B2B sales appointments discovery calls sales & Phone Scripts

Scott Channell

13 Tips to Improve the Quality of the Prospecting Sales Scripts you Use

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1. Three-second rule.

You have mere moments to ignite something in your prospect’s brain that says “Whoa, maybe I should listen to this.” Once those seconds have ticked away, and your prospect’s brain thinks “waste of time,” your odds of success plummet, no matter how good you are or how much you might help them.

So, if you work hard to get a quality prospect on the phone and start with “How are you?” “Got a minute” or “I know you are busy I will be quick.” You are providing no information that is helpful to them and driving them to the conclusion that you are a time-waster.

Particularly painful if you happen to connect with someone that needs your service and would welcome a new option. You lose opportunities if you don’t hook them immediately.

2. There must be immediate absolute clarity as to what you do.

Your “what we do” statement must be easy to grasp and understand. Long multi-part sentences are hard to understand and knock you out of the box immediately.

3. Relate to what is familiar to them

The themes you touch, the benefits you speak of, the examples you give must be familiar to them. If they can’t relate, what you say will not resonate, and you will not achieve your objective.

4. Sell hope.

In the beginning, more than anything, you are selling hope. That given what you do, your credibility, your track record, your record of results, the long list of companies that you have helped, you enable prospects to conclude that you might be able to help them.

5. Stay focused on what matters.

You need to stay focused on objective specific behaviors that will advance a sale with a qualified prospect. Sorry to burst some bubbles out there but being conversational, sounding natural, keeping it short and not sounding salesy (don’t get me going) should not be your goals.

Are you saying the right things that enable possibly great future accounts to conclude that you are worth more time? That is the only thing that matters.

There are plenty of hard working underpaid reps that focus on the wrong things such as not sounding salesy. But guess what, what sounds salesy to non-buyers is what your next great account wants to hear. Focus on that.

6. Create some suspense and tease a bit.

It takes multiple interactions to build trust and comfort. Different prospects absorb and process information at different paces. Many times, without a second or third interaction, you are not getting a check. Earning that next interaction is key.

Hint that if they spoke to you again that there would be something delivered worth their time. Strategies, proven methods, case studies, examples, lollipops, something.

7. Don’t leave a giant hole in your script: Credibility Statement

Want to know the most common giant sinkhole in scripts that sucks away qualified prospects? The lack of a credibility statement. Mind-boggling.

Companies or individuals that have proven track records, plenty of satisfied clients, that could rattle off the names of reputable, well-known companies that have chosen them that could relate impressive results obtained, say absolutely nothing about any of it. Nothing. Not one syllable.

Without a credibility statement, callers don’t know whether you are reputable and maybe worth their time or calling from your parent’s basement. And don’t get me going on the knuckleheads that think it sufficient to mention saving them money. They are truly a lost cause.

Why should someone invest time with a provider without knowing if they are credible? They won’t and don’t. They go to Google and with a few keystrokes find possible vendors worth their time.

If you have credibility, use it. Be so credible your prospects think “ I may not find someone this good online, I’ll meet.”

8. Be believable and fact-based. Avoid hype.

Understand that when you are prospecting initially, as there is no familiarity, history or trust with you, that prospects will discount anything you say that may seem hyped or they are not sure they agree with. If you use words like “best” “superior” or make a claim that seems exaggerated, your prospects immediately discount the claim, and you are on shaky ground.

In the beginning, keep your claims matter of fact without hype or anything that suggests exaggeration. A strong fact-based no hype script will get you more “yes’s” as it will be believable.

9. Don’t lead with price.

I am at a loss as to how to sugar coat this. There are so many factors that go into a buy decision. If you lead with the price, you are not relating more important points likely to get you deeper into the pipeline. Leading with price is a very thin foundation upon which to build a sale and attracts the wrong type of customer.

If you are one of those that call people up and say “We can save you money,” you need to unlearn everything you think you know about sales. You truly are doomed.

10. Vary your pace and vocal tone.

People don’t absorb every word of your scripts. Not all words are equal. They absorb words and phrases that stand out to them. Make sure that your most important points are emphasized by varying your pace and vocal tone on those points. Lowering your voice and slowing down a bit makes important points stand out.

Have you been chosen by “500 companies in the East Yazoo area?” Is your typical result to “improve ROI by 22% within six months?” Make those points stand out by altering your pace and tone.

11. Eliminate the boring parts

When you write, you should delete the parts that people will skip.
When you write sales scripts, you should delete anything that sounds like the same old same old, heard it before, here is another one, yada yada yada. Delete that crap.

If you can envision a competitor saying the same thing, don’t. Don’t waste words. Keep it fresh.

12. Eliminate “I” and “we.”

Keep what you say focused on your prospect and your happy clients and accounts. “I think” “I want” “I’m calling today to” “we think” “We would like to.” That is the totally wrong focus. No one cares a whit what you think or what you want.

Turn your “I’s” into “You’s.” Keep the focus of your scripts on them.

You will have to say “We do X” But other than that, all your focus should be on them and the experiences of your current and prior satisfied accounts.

13. Remember that value knocks down doors.

Every syllable of your sales scripts should ooze with credibility, benefits, specifics, and value. Value knocks down doors.

If you are communicating value important to top prospects, they will forgive that you sound a little scripted or what you might consider being too salesy. (Don’t get me going.) If you are saying the things they want to hear, need to hear, you will open doors.

I have seen plenty of reps that were not the smoothest or most natural talkers, that sounded a bit scripted and salesy even, rack up opportunities consistently. Why? Because they are communicating value and the words your next great account wants to hear.

Many reps make the fatal mistake of not understanding that a lot of people don’t need what you are offering. You get rejected because they don’t need you. Not because you don’t sound natural, are not conversational enough or sound too salesy. Those are your insecurities.

