The Savvy Entrepreneur

This is part 2 of my notes from my interview with author of The  Secrets to Sales Mastery, Kevin Boyle.

Sales Secret #2 is this: Sales is a contact sport.

Kevin came out with all the clichés on this one, like “Sales is a contact sport,” and “Go out there and touch someone.” His take is that selling is proactive and marketing is reactive (I don’t entirely agree with that… but I’ll save that for another blog post!)

This is where having a proven sales and marketing system comes into play. Without a system in place, you’re more like to miss steps and lose business as a result.

Kevin often gets asked “Does that mean I can’t make a mistake?”

His answer is “Yes!” As cruel as it sounds, your prospects are looking to spend their hard earned money on you — they can’t afford to make a wrong choice, essentially throwing their money away. You convince them to spend their money with you by being impeccable.

That’s why you must have a system in place to help you move a prospect through the sales process without mistakes and without pressure.

Your goal in having a system is to build rapport and start a conversation. Remember: Sales pressure leads to sales resistance.

Kevin then gave an example of how to turn a cold-call into a warm call.

First, you want to start with an open ended question like:

I’m just curious Bob, how are you currently handling [enter what it is you do]?

For example, if you were a printing company you could say: I’m just curious Bob, how are you currently handling your printing needs?

Next, ask questions and listen for the dissatisfaction. Instead of asking them if they are happy with their current supplier, say something like:

It sounds like you are really happy with the service you are getting.

Once you’ve found their point of dissatisfaction, you can follow up with a question such as:

You know, I could should you how to [enter what it is you do]. Would you be interested in meeting with me for 10 or 15 minutes and we can go over what I can do to help you?

We could spend weeks discussing cold calling techniques, but this is not the forum for it (which I don’t really “do”).

However I do see the value in using this marketing strategy to infuse “new blood” in my own business. Kevin teaches this in his 21 Days to Sales and Business Mastery Program.

Come back tomorrow to read all about sales secret #3 (it’s a tough one!).