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Improving your Client Acquisition Skills
A few readers wrote to me just before Christmas asking for help. Both were struggling to get in front of new prospects to sell their services and products. Both had excellent propositions but found call reluctance to be as problem and prospects unwillingness to speak with them preferring to “weather the storm” and batten down the hatches.
Have you experienced this as well?
I think we all have to some degree and unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ll recognise that we are going through a downturn. Now I don’t sign up for the “business is better that it’s ever been, I’m busier than ever, what recession?” brigade, these people seem to be just massaging their egos when they print this stuff.
The plain fact is, we have to prospect more than ever before. Working harder and smarter at getting to speak with new customers, will help us succeed in this economy.
I think we’ve all got the skills but maybe haven’t had to use them so much over the last five to six years since there’s been plenty of business to go around.
So now’s the time to smarten up our prospecting tools, or client acquisition tools as this is now known as.
I have a full article available to download on our website in the Knowledge Bank, but for now here are some quick tips to help you.
1. Examine your product and service and be crystal clear as to what problem it solves. Problems in recessions are all about saving costs and increasing revenue, getting invoices paid on time, preventing suppliers going bust and such like. Try to think like your customers and be totally clear as to what problems your product solves.
2. What is your customer segment? Be as precise as you can as to which type of customer has the problems that your product or service solves and then focus on these customers.
3. Decide on your marketing to reach these customers. There are many routes to market that you can choose but the quickest and most decisive is still telephoning them to make an appointment to see them.
4. Get over any call reluctance.
5. Dedicate specific blocks of time in your diary to make calls to prospects.
6. Aim simply for a face to face appointment nothing else. Don’t get into conversations, send out literature etc. These never work, although we think the do at the time, are easy to do, quite gratifying but divert your attention to the job of making appointments.
7. Be up front with your prospect on the phone about the problem that your product solves and ask for an appointment.
8. Don’t ask “if it’s convenient to call” you’ll lose sales if you do this. Instead say “if it’s convenient to speak right now I’d like to…” Subtle difference.
9. Learn how to politely persevere on objections twice and then leave the prospect alone. Keep coming back to the objective of asking for an appointment.
10. Sticky tape the phone to your wrist and don’t put it down. Use the 60 second rule. This ensures you get onto the next call within 60 seconds, no longer.
11. Spend a maximum of 60 minutes making appointment calls.
12. Reward yourself when you’re done as making appointments is stressful, there’s no way around it. Yes alpha male macho types will tell you they enjoy it but you look at the burnout rate of call centre direct sales people. It’s hard, full of rejection and people saying no, occasional rudeness and extremely easy to put off to-do another job.
But we all need more prospects right now and making appointments via phone is the quickest and most effective method of doing so.
Have you experienced this as well?
I think we all have to some degree and unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ll recognise that we are going through a downturn. Now I don’t sign up for the “business is better that it’s ever been, I’m busier than ever, what recession?” brigade, these people seem to be just massaging their egos when they print this stuff.
The plain fact is, we have to prospect more than ever before. Working harder and smarter at getting to speak with new customers, will help us succeed in this economy.
I think we’ve all got the skills but maybe haven’t had to use them so much over the last five to six years since there’s been plenty of business to go around.
So now’s the time to smarten up our prospecting tools, or client acquisition tools as this is now known as.
I have a full article available to download on our website in the Knowledge Bank, but for now here are some quick tips to help you.
1. Examine your product and service and be crystal clear as to what problem it solves. Problems in recessions are all about saving costs and increasing revenue, getting invoices paid on time, preventing suppliers going bust and such like. Try to think like your customers and be totally clear as to what problems your product solves.
2. What is your customer segment? Be as precise as you can as to which type of customer has the problems that your product or service solves and then focus on these customers.
3. Decide on your marketing to reach these customers. There are many routes to market that you can choose but the quickest and most decisive is still telephoning them to make an appointment to see them.
4. Get over any call reluctance.
5. Dedicate specific blocks of time in your diary to make calls to prospects.
6. Aim simply for a face to face appointment nothing else. Don’t get into conversations, send out literature etc. These never work, although we think the do at the time, are easy to do, quite gratifying but divert your attention to the job of making appointments.
7. Be up front with your prospect on the phone about the problem that your product solves and ask for an appointment.
8. Don’t ask “if it’s convenient to call” you’ll lose sales if you do this. Instead say “if it’s convenient to speak right now I’d like to…” Subtle difference.
9. Learn how to politely persevere on objections twice and then leave the prospect alone. Keep coming back to the objective of asking for an appointment.
10. Sticky tape the phone to your wrist and don’t put it down. Use the 60 second rule. This ensures you get onto the next call within 60 seconds, no longer.
11. Spend a maximum of 60 minutes making appointment calls.
12. Reward yourself when you’re done as making appointments is stressful, there’s no way around it. Yes alpha male macho types will tell you they enjoy it but you look at the burnout rate of call centre direct sales people. It’s hard, full of rejection and people saying no, occasional rudeness and extremely easy to put off to-do another job.
But we all need more prospects right now and making appointments via phone is the quickest and most effective method of doing so.
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