Don’t water down your verbiage to have more comfortable conversations with those that have no need and will say “No” anyway.

Keep your scripts laser-focused on communicating value to those that do have a need. They will ignore what you might consider imperfections in delivery if you are communicating value and credibility important to them.

Value knocks down doors.

Have fun out there you crazy kids.

If Your Appointment Setting System Is Not Working, What Do You Do? 3 Core Reasons For Poor Results.

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What if you or your team are smiling, dialing, emailing, leaving messages, working hard and yet, too few sales appointments and discovery calls are being set. What do you do.

Let me share with you my 3 step process for getting an appointment setting program on track.

Three Core Reasons For Poor Results

1. The List:

You are not interacting with enough high-value/high-probability targets. Too much of your activity is directed toward low-value no-value lower-probability targets.

If you were shooting fish in a barrel, you would not only want that barrel to have plenty of fish but for the barrel to be drained and the fish lying on the bottom. Those are good odds.

If you are working hard and not getting results, one reason could be that you have stacked the odds against yourself by allocating too much time, often way too much time, to targets that are not as valuable to you as others.

You need to do two things. Tighten the profile of your bullseye targets so that your time is invested with records that provide you with the highest probability of success. Also, be ruthless about discarding or pushing records aside that are lower value or probability or that with which you have reached the point of diminishing returns for your efforts.

Top producers are best at allocating their time where it will do the most good. Do not be like the knuckleheads who work hard with little to show for it with thoughts such as “you never know,” “there are some good prospects in here,” or “I don’t want to miss one.” Idiots.

Work Probabilities, Not Possibilities.

Be willing to let go.

One of the quickest ways you can boost results is to make a concerted effort to stop calling all the low-probability records in your prospecting pipeline. Stop calling them immediately. That creates room for you to call fresh records that are more closely aligned with your bullseye best prospect profile.

You Want To JackHammer Into A Solid Vein Of Gold,
Not Thrash Around In The Manure Pile Looking For A Few Nuggets.

If you are working hard and not getting results, the most likely culprit is that you are calling a list that is weaker than it has to be. Reevaluate your profile. Tighten your target bullseye. Get more aggressive about letting go at the point of diminishing returns. Don’t try hard to rationalize a reason to keep investing time with a record. Let go.

Get to the point where you can say to yourself “I know this is the best list I can call with the time I have. I have done the research; I am using good list sources. I am highly confident that this is the very best place to be prospecting.”

In my day I wanted to feel very confident that 85% of my activity was being invested with records that I had confirmed or had a very high degree of confidence were the best records to call. As to the rest of the records, I would only spend so much time determining if they were worthy. If after a certain amount of effort I wasn’t sure of the potential value, buh-bye record, on to the next.

Records Being “Good Enough” To Call Isn’t Good Enough

It is not sufficient for the list you are actively calling to be “good enough.” If there are better records to call, higher value or higher probability, closer to your bullseye best prospect profile, you need to be calling them. Not the ones that are just okay.

Once you are confident that your list is the best it can be, look to the other 2 factors that may be dragging you down.

2. Your Process:

If you or your team are not getting decent results, it could also be that the call process you are working to earn a conversation with or reply from your decision-maker is lousy or non-existent.

You are trying to generate the most results by working a system of interaction — a system, pre-planned well thought series of interactions purposely chosen to provide you with the best chance to meet your business goals.

There is only one best call process for you to use to set the most discovery calls. There are not 4 best systems. The best way to achieve your goal does not change with every dial, the weather, or your mood and motivation. You don’t have to work the “3 cycles of 3” system I believe in, but you do need to work a system. Your “system” will be responsible for 80% or more of your results. If you don’t have a system, or you don’t work your system consistently, or are quick to abandon it, those are very good reasons why your results are poor.

There is an activity component to your system. If you are not making enough dials on the right schedule and leaving enough touches (voicemails or emails primarily) when you should, then your results will plummet. But be careful, increasing activity levels using a poor call process is not going to solve your problem. Keep in mind that the most productive appointment setters/discovery-call setters do not make the most dials. They don’t.

If you are not getting results and you are working in a reasonable range of activity, the problem is not your activity level, it is your process.

Sorting And Ranking

There is also a sorting and ranking component to your system. Your system should enable you to identify the highest value targets so that you can spend more time with them. Even more importantly, your system enables you to identify the lowest-value and no-value targets so that you will not spend any more time with them. Time spent rolling in the garbage pile looking for something good is time you can’t spend shooting fish in a barrel that has been drained.

If you are not getting results, be honest with yourself as to whether you have a decent system and whether you are working it properly. Time and time again I run into teams that retool and start generating a greatly increased number of discovery calls only to get a call a year later. “It doesn’t seem to be working anymore. We don’t know why?”

Often it turns out that the carefully thought out call process created and proven to provide the greatest chance of call success has been completely abandoned. Not enough calls are being made. They are not being made at the right times. The required number of touches are not being delivered. Qualification, sorting, ranking by value are not being done, so a tremendous amount of time is being wasted calling sludge.

If you or your team are not getting results, do you feel confident that you have documented an outreach process that gives you the very best chance of reaching your business prospecting goals? If not, tighten it up, massage it, upgrade it, then jump right back in.

If you have a process documented, is it being worked properly? Let’s face it. The good news about prospecting is that you can figure out what to do. The bad news is that then you have to do it, again and again, and again. Sales prospecting is repetitive work. Once you discover what works you must do it over and over.

80% of Results Are Generated By Working Your Process

There are exceptions to every rule. Crazy things happen. We deal with human beings that at times will act illogically and outside our expectations. There is a lunatic fringe element contained in any group of people we prospect and any system we use.

