I was listening to a teleseminar with Jack Canfield and Steve Harrison about how to get your book pubished and as always Jack is a real inspiration and joy to listen to about how he got his “Chicken Book for the Soul” series of books published.

One of the really interesting points which is emphasised over and over again when I hear this story is that it took 114 rejections before their first manuscript was accepted for publication. The amazing thing is that that they just kept going until they achieved success -at some level as they kept their vision burning bright -they must have been running the programme that “every rejection or “no” is one step closer to a yes”. Otherwise they would have certainly given up.

Jack then went on to talk about how the success just grew and grew and the rest of course is history with the outstanding work he does in the personal development field. But as he was talking about this, Steve interrupted with a question which I think was from a listener – It went something like this, “this is all very well and good Jack but I am miles away from this, how do I get money within the next 30-60days? Well his answer just blew me away as he stepped right into my area of expertise regarding “cold calling” and “starting conversations from cold”

He said something along the lines is that “pick up the phone” You get hold of directories of the relevant businesses that you would like to work with and you call them up. You call their chief executives and you tell them how you can serve them. What you have will really help them and highlight the benefits. He then went on to give numerous examples of how they got though to the relevant decision-makers and it took their book sales to the next level. And guess what they kept doing it until their success just blossomed.

So what are the practical steps you can take to get closer to that invoice or paid project?:

1. Do your research about companies that are growing, even booming at the moment. Do not swim in the pessimism of the doom and gloom merchants, there are always companies that are making money despite recessionary times. Look for companies where investment is being ploughed into them. There was a tech company I read about recently that had just received $40m for expansion and growth from venture capitlists. That must mean projects of work somewhere in that company.
2.Then look at these companies and ask yourself how can I take my various skillsets and align them with the potential projects which will arise from that funding?
3.Go to the CEO’s PA or Managing director’s PA and ask who is responsible for hiring for the projects that will arise from this funding.
4.Get the name of that person, his/her PA and their email address and direct line.
5.Use the name of the CEO”S PA when you start the conversation either in an email or phone conversation and reference the recent venture capitalist funding.
6. In your email or phone conversation say how your skillsets could support or contribute signficant value to those projects.
7. Request a formal telephone meeting of 15mins so you can discuss this further.
8. keep doing this until you have your first project.
9 Log your succcesses and your rejections so you can idenfity what works and what does not.
10. When you have your system, make sure you keep doing this even when you are working and getting money so there is a project ready to kick off once you have finished the present one. This way you avoid “the feast and famine” syndrome.

This week we have a guest blog post by Tom Bird, one of the authors of the UK’s No. 1 selling sales book “Brilliant Selling”, which considers how best to follow up with a prospect.

Ever struggled with how long to leave it before you follow-up a prospect with the next call, or to move forward on a proposal you have sent to them? How many times do you follow-up a lead before giving up and moving on? Have you ever sent a proposal and then not been able to get through to the prospect to progress it?

These are questions that everyone in sales faces and if you read around the subject there are lots of different opinions.  A lot of cold calling books advocate you moving on if you can’t get someone after three attempts. A lot of sales books mention that follow-up is easy if you have built enough value early on the sales process. But what are the practical considerations…how do you follow-up, when do you follow-up and when should you give up?

I think that selling is a personal thing. That is to say that we all do it in our own way. It is difficult, therefore, to say that one way is right and one way is wrong. But it might help to consider different situations and what practical tips and ideas might help guide our approach.
How many times should you cold call?

I have won a couple of my largest long-term clients through cold-calling. If I read some of the top books on the topic and followed their advice I would have never won the business. Why? Because they say that you should only make three or four attempts to contact someone and then move on. Well, I take it a bit more personally than that. I think that if I have a good proposition for the prospect I owe it to them to give them the choice to meet and discuss it. One of the largest contracts I won started as a result of 16 attempts to make contact with the key person. Some may say that I might have won more business leaving them after the third attempt and calling some other prospect but the point is I knew we had a good proposition for them and repeatedly calling them actually made me more committed to winning their business. I called at different times on different days and eventually got to the person. I am pleased that I did.

Following up after a first contact…

It doesn’t stop after you make the first contact! My rule is to be persistent but gentle in my follow-ups. What does this mean? Well, it starts from having a healthy respect for your prospect and, ideally, getting them to tell you when you should follow up. This makes the next call much easier. You can call and simply say: “When we last spoke you suggested that now would be a good time to follow-up and move our proposal forward.” To my mind, the ‘cast-iron’ sales process that says build a compelling need and they will buy does not always work – especially in this economic climate. Gentle persistence has other benefits if you want a long-term relationship as this recent testimonial written by the CEO of an international business that we now work for shows:

“As is our way we take time to consider such proposals and involve a number of people in our business in such decisions and because it does take time quite often the interested company loses patience and falls away. We were no different with RTP but Tom persisted without appearing to pressure or pester us and his style and that of RTP started to come through the more we had contact. This was the first insight we had of how RTP and Tom set about establishing and building a relationship and we decided that we wanted to see if he could pass it on to our Partners, Managers and Staff.”

Gentle and persistent actually can set out how you will work together and can be greatly appreciated by a prospect who then becomes a customer.

How should I follow-up? Telephone, e-mail etc.?

