What can you do to make cold calls turn warm?

What can you do to make cold calls turn warm?

This is a popular question in the minds of many business and charity professionals.  No one likes calling an unknown person - its no fun.  Why?  Because the rejection level for you or your team is very high. Cold calling is one of the toughest endeavors to do, but we need and want the new sales therefore we make the calls.

So knowing money is important to business and charity sustainability, let's look at the process of cold calling someone.

1 - Create a list or buy a list

2 - Create a script for the outbound calls

3 - Train yourself and/or your team on best practices on making the calls

4 - Start making calls and report results

5 - Follow up with your prospects as needed

Okay - so that sounds pretty easy - right?

Well, here is the bad news - there are a lot of landmines in that easy to read 5 step process. Let's look closer at each step...

1 - Is this list good for your business or charity?  Does it fit your niche?  So what is a good list?  A good list has a few important elements, such as the demographics, dollar value, and target market you want. Demographics are key to understanding were your prospect is located, their background, and what they may want from you.  Dollar Value is determining if a prospect can afford your goods or service.  Lastly, the target market determines why you are calling them and what product or service is being suggested during the call.

2 - Okay, we left off with the target market sharing the 'why and what' and here is how it relates to the script. You need specialized scripts for each target market with connecting statements to point the conversation to other scripts if necessary.  Make certain you script is clear, concise, and to the point - don't waste a prospects time because they maybe busy but interested and long winded scripts generally don't end well. Also, get their attention with in the first 3 sentences (we are not saying skip the 'Hi, my name is ____' part. Share how you and your product or service is a real value to them and why they should stop whatever they are doing and schedule an appointment to meet with you. As a final thought prepare a rebuttal script as well, this helps you or your team to be prepared for when a prospect gives a reason for them not to say YES.

3 - This is the most important step!  Read this twice please.  Have you or your team practice the outbound calls with each other.  Practice how to handle a rude or disinterested prospect. Review how to begin and end a call. Review how 'not' to end a call and what language, vocal inflection, and overall attitude is not appropriate for calling. (remember prospects do not want to buy from anger or monotone people)  Practice the necessary steps to handling rebuttals, closing the deal, and sharing your knowledge about the product or service.  (when sharing this knowledge make it relevant and valuable to them)

4 - So your team or you have started making outbound calls.  Make It Fun!  Have awards for meeting goals, supply refreshments, highlight the successes to the whole team, if negative feedback comes in - accept it privately with a positive mental attitude - then inspire yourself or your team member on why this is important, and finally make the reporting process easy to handle.  A sales team is not strong in administrative functions - so don't make it difficult for them.  You want a results driven team...right?  Or do you want the bean counters?

5 - Follow up is critical!  Plan on your prospect being busy and forgets the appointment. Make a friendly reminder call about the meeting and start building a friendly business relationship. Plan on reaching back out to prospects with emails (if promised), direct mailers (if promised), or a return call when are ready and able to talk.  Professional sales gurus know it takes 7 touches to make the sale - so follow up at least 6 more times after the initial phone call.

If you need more help, Bounce Marketing is willing to do a workshop with you or your team on this subject. Call us at 386-734-9600 or check us out on Facebook ( www.facebook.com/bouncemarketing )

Thanks for reading this and have a great day!

Mission and Vision Statements - What is a good one?

A few associates of mine were have a lively conversation the other day about mission/vision statements. With a lot of opinions shared of course, the friendly argument on what is a good mission and vision statement is an ongoing one...  So I decided to write on my blog about the subject - is it better for a mission/vision statement to be shorter or longer?  

Here are a few little known facts about the average length of each:

1 - Nationally average mission statement is about 15 words long not including brand positioning components.

2 - Nationally average vision statement is about 14 words long not including brand related components.

So what is a branding component? 

Well, that is straight forward, it is the official business name or in some cases it's nickname. Plus wording like: "The mission(or vision) of ......" But a well crafted brand related positioning statements generally include but isn't limited to the following:

1 - A basic description of it's target audience

2 - A basic goals/reasons for reaching and engaging it's target audience

3 - What makes it different and special - in some cases more competitive

Okay, longer is better - right?

Maybe not - the best mission and vision statements should be concise, easy to understand, and of course easy to remember as well.

Okay, shorter is better - right?