However, the vast majority of your results will be generated as a result of proper and consistent use of your call process. Eighty percent or more of results will spill out of the implementation of your core process. Less than 20% of results will be generated by exceptions to the rule, randomness, shit luck, serendipity, or the lunatic fringe.

There is a strong temptation to rationalize why on any individual call or with any individual record why you can vary from your core process. Fight this.

If you are not getting results, one of the main reasons is that your call/outreach process needs to be improved. Or, if you have a good process, a reason for lack of results is that you vary from your core process too frequently.

Even Variations From Your Process Are Part Of Your Process.

Even the variations in your system, the times you drive off the road and vary from your core process, is built into your process. When you choose to vary from your core process or cut it short, you do so for consistent objective reasons. You don’t vary from your process because you are bored, that you dread saying the same thing over and over, that you can’t bring yourself to leave one more voicemail that will not be answered. Your feelings of boredom and lack of motivation have nothing to do with what works. Nothing.

A Tale From The Cube

True story. I had a client who offered a unique environment service involving meters leaking mercury into natural gas fields. As a practical matter, only the top 50-100 oil companies were reasonable targets for this service. The contracts were worth millions if not tens of million dollars. Two good callers had tried yet failed to produce results. My calling days had long been over, but I offered to work the system to determine where the problem was.

So I was calling very top executives at very, very large companies. I worked the system and did the same thing over and over. I teach the stuff, and I was bored out of my mind. The same calls, the same corporate receptionists or phone trees, the same script routines, the same emails, the same roadblocks and rejections over and over. My tedium and boredom were occasionally rudely interrupted by a top dog that said “yes.” I ended up getting my client meetings within the top levels of major oil companies. The system worked.

The drudgery of doing the same thing over and over was brutal. The temptation to skip steps or rationalize why for this call, for this company, it was okay to cut the process short was very strong. But I would think back to my early calling days when I would keep saying to myself “just work the system.” When I was bored or began to doubt myself, I would “just work the system.” When the thought of leaving that same voicemail one more time would make me want to vomit, I would “just work the system.” Don’t think about the system; work the system. I would play all sorts of mental tricks to keep me focused and working the system as efficiently as possible.

There is a time to take a step back and think about what your process should be. Most of the time you should be working that system.

If you are not getting results, it could very well be that your process needs to be improved. Or more commonly, that you are not consistently working your system.

Once you conclude that you are hitting the right targets and that your process is solid and you are working your process well, there is only one other core reason why you are not booking enough discovery calls or first sales appointments.

3. Your Messaging

If you are confident you are reaching out to the right targets, confident that your process is solid and that you are working it consistently, there is only one other key reason why you are not generating results.

Your messaging is weak.
Your verbiage is watered down.
You sound like the other idiots who have called and wasted their time.
You are not giving them reasons to listen to you just a little bit longer.
You are not communicating value and credibility worth their time.

Your verbiage is not enabling those who recognize a need and will be writing a check to you or one of your competitors within 3-15 months, to conclude that you are worth their time.

Most commonly, you are pulling your punches. You have things you could be saying that would connote credibility, value, and representative results you deliver, but you are not saying those things.

It might be because of feeling that being direct is being “too salesy,” which is ridiculous.

It might be because you have some level of personal discomfort just laying your cards on the table and letting your prospect say “yes” or “no.”

You might be afraid to be rejected, so you do mental backflips and rationalize that if you are “nice” and “not pushy” that people will listen to you longer. Wrong.

If you are confident that you are calling the right targets and that your process for calling is solid, the only other core problem is that your message is not resonating.

So you have to punch up your messaging. Be more direct. Push more value and credibility to the beginning of your pitch. Eliminate every moment and every syllable that is not communicating credibility and value to someone who has a need you can fill.

You need to get over your mental crap about being pushy, being perceived as rude, or interrupting someone. Those are your issues, not your prospects.

By choosing to prospect by phone you have already decided to interrupt people, so you need to get over that. Having decided to interrupt busy people, how are you most respectful of their time?

Do you call them up and recite verbiage and let second after second slip by without providing them information sufficient to conclude that you are worth their time? Do you fill the time between “hello” and “ we are all set” with “I know you are busy,” ”won’t take much of your time,” “do you have a minute” and “I am not worthy?” If so, you deserve everything you get.

Or, are you most respectful of your suspect’s time, a suspect you have chosen to interrupt, with a clear, direct statement as to what you do, why you are credible, the benefits delivered, and what they would get if they spent more time with you?

It takes about 30 seconds to deliver such a statement. The 15%-18% of the people you speak to who have a need will “get it” and can conclude that you are worth more of their time. Maybe a bit longer on the phone, maybe at a face to face meeting, or on a discovery call.

Those who do not have a need can also “get it” and say goodbye. That is a successful call for you, and you have minimized the interruption of your suspects time with a clear, concise, direct statement of what you do, why you are credible, and what they might get if they spent more time with you.

Just lay your cards on the table crisply, clearly, and with impact using the verbiage that most impactfully communicates your message. Roll out the big guns.

You are always nice, you are always professional, but your messaging must communicate sufficient credibility and value to achieve your business objectives when you are speaking to a qualified prospect who recognizes a need on some level and will be writing a check to your or a competitor shortly.

Value Knocks Down Doors.

Punch up your scripts so that they are clear, concise, direct and powerfully communicate your credibility and value.

Focus On The Component Parts Of The Process That Lead To Results;
Don’t Focus On The Result.

Hang in here with me on this statement. When you wish to set more discovery calls and sales appointments, don’t focus on the result. Focus on improving specific parts of the process that lead to the result.

Your list.
Your process.
Your messaging.