Well, ideally you should call. It is difficult to form relationships over an e-mail and you leave so much of the richness of a communication out by the typed words alone. The main point is not so much what method you use but how you maximise the chance of having a useful conversation that moves you forward. The following points are things that I follow:

•Always have a reason to follow-up. ‘I am just checking in’ doesn’t really add value or give you much chance of moving forward. The best reason to follow-up will come from the prospect. Before you finish your next call with them, get them to tell you the key next stage for them and use this as a reason to call next time.
•Try not to leave a voice message. At least not the first or second attempt. If you do leave a message then explain that you will call them back. This takes the pressure off them which is likely to make them feel more positive towards you. Sometimes, a prospect who has received messages and knows they should call you back begins to resent the fact that they haven’t and this can negatively impact the relationship.
•Always add value: Even if you can’t get hold of the person, look for ways to truly add value to them. This might be through sending an article that might be of interest, giving them a contact that might be beneficial or something else. Keep your name associated with value even if you can’t speak to the person directly.

If you would like to reads more about how to improve your sales performance please visit www.brilliant-selling.com. If you would like to receive our FREE Sales Resources Pack, please email resources@brilliant-selling.com.

Acknowledging this is probably the most powerful thing you can do, as you are “meeting them in their world” and they will respond positively to you, even if they do not wish to speak to you at that moment in time.Knowing when to back off if they sound stressed or preoccupied is key to this magic. However,  there  will always be a very strong temptation to try and hold them longer on the call and go through your pitch! I always liken this to a skid in a car, again the temptation is to try to steer out of the skid rather than steer into it. Not trying to engage them when they do not want to speak, will make you very different from your competitors and make you stand out from the crowd.  Moreover how you sound will effect the instant impact of the call. Have a relaxed, confident tone and this alone will take you far along your call route . The next time you call them,  they will remember this and there is a good chance of you getting your telephone or face to face meeting!

Finally record your calls and listen to that point of instant impact and constantly perfect it!

You may be wondering what this is all about; another article that extols the virtues of telemarketing and telesales? Not really. I want to raise some potentially much deeper issues around communication and new business development.

We are well aware of cold callers who will not draw breath once they have started their pitch and drag their victims protesting through their monotonous scripts. But what if these callers and the companies who employed them carried out their approach somewhat differently?

How much is it working as a business tool for you?

In sales and marketing, using the humble telephone to reach and sustain contact with senior management has always been a headache. But how much consideration has been given by senior management themselves to the potential of the phone to create new opportunities and develop existing ones. David Festenstein examines the communication potential of the ubiquitous phone.

 I HAVE noticed that, time and time again, the issue of getting new work comes up in discussions amongst independent consultants. Some are lucky to get all their work from referrals, or just contracts that are simply renewed, but relying on these sources alone can make us victims of the feast and famine cycle.

So, how can we maintain a regular pipeline of leads, or interest in our work, even though we often hate the thought of cold calling or drumming up new business?

What may stop us doing this is not ‘feeling comfortable’ in approaching people or companies ‘cold’. So how can we feel better about carrying out this critical business task?

The first issue here is consistency. New business development activity must be done regularly, even if it is only half an hour or so a day. The second issue is to do with making our approach less “cold” and, in doing this, making ourselves feel more comfortable about these initial approaches.

IWAS IN A RUT, stuck doing the same thing day in day out,working for a software company setting up appointments for their sales people. I was in my fifth year and the thought of doing it for another year just overwhelmed me with dread.

I have a family, a wonderful supportive wife and two lovely girls, so running off to the Greek Islands was not an option.

By coincidence, I saw two newspaper articles in short succession, which I related to as if they had been written especially for me. The first one was in the Financial Times, about how it is not uncommon for young people to test different career paths over a number of years, find out what really interests them and what they are really good at. The article said that this voyage of discovery could continue into the early forties until one found one’s true vocation. “That must be me”! I shrieked to the top of the house and felt duly heartened that I was not alone in this.

The second article was about those people who left university and went from job to job and then got stuck in a job which although provided material comfort was deeply unsatisfying. Again this reflected very much my own situation.I duly contacted the authors of these articles and one of them recommended that I take an NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) course. The other recommended me to a skills expert at the London Business School. I enrolled in an NLP course and began regular sessions with the skills expert to embark upon this voyage of discovery.

The combination of these activities lead me along a path which I would have never in a million years believed possible.

Telesales can be a really soul-destroying activity when it is approached with a ‘spray and pray’ mentality, which often leads to poor results in revenue terms and an annoying experience for the prospective customer. People also look down on telesales as low-level type of work but, ironically, good telesales people are worth their weight in gold. They are able to make impact with board level directors within seconds to develop new client relationships and produce a regular stream of revenue that can be the bedrock of the business.

“My calls to appointment ratio is terrible, how do I improve this?” is often the cry from those starting out to “cold call” instead of “starting conversations from cold.”

We live in a “busy culture” which demands that we make at least 50-60 dials a day. “Make those calls” shouts the sales manager across the room, or “how many calls have you made” is another bark! This leads to “spray and pray” behaviour which requires a high volume of calls before we realize any results.

5 Principles to Start Conversations from Cold

So if we go back to my principles of “starting conversations from cold”:

Start Asking for Telephone Meetings

Your Calls to Appointment Ratio Will Soar