed cold call only shortens the sales cycle because you get in and out quickly.  The key is to get in and get out without making the prospect angry. The fact that most of you reading this are B2B and the telephone is a natural way to do business it only makes sense to use it. Or if you don’t or can’t find the time or nerve to call prospects call Larson & Associates at 847-991-1294. One call and we back the rest of those scary cold calls and hand over those leads to you to finish the job.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
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P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Sales · funnel · Lead · Gen · Generation · Cold · Call

Here we go again or not? What is all this hype about Omnichannel? Is it any different than Integrated Marketing? Holistic Marketing? Multichannel Marketing? Cross-channel Marketing? Did I miss any? Probably, Depending on your preferred jargon name you could change at will any of these names, yes?

Before we jump to any foregone conclusions, although my mind is pretty well made up let’s take a quick review of these terms.

Integrated Marketing: Connecting your marketing channels to deliver a total customer experience in offers messaging etc, Letting you work campaigns over several channels and enabling each of these channels to support the other. In doing so you improve not just the impact of each channel but the performance or each giving a higher rate of response to your total “integrated” campaign.

Multichannel Marketing: Some of the so called marketing experts will say that the term multichannel marketing went and replaced integrated marketing just because then by only going and using more than 1 channel to market yourself you are in essence doing multichannel.

Cross Channel Marketing: In a similar vein while some marketing insiders consider cross channel marketing a synonym for multichannel marketing while I tend to believe that the term is an integration of marketing that uses multiple channels in a harmonic approach which might be similar to multichannel but not necessarily the same. Cross channel marketing has a sharing of data that works with hand helps enhance the performance of the others and the campaign overall.

Omnichannel Marketing: Marketers who go and consider multichannel marketing to be integrated marketing are totally perplexed by the very integration of various silos are now staring right at Ominchannel Marketing and wondering why a new name? Is ominchannel more than the other “kinds” of marketing or is it an old concept wrapped up in a new wrapper? Marketing and the technologies that are influencing and supporting it evolved over the years or dare I say months, weeks or even days? So a message needs to be like an octopus with many tentacles to reach out to the prospect. We are now more holistic, more deeply pressed into full integration across the multiplicity of channels that those prospect use to discover, research and find what they are looking for. We are at an age of total integration that can envelop into real-time marketing into responsive engagement marketing to bring a seamless message across the channels. So is this a new term for a new approach or a new term to the same old same old?

Larson Notes & Satire: Personally I hate the word and term Ominchannel. Couldn’t they have come up with something better? Omni reminds me of Omnibus of the 80’s and that sure did not catch on or do much of anything. In the next few blogs we will be looking at what the “Pros” are calling Omnichannel Marketing and you can tell me if it is anything different than what we have.

Need marketing help? Then go on and pick up the phone and call us. One call to 847-991-1294. We make the calls so you don’t have to.

Our Next Blog: Evolving Your Marketing In An Omnichannel Way.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Omnichannel · Integrated · Multichannel · Cross · Chann

39. Don’t like rejection? This is a tough skin business this cold calling, but you still don’t like it? Well none of us do. But I need to ask you what is rejection? It’s not an experience. It’s not an end all definition of your life. Rejection is whatever you definite it to be. So, the key is to ensure that you accomplish something on each call, so you can hold your head up high with a sense of accomplishment. First, remember, a decision of any type is better than someone who will waste your time with wimpy or misleading statements that cause you to believe there’s a chance of going to the next level  when, in fact, there’s not.

40. If that doesn’t happen have a Plan B. Something like to end each call when you don’t accomplish your primary objection (and to never experience rejection) is to plant a seed for the future. Give them something to look for, based upon what you uncovered during the call … something that might just cause them to call you back. For example, “Joe, it looks like we don’t have a good fit here, today, but I suggest that if you ever find yourself needing leads quick, and don’t have the staff to handle it, give us a call. We specialize in those types of projects, and would love to talk to you.” How many times have I been surprised by those written-off prospects who later called to order. This is a way to proactively make it happen more often.

41. Imagine every day is the end-of-the-period day. I’ve noticed that people tend to pick up the pace and behave like bat out of hell when they reach the last couple days of a quota period, and need to be doing whatever is necessary to squeeze out those last few sales or leads. When you coast, you’re going downhill. Get focused on a goal, on your goal and pursue it with single-minded determination.

42. As a sales lead professional you are using the phone as your main method of communication; you perform a function that very few people in the world could do well, or would even want to try. Ya you are special. And that is persuading someone to take action and make a decision, based almost solely on the words and ideas that come from your mouth. It’s quite an awesome feat when you think about it. And do think about it. It takes a talented individual to be able to do that well. You are that person. Feel proud of what you do, and always strive to get better!

Larson Notes & Satire:  If you choose to use us all you need to do is make a pre-payment for the first two weeks of your program to reserve your dedicated agent and set up a start date. The hard work of getting new clients will not stop there. Getting good sales results is a hard, process. But you can now have an experienced agent in place and an experienced company watching out for your best interests and to help you on your way to new client heaven. After all, 75% of B2B sales involve some form of human interaction and intervention, be a phone call or a meeting, telemarketing for lead generation is only the first 30% of that.