If it is not working, do a deep dive into the component parts and each small step of your process. Focus on punching up the steps that will lead to the results you

7 Self-Sabotaging Sales Script Choices

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When you get decision-makers on the phone, are you interrupted, cut-off, hung up on or quickly hear “We are all set”, “Send me some info” or something else that represents phone frustration.

The truth is that many times YOU are the cause of those problems.

Yes, YOU!! You choose words and a script structure that actually causes the very problems that frustrate you and you wish to avoid.

During the past week I had the opportunity to review scripts for two clients. One was an on-site presentation, the other a telephone-coaching client. Both of them made common strategic errors with their choice of words. Let me share the highlights of my advice.

TOO LONG: You’re wondering why you get cut off? You are not getting to the point and communicating something they want. If your written script is 4, 5 or 6 minutes long, what are you thinking? You are causing the problems that frustrate you. Condense and communicate value and credibility clearly. Your initial pitch should be 30 seconds long. No more. You need to accomplish 5 things in those 30 seconds.

DON’T ASK QUESTIONS UP FRONT: It is a major strategic error in scripting to ask, “How are you?” or “Did I catch you at a bad time?” Why? They know you don’t care, you sound like all the rest that waste their time, and you already know they are probably busy… so don’t ask, give them information that makes you more important than what they are doing. When you ask questions like this you think you are being nice but you are actually cutting your own throat. You spend so much time dialing to get someone you have identified as a decision-maker, get to the value exchange. The value exchange will lead to success, convenience or comfort will not.

DON’T TRY TO QUALIFY THEM BEFORE YOU HAVE COMMITMENT: Big mistakes made up front in scripting are efforts to qualify in the wrong place. If you have carefully selected a pool of targets that closely resembles the accounts you wish to clone, and you have called to identify the decision-maker and probably in previous calls had the opportunity to re-confirm that your target handles XXX, why would you ask them – within seconds of hearing “Hello” – “Are you the person who handles XXX?”

When you do that you sound like all the rest, so by your own actions you have enabled your target to lump you in with all the other time wasters, you have given them control of the conversation, something you never want to do and …. you are not communicating value…, so such questions are a waste of words and significantly reduce conversion rates of conversations to appointments set. There are other ways to confirm decision-making authority before you hang-up.

“WE” IS OVERUSED: Listen, it is not about you. It is about them. Scripts that are laced throughout with “We this,” “We that” or “We want” are misguided as nobody cares about you. Your choice of words has to be about them. When communicating to a decision maker eliminate the “we’s” and use “YOU, YOU, YOU.” Talk about what they will get at the meeting, talk about benefits others have received. Re-craft your words to be oriented about THEM and the value they will get when meeting you.

ELIMINATE UNNECESSARY WORDS: Don’t say “The reason for my call is… the point of my call is” Just say it. If you are going to communicate 5 points in 30 seconds you need to rip out every unnecessary word.

DON’T DESTROY YOUR OWN CREDIBILITY: Don’t say things like “companies like yours will save $25,000 or more.” If I hadn’t heard of your company until 10 seconds ago and you have never interacted with my company, how can you say you will definitely do anything? When you say things like this the credibility meter plummets and the crap meter rises. You are better off to say, “70% of the companies we meet with are able to save $25,000 or more.”

DON’T TRY TO SELL YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE: The only thing you are trying to sell with that phone conversation is a meeting. The only thing you are trying to communicate is a value exchange so that your targets can conclude that it is worth his/her time to spend 30-60 minutes with you… even if they don’t buy, which of course, is what they are probably thinking. It is hard enough to sell that over the phone. Do not cross the line and start pitching the value of your product or service. It is way too early to do so and you will schedule far fewer appointments within qualified companies.

Sell the meeting and you get more opportunities to sell your product or service. Pitch your product or service too early and you get fewer appointments… fewer opportunities to sell.

There are many other common self-sabotaging script mistakes.

Best wishes for sales success,
Scott Channell

50 Shades of “Not Interested.” A Sales Rebuttal Objection Strategy.

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Funny story. Newbie in training relates a call in which the decision-maker replied “not interested.” Get this. The newbie actually thought that meant they were “not interested.” Hilarious.

Newbie reps, they are so innocent.

When your prospect says “not interested.” The least likely reality of this blow off is that your decision-maker is actually “not interested.”

If your objection handling response assumes that there is an element of truth present when you hear the “not interested” objection prospecting blow off, you are losing a lot of opportunities and future closes.

Here are some examples to deal with this common sales objection that work better than begging them to not hang-up.

The “Not Interested” sales objection: What is really going on?

First consideration: Your sales prospecting scripts invited that response. What you said and how you said it are the reasons why you hear this common sales objection over and over again.

Sad but true. If you are hearing the “not interested” sales objection too often and want to craft a more effective responses, the first place you need to look is your mirror. Why? The words you spoke prior to hearing the “I’m not interested” objection probably caused the sales objection blow off you now feel a need to overcome.

Your first step is not to focus on overcoming this sales objection blow-off, and most of the time it is a blow-off, not an actual statement of truth. Your first focus is within.

When you hear “not interested” as a sales objection, your decision-maker may actually by saying one of these things.

“I don’t understand what they do so “I’m not interested.””
“Sounds like another dime a dozen service provider requesting a demo and not worth my time, even though I need what they offer so “I’m not interested.””
“This person sounds like the other idiot sales reps who call me and waste my time with a weak sales message so “I’m not interested.””
“I need this but I’m going to select the salespeople I talk to so “I’m not interested.””

Your sales objection and rebuttal script strategy in overcoming the “I’m not interested” objection starts before your prospects even say it.

How to overcome the “not interested” sales objection and “say something” syndrome.

Second consideration: Human compulsion to fill silence in conversation with something. When calling, blather will do.

When it comes to cold calling many inside sales teams suffer from neurological auto verbiage impulse compulsion. When callers don’t know what to say they say something anyway.