Well, maybe not - when the statements become to short it could mislead or confuse someone (i.e. the client) about what you do.

Okay, so what's the answer?

Here is my final thought - the best mission statement serves as the foundation of the organization that easily understood by the general public and the best vision statement clearly serves to enhance the mission with an artistic or a literal wording on why the organization should be deemed relevant.  Either way just smile because you as the owner or the organization's board of directors (i.e. you pluralized) have the final say on the subject. (as long as you feel confident and you are making money - just keep smiling)

Want more insights on this subject?  Visit our website to learn more about Bounce! at www.bouncemarketing.org or like us on:  Twitter / Facebook

Know Your Clients!

An Bounce Insight: Know who your customers/clients/donors are.

Here are 4 good things to consider when selling to someone...

First, Take time to describe your prospective buyer.  No seriously, open your business plan and look at the written marketing plan(s).  Review the targeted buyers, what is their niche markets, where do they live, what is their household income, why your product or service is a value to them, and how they are most likely to wanting or needing from your product or service.  Look at your strategies that will help you to connect to them (i.e. with business cards, banners, predefined slogans, direct mailers, newspaper ads, maybe AdWords or some form viral/organic marketing)

Second, Revisit and determine 'why' they should buy your product or service.  Take time to have training sessions or detailed informal conversation(s) with your sales team on this subject.  More and more young people getting into professional careers are looking to understand 'why' they need to do or say something.  This is critically important to explain the reasoning and purpose to help your sales team buy-in the 'why' and get your valued client/donor to give you money.  You already know how great your product or service is, but make certain your team is passionate about communicating it correctly. Plus, remember to try to determine what will be new, different, or special to keep your clients/donors coming back for more.

Third, Listen, Listen and Listen Some More!  Sales people and business leaders have huge egos and love to hear themselves talk.  But, the best and most savvy business veterans, always know when to listen to the buyer(s).  By listening to your prospective buyer(s) - you can learn what their motivation is. (Why do they want to talk to you?  Do they need an immediate solution or are they simply on a fact finding mission?  Do all they care about is an affordable price or did they have a bad experience somewhere else?)  It is smart to listen to them and establish a relationship, so you can better inspire them to invest in your product or service - over and over again.  

Lastly, create defined advantages of your product or service to your prospective buyers.  Let me give you some good examples to think about:

The Boy Scouts offer a great service.  What you may ask?  Well by delivering character education to young people by using outdoor experiences.  Their 'Defined Advantage' is using camping trips to teach boys how to become good citizens.

Let's look at another organization, Apple offers a good product - the iphone. The iphone 5 gives the user a unique and personal phone/email/web experience daily.  Their 'Defined Advantage' is the average consumer can start their iphone 5 with their fingerprint.    

Finally, did you know, the creator of NyQuil couldn't originally correct the drowsiness side effect. So, the company made it a 'Defined Advantage' by selling it as a bedtime cold medicine. It became the largest selling cold medicine on the market. Just because your product is good doesn't mean it will sell. Your prospective buyers need to see the 'defined advantage' of your valuable product or service.

Call us for help with your marketing, branding, and planning needs at 386-734-9600 or please visit bouncemarketing.org  - thanks!

Why do New Salespeople Fail?

Why do new salespeople fail?
1 - They are afraid to engage strangers in a conversation.
2 - They are not willing to put in the timeand effort it takes to be successful
3 - They don;t have the proper training and/or the may lack industry knowledge
4 - They can't build a solid relationships

Did you know, beyond basic training and handling the interview process - only Trust & Loyalty are left as the two main components to build a new long term relationship.  Salespeople need a strong ability to understand non-verbal and verbal signals set by clients or prospectives.  Some signals can be how the prospective buyer acts during the phone call, the face to face meeting, or in a social setting the conversation happens at. These signals to a new sales person can easily be missed and cause a lack of trust to form. It is good to have your sales team attend various trainings beyond the basic Sales 101 training crash course your company offers. Encourage them to keep learning by reading books by business leaders and attending webinars or seminars by top business/sales gurus to help foster greater sales success.


Do you need or want to have Bounce Marketing's Founder Ed Pisani Jr., visit and present ways to grow solid relationships with new clients? He has the ability to help your sales team become more successful while motivating them to sell more.  Contact us at 386-734-9600 or read about us on our website at www.bouncemarketing.org