If you feel this is the kind of phone selling you want, go on and pick up the phone and heir us. One call to 847-991-1294. We make the calls so you don’t have to.

Our Next Blog: Will be a series on Omnibus Marketing.  

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Teleprospecting · Telemarketing · Telesales · Lead

So far so good. If you have kept up with the process I think you can see where we are going. We are not Alice going down the Rabbits Hole nor are we Peter Pan on a trip to Never Land. We are more like The Blues Brothers on a Mission from God. As we move down the chain or qualification and knowledge gather on both sides we are getting  

36. When sending information, samples, demos, etc., know precisely how they’ll evaluate the material and when you can call back on their receiving. You should know how will they know if they like it? What kind of criteria will they be using? This way, you’ll both be clear as to what would need to happen in order for them to buy. And yes buying is what it is all about.

37. When sending out your material, prepare them as to what they should look for. If not, they’ll only be getting a package of materials and say, “Oh, goody here’s a package of materials,” and then toss it on the mountain of other stuff in their office or the circular file. But, if you tell them to look for the catalog with the post it note so they can find the page with the product they are interested in, and you have taken the time to highlight the three or four models that are most appropriate for them, there would be a greater likelihood they’d look at it.

38. The success of your follow-up call is directly relational to what you accomplished, and how you ended the previous one. Again this is a process not a onetime deal. Never say, “I’ll send you out some stuff, and we’ll go from there.” Send what? From where? Why should I care? Summarize your agreed-upon actions, including what just happened, what they’re interested in, and what will be happening next. Then set up the agenda for the next call. This makes it so much easier to prepare for the follow-up call, and helps you avoid starting calls with some dumb useless question, “I sent you the material, did you get it?”, or “What did you think?” For example, “Ok Tom, I’ll send the proposal detailing 2 different pricing plans in the Lead Generation Program we just went over. Look it over and compare what our offer is to to what you’re getting now, and if we are at a profit break you’ll agree to a Pilot Program on our next call, is that right?”

Larson Notes & Satire:  Send me your stuff. Ya it’s a part of telemarketing. I know some of my clients think this is death warmed over and in some cases it is. It is an easy way to get us off the phone. But if done right and sent out right it really does take us to the next step which is, of course to do business together. But keep this in mind, 9 out of 10 sales people don’t send their stuff and/or they don’t bother to follow up. Ya that’s right they are laying out I the parking lot deader than a door nail. So do it. Send it, follow up on it and take action and take charge.

If you feel this is the kind of phone selling you want, go on and pick up the phone and heir us. One call to 847-991-1294. We make the calls so you don’t have to.

Our Next Blog: ATTITUDE AND SELF-MOTIVATION

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Teleprospecting · Telemarketing · Telesales · Lead

Objections are a part of the sales process and are really a good thing. They mean that the prospect is actually thinking about what you are saying.

32. By doing everything else correctly up to this point in the call you can find yourself in a position of having real objections not decoys or fakes. So when they do occur, don’t go out and go into attack mode. Take a deep breath, think about what has been said and go back and revisit the questioning stage of the call. The voiced objection can sometimes be a symptom of the real problem but think and look the entire process over. Start by saying, “Let’s talk about that.”

33. If you have an indecisive prospect, get their mind off the buying decision, and on to the pleasure or the pain. For example, “Joe, let’s look at this. What would happen if you did nothing about the situation? Remember, we detailed the fact you’re not getting enough sales opportunities for your people. What will that amount to over just the next three to six months?” Then shut up. First one who talks loses!

34. Then there is price. Fact is most price objections start right in the mind of the salesperson themselves. Many sales reps aren’t 100% sold on the value of their product. A sales rep who is working is losing sales and might start to think it is always over price; therefore they’re apt to offer price concessions even when the prospect doesn’t ask for them, or they present the price with a shaky tone of voice. By asking the right questions you your ability to talk about what your product/service can do is on the table. Price is the value or perceived value to your product or service, not just money.

35. Avoid Common Objections Mistakes: Don’t talk down to your prospect. Don't go using slick, prepared, objection rebuttals that only tell people they’re wrong and intensifies their resistance. All that says is that you are giving up before attempting to understand the reason behind the problem.

Larson Notes & Satire:  Remember objections are good. They are part to the sales process. Face them head on and with an open mind address them in the best manor possible. Objections do not mean no sale they mean I have considerations about “this” that we need to address. If we do maybe we can do business. So, ask, answer and let’s do some business.

If you feel this is the kind of phone selling you want, go on and pick up the phone and heir us. One call to 847-991-1294. We make the calls so you don’t have to.

Our Next Blog: WRAPPING UP AND SETTING THE NEXT ACTION STEP

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Teleprospecting · Telemarketing · Telesales · Lead