When precision crafting your “not interested” sales rebuttal better salespeople appreciate that many times “not interested” is the equivalent of “I don’t get it,” “I’m buying but this person isn’t worth my time,” “I’m buying but this company sounds pretty run of the mill, I’ll pick someone more credible,” “We are making this decision sometime in the future, not now,” or “I need more time to grasp what is being said.”

It is key that your response assume that what was expressed was not literally true. It is not because “buyers are liars.” It would be convenient for us if that was true because we then would not have to accept responsibility for causing that objection by our confusing, bland, non-credible, benefit-light sales scripts. But buyers are not liars. They may not understand what we offer, get our value, why we are more worthy than the rest or how they will benefit from meeting with us. That is on us, not them.

So your sales objection handling strategy for the “not interested” blow-off starts by understanding that when you hear “I’m not interested” what is really going on is…

1. They don’t understand what you do.
2. They need more time to grasp what you are saying.
3. They don’t think you are worth their time even though they have a need.
4. They will have a need in the future but don’t see the value in meeting now.
5. They will have a need in the future but don’t feel it is worth mentioning to you.
6. They have a need but have already or will pick their own providers to speak to. You don’t seem worthy.
7. They have no need now or in the future.

The least likely reality is #7.

The Worst Response to the “I’m not interested” Sales Objection Assumes it is True.

Third consideration: You need techniques to double-check what the potential customer is really thinking .

So, if you don’t know what the decision maker really means( frankly, most of the time the decision-maker doesn’t know what they mean or is still processing what you said) you have to give them more time to process what you say and reinforce the clarity of what you do, your credibility and value, and what they will get if they commit to a next step with you.

So your objection handling response to “not interested” assumes that what you are hearing is not literally true and gives the decision-maker more time to process what is being said and absorb what’s in it for them.

Your rebuttal to “not interested” must restate and reinforce what you do, your credibility, your benefits and specifically what they will get if they spend more time with you. [Shameless plug: Sample rebuttal scripts and examples can be found in my books available on Amazon.]

If their response is still something other than “yes,” you need to do one more thing. Check for future business needs.

Remember, when you hear the “I’m not interested” sales objection one of the more probable things it really means is “We will have a need in the near future, but not now.”

In my world most of my training and coaching clients sell longer sales cycle offerings. Their sales process acknowledge and reflects that reality. It is far more likely they interact with a decision-maker at a time when they are not in active buying mode. Many of those decision-makers will buy within the next 6 – 18 months. They will buy from a competitor if you are not there.

When you hear the “not interested” objection they may really be saying “not now.” So you have to enable them to tell you how to sell them.

So after starting with your impactful benefit and credibility laden “set the appointment” pitch,” and responding to the “I’m not interested” objection by repeating and reinforcing what you do, your credibility, the benefits clients get from you and what they will learn at a meeting… end with this.

“Not an issue, don’t want to be on your back, but obviously we do a lot of this. Could you suggest a time for me to be back in touch with you?” Then say nothing. Nothing.

You will be surprised at how many times after hearing the “I’m not interested” objection and hearing it again delivering your response, that you hear “Call me in two weeks, call me in a month or call me in 3 months.”

Your simple response when you do. “Happy to do that, is there a particular reason why that is a good time to call?” Be quiet. They tell you. You promise to call, say thanks and then hang-up.

Your “not interested” decision-maker just turned into a qualified opportunity. Ka-ching.

The next time you hear “not interested,” be ready.

These Two Phone Scripts are Real and They’re Spectacular

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Your “Set the Meeting” Script: Two Sample Scripts with Variations.

Consider this.

You launch your call process with many decision-makers by making the first call to get the name or if you are confident you know the name, making the first call to try to get them to pick up.

Your objective is to obtain a commitment for that person to spend more time with you or a representative of your company. That time could be face-to-face, a discovery call by phone, webinar or attendance at an event. Same concept.

You are seeking to enable them to conclude that more time spent with you would be worthwhile. That the risk of you wasting their time is pretty low.

Lets review two variations of a “set the meeting” script.

Script number one:

Suspect: “Hello, Busy Bobby here.”
Lead generator: “Hi, this is Paula from Super Service Group, specialize in widgets, wadgets and custom services. More than 600 companies such as Mega Corp, Brito and I. B. Sorry have worked with us to reduce production cycles by 12%, downtime and unplanned expense. If you are open to reviewing options regarding widget production and customization, we would like to introduce ourselves and share case histories, strategies and some things we do differently that companies appreciate. No clue if we might be a fit some time, but willing to share our experiences. Would you have any time in the next week or two?”
BOOM. Read that script again and think about all the bases that are being covered.

Script number two: Slight variation.

Suspect: “Hi, Distracted Dan here.”
Lead generator: “Hi, this is Scott from Super Services. We specialize in employee relocations. Companies like L. L. Beanstock, Microsquishy and 500 others selected us to manage the move process for 30,000 employees last year, as they get a single point of contact, 98% transferee satisfaction and competitive pricing. No idea if you might be open to reviewing options to improve your move process. If so, would like to share some examples of strategies used to improve satisfaction and cost efficiencies. If you hear something you like and think of us in the future that would be great. Do you have any time in the next week or two?”
BOOM. This verbiage covers the same bases in a slightly different way.

Your Mindset

When you approach these calls and these scripts, would recommend you adopt the following mindset.

1. The buyers are out there. There are people right now that understand they have problems to solve, that certain things could be better and they have an itch. A good number of these people will write checks to one of your competitors within the next 3 – 15 months. Or maybe you, if you are there.

2. You have a worthy offering. You or your company are superior, dependable, top shelf and do a great job for your accounts and clients.

3. It is the most normal and natural thing in the world for you to be calling those that are most likely to benefit from your offering.

4. It would be the most normal and natural thing in the world for them to conclude that you are worth their time.

5. You are doing buyers a favor, performing a service for them, helping them, by contacting them and enabling them to become aware of a quality provider that could be of great service to them.

6. On this call you are a peer. You may not be a CEO, VP of Sales or Exec VP of HR, but on this call and at this stage you have information that is valuable to them and communicate with them at their level.

7. Be professional and direct, so that the buyers can grasp that you may be able to help them.

8. Resist the temptation to water down your upfront verbiage to have more comfortable conversations with non-buyers. Non-buyers will make up most of those you speak to. You do a disservice to those you can help and would welcome interaction with a provider of your caliber when you water down your verbiage. It is less likely they will conclude you are worthwhile. They lose a great provider option. You just shrunk your paycheck.

Worth Repeating: You do a disservice to those you can help and would welcome interaction with a provider of your caliber when you water down your verbiage

To gain a commitment for a next step, you must convey confidence that your prospect would agree to invest more time with you.

Within the first 3 – 5 seconds after saying hello, your target is going to make a decision. “Is this a person worth listening to or not? Is this a waste of time or someone that may have something beneficial to me?” Within the first 3 – 5 seconds after hello, assuming you are talking to a buyer, you must enable them to conclude that you would be worth listening to just a bit longer.

Again, assuming you are talking to a buyer, if you don’t give them “cause for pause” within seconds of hello, what you say after that doesn’t matter. They have concluded you are not worthwhile, they cast you off, they are not listening anymore. You lost them at hello.

If they are not buyers, if they do not recognize a need you can fill or they would not be willing to act, fuhgeddaboudem.

What they think is irrelevant. Focus on making an initial connect with buyers (those that recognize a need you can fill) within seconds.

Door to Door Sales Scripts 911 Rescue. “Sell Now or Die.”

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Door to door sales challenged? Door to doorers take heed of this true tale of cold calling on front steps success.

Mark from TX creates 6-figure income knocking on doors with new door-to-door sales scripts and techniques.The 911 call… the 5 step turnaround… the effective opening pitch and sales strategies.

Could you engineer a similar cold calling improvement? Why not?

Short story illustrates the power of a door knocker understanding proper script structure. When you can craft good phone scripts you can craft scripts that will work in other sales and marketing situations, even door to door. Mark got a good result approaching home after home with a solid door to door sales pitch. He learned what the components are of a total front step sales pitch process that will convert to contracts.

Door salesman need to know how to establish a solid foundation to close a deal, what is counter-intuitive about top scripting pitches and just how rapidly the closes can come when you get it right.

When Mark first called me my initial reaction was not good. He was a failing and frustrated door to door salesman and needed a sales opener pitch script and some techniques that worked right away. Didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or just politely bow out.

Mark needed to make this commission job work. He told me he was door to door prospecting with the mindset of someone approaching a haunted house. He was working like a dog but making nothing. His scripts and sales techniques were not working. It had been 4 weeks of doors slammed, “not interested,” and just send me something.

Mark was in a “sell now or die” situation. Job prospects weren’t good for Mark after getting laid off and he needed to sell now. Something about his door to door sales techniques were off.

The top people were closing 3 or 4 per three-hour shift and making 6 figures a year. He was closing one every other night and eating Ramon noodles. He desperately needed to improve his door to door success rate.

Bottom line? Within two weeks he is closing 3+ a night and buying steak. Solid sales scripts and sales techniques can do that for you.

Totally revising his opening lines and script structure and the way he thought about interacting with prospects between a barely opened door did it. Let me share some of the best tips and lessons.

Mark was door to door prospecting and his company was selling cable digital fiber optic upgrade services. When the business installed a new area, after the mail and phone blitz they sent people door to door to try to convert the stragglers and close more deals. Mark was part of this business team.

1st step. Get congruent with what those already successfully selling door to door what you offer.

Learn from their opening line techniques and pitch process from start to finish. Write down sales pitch examples. Your open door front stoop sales verbiage must be congruent with the selling scripts and blather that is working for others.

The business Mark worked for provided zip for training. You felt that you weren’t walking door to door, rather you were walking off a cliff. The scripts the sales manager provided were worthless. Not even close to a door to door sales script with a door bells chance of working. Might as well have thrown rocks at the house and called their mother names.

When we started along the yellow brick walkway to door to door sales success, I asked Mark if he could identify top sellers and speak to them, arrange to shadow them. Find out what they were doing. He was able to do that quickly. Note for emphasis here. Mark was starving. He needed to close on those door steps desperately. Yet he spent three days trudging down walkways with door to door salesman far more successful than he. Three days spent with no chance of earning a sales commission for himself, yet giving him a chance, a chance, to turn his door to door job of drudgery into something that would bring home big bucks. Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward.

Step two. Break the door to door sales script down line by line and understand the components.

Any sale is only as strong as the foundation it is built on. The reason why Mark’s door to door sales success rate was low was due to an extremely weak cold calling foundation. His opening lines and sales pitch started with a lie, then asked an irrelevant question, then babbled on about stuff he had no idea whether the prospect might value, then asked multiple “qualifying” questions, then never stopped closing until the door was shut… or slammed. Very dumb.

Here are the sales script components used with Mark’s new door to door sales pitch

The revised pitch opened with a sentence that aroused curiosity and stated a major benefit… which earned cause for pause. A door that was opened a crack stayed open.

Then stated a legitimate truthful reason for them to approach the home and knock on the door. Credibility.

The sales script pitch path then made reference to the popularity to the plan and three major reasons why people liked it. More credibility and a chance to hit a hot button. The door is opening a bit more.

Then some questions to find out what benefits the homeowner most valued.

Then a very clear statement of a powerful offer. The prospect understood it and could say yes or no, all while you conversed on the door step.

Step three. Go back and massage your opening line each component of your sales pitch.

Once we had a sales script draft that made sense we went back and focused on each component to make sure it would work in a door to door sales prospecting environment. It might have been a sentence or just a phrase, making sure we had an effective open. We punched it up and made it more powerful.

Mark was beginning to understand strategically how a total sales script path worked and why the company provided travesty was only helpful in getting doors slammed in your face.

Step four. Go out and hear a lot of doors slam.

Mark wrote down the best sales pitch he could from start to finish. To be a top door to door salesman you must write down the best words you could use to accomplish your sales objective. Same as cold calling, but here you are door to door cold calling. Write down the best pitch you can using the most common scenarios you face in the door way. Then Mark went out and used his new sales script and revised his door to door sales techniques. After every call made and door slammed he made note of the questions, reactions, stall points, blow offs and objections he was hearing.

He then anticipated these responses and altered his opening lines and sales pitch path to head them off at the pass. It is better to avoid objections than have to overcome them.

Step five. Write it down. Revise it.

I insisted that he write down every variation of his door to door prospecting plan and what he was hearing from homeowners on every call. He then thought about each repetitive scenario and prepared for it.

The bottom line… from a door to door sales script success rate horror story (one close every other night) to 3+ a night within a few weeks… just by following a process and proven sales script structures.

He went from being a door to door salesman approaching homes with a feeling of doom similar to entering a haunted house, to being a door to door salesman approaching the house as if he owned the house.

I see a lot of people like Mark, very capable yet not working the right process or using the right sales techniques and strategies to get the results they should.

Mark told me the 2 biggest thing that made a difference for him to keep that door open and close more contracts was seeing the sales pitch script as distinct components that had to accomplish a specific objective in order for him to close a deal. He kept the pieces that were working and left the pieces that were not on the steps.

The 2nd key thing for him was understanding that it wasn’t what he did that mattered, but how the homeowners mind moved through the stages necessary to buy. When he started to realize that his words and sales techniques must move the prospect though certain stages in order to close deals, and understanding what stage they were in and how to move them from stage to stage, then he started to have some fun with door to door sales and improve his success rate and closing ratio.

Mark rose to walk among the very few that master door to door selling. If you are cold calling, an inside sales rep or need to improve a phone script, the scripting turn-around process is the same.

Mark was working very hard and earning little. He was just a few steps, little knowledge, a little organization and a little focus away from an income explosion.

You may be able to engineer the same kind of door to door sales jump-start. Mark’s story is not unusual.

5 Key Right Now Priorities For Sales Teams

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The battle for client acquisition has begun.

Those that work effective business growth strategic plans will win. To that sales teams must their sales tactics and behaviors with those strategies, with leveraged focus and action.

The amount of client dislocation coming will be unprecedented.
The unprepared and the weaker (financially, strategically) will see their account base shrink and not be able to compete for ideal accounts with new needs open to new providers.

Here are 5 priorities for sales teams during this pandemic.

  1. Reassess or get a solid strategy in place.
    Strategy is different from goals, tactics, activity. Without a sound strategy defeat is certain.
  2. Be realistic about current situation and what must be achieved.
    Stone cold hard core realistic. Wishful thinkers will be trampled.
  3. Leverage, leverage, leverage, on steroids.
    Time is short, money is tight. Work 80/20 within 80/20 to laser focus resources for biggest bang.
  4. Lesson your weaknesses.
    Gaps in systems, sales behaviors, skill sets that were tolerated in good times are now a ball and chain that will sink you. Plug your gaps.
  5. Identify and interact with your ideal prospects (only)
    ID, know-how and be prepared (content, scripts, process, emails, calls, free pens) to interact with them. If you do not meaningfully interact with them you are doing nothing.

This is the time for the biggest goals of your life if you own a business or are a CEO, VP sales or sales leader.

Coming Sales Shakeout: Will You Rise or Regret?

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If you own a company, or are a CEO or sales leader, this is a moment of truth.
What you do or don’t do NOW, will largely determine where your company or sales team sinks or swims during (and after) this recession.

What to do? What are the differences between companies that did not survive, survived weaker, and those that outperformed their competition in recession?
(There are links to studies and articles on this at end of this article)

We have been through this before:1980-82, 1990-91, 2000-02, 2007-09. Do you wish to be a company or sales organization that rises rather than regrets in this economic downturn? There are patterns among those that outpaced their competition during recessions. Some even achieved breakthrough performance.

Let me outline the best combination of moves based upon a comprehensive study of companies emerging from three recent recessions, and my own personal experiences and opinions.

But first, reality is startling. Seventeen percent of companies don’t survive a recession: They go bankrupt or get bought out. Three years after recession, 80% of the survivors had not regained prerecession growth rates for sales/profits. 40% of the survivors had yet to reach pre-downturn revenue/profit levels. Those are sobering conclusions of the HBR study. Yikes.

But, but, but, nine percent of companies significantly outperformed rivals after the slowdown.

Here are the key factors that will determine whether your company will rise or regret.
Let’s headline the keys then do a deeper dive on what this means for sales growth strategy.

  1. Improve sales and operational efficiency: Cutting costs does not equal increased efficiency. In fact, to improve efficiencies you may have to increase spend in certain areas.
  2. Secure the business you have now: Minimize your loss of current accounts. You will soon find out how strong your “relationships” are. Assume nothing. Interact in a meaningful way with current customers more frequently. If you don’t, prepare to pay a very steep price.
  3. Develop new markets: Customer needs and priorities will change. Be prepared to meet the new needs of potential ideal clients in new markets.
  4. Strengthen your infrastructure: Bargain prices for assets and improvements will abound. Invest strategically now and be able to respond faster/better to customer and ideal prospect needs than your non-investing rivals when sales start to rebound.
  5. Plug your gaps: Every sales organization has weaknesses. Identify them and be less weak.
  6. Leverage your efforts: You must get the most bang for your time and money. The 80/20 rule applies on steroids.
  7. Extreme clarity about target markets and target accounts: Most importantly, this means deciding (clearly and distinctly) what business you WILL NOT be seeking. For those of you soiling your pants now, this is a major reason why. Don’t repeat it.
  8. Do not be mumbling “woulda, coulda, shouda” three months from now: Imagine what you would have done the last twelve or eighteen months, the different situation you would be in now, if you could have predicted this disaster. Resolve now to not be saying “woulda, coulda, shouda” in three months as to the things you could be doing immediately.
  9. Get moving now: Want to know the biggest difference between those who survive or perish when faced with all types of disasters? Those most likely to survive act immediately. When faced with a “decisive moment” they get moving. Boom. Those most likely to perish sit, ponder, evaluate, wait to see what others do, and wait for a “better” time to do something.

Balance the need to cut costs with necessity to invest

Those most likely to sell more than competitors after a recession are realists. You need to survive if you wish to be around to outperform the competition. Cutting costs is necessary. But investments in some areas is also required if you wish to outperform competitors and pick up new clients and market share that simply would not be possible in normal times.

Improving sales efficiencies is best way to cut cost of new client acquisition

Those that are most likely to outperform focus on improving sales and marketing efficiency rather than across the board cuts. That might mean reducing head count and other expenses, but the end goal is to be more sales efficient. To generate a lead and convert that lead at less cost than you did before. In order to increase sales efficiency, you will cut some costs, but you also might have to invest some time and money to make your sales process more efficient.

Indiscriminate cuts in sales expenses or layoffs may cut costs faster but your ability to compete short-term and when the recovery begins can be crippled. Focus on cuts that reduce your costs of sale long-term. When the recovery begins you will be able to sell more, sell faster, and at less cost per sale. You focused on improving sales efficiency.

Invest to survive and better meet new client needs when demand returns

This might be the best time to invest in your sales process or infrastructure. Reality is that a lot of things that would help you be competitive are going to cost less for a while. There could be a lot of “good deals” on things that would help you meet future demand.

This is also the time to invest in new markets. Major client dislocation is happening now and will escalate as ideal potential clients have new needs and are open to those that can best meet them. There will be fewer competitors and many that survive will be weaker. Ideal prospects are going to have new needs based upon whatever is the new normal.

If you have had your eye on a new market, this could very well be the time to make a bold move

What is your right balance between achieving sales efficiencies and investing in new sales assets/infrastructure and/or new markets?

You need to answer that question. Right now.

9 Keys to outperform your rivals in recession

Let’s expand a bit on the points above. The concepts of improving operating efficiencies, moving into new markets and investing in new assets come from the HBR article I cite below. There are other links to articles I recommend you read.

  1. Improve sales efficiency

Focus on cutting some selling costs but also possibly make investments in some areas with the goal of permanently reducing costs of acquiring a qualified lead and converting it to a new account. Focus on improving sales productivity and effectiveness. Selling more faster and at less cost.

  1. Secure the business you have now.

Assume nothing. If you are a weaker competitor your rivals are going to do everything possible to better meet the new needs of your clients. They will try to rip your clients from your cold clutching hands. Head that off at the pass by doubling or tripling your communication with accounts. Be helpful. Be genuine. Be of service. Secure your current relationships at all costs. Those costs will pale compared to what it will take to get a new account for the next few years. When in doubt do more.

  1. Develop new markets

This seems a contrarian thought when so many are worried about survival. But if ever there was a time to be bold this is it. Clients are going to have new needs and be open to better options. Their current providers may be bankrupt or just hanging on and unable to meet their needs.

  1. Strengthen your infrastructure

You need stuff to sell more and more efficiently. Information, data, expertise, scripting, process, tools, training systems. Things you put off before due to cost may very well be available for far less now. To improve prospecting and sales productivity this may be the time to invest in assets, infrastructure, guidance to improve your systems and competitive advantage.

  1. Plug your sales gaps

Let’s face it. Pretty much every sales team has weak spots. Weak spots that were not a priority when the economy was healthy. Maybe your sales database crm is bloated with thousands of outdated low probability leads, maybe your script paths were weak, your reps were varying from plan and winging it too much, your proposal and sales conversions were lower than they could have been. Maybe you had some marginal performing cream-skimming non-creators of sales demand and revenue growth that you tolerated.

Gaps must get plugged right now. Marginal performers? Nice knowing you. Bloated databases filled with outdated lousy leads? Gone in a keystroke. Reps winging it on your dime? No more tolerance. Get moving.

  1. Leverage your efforts

There is no time. There is less money for most. You need to work the 80/20 rule on steroids right now. You must decide where to allocate time and money for best results with the same care that a surgeon decides to cut.

Not all actions are equal when it comes to your ability to survive and be able to outsell your competition. You won’t be able to do a lot of things, maybe most things, but you must absolutely do the things necessary to put you in the best position to outsell others when demand rises.

  1. Extreme clarity about target markets and ideal client targets

I can really sound like a jerk quick right here. Deciding who to target for best sales results in tough times also means clearly defining who you WILL NOT target.

When the economy was great the biggest reason sales teams would underperform (IMHO) was failure to laser focus on the highest-probability highest-value targets. Sales leadership was often content to let their sales teams work a database or leads that were the equivalent of a manure pile which contained a gold nugget or two, rather than jackhammer into a solid boulder of gold easily identified.

If you have any hopes of surviving this recession or having any chance of beating your rivals in the race for new clients that has already started, you must have absolute clarity on who to target, who not to target.

  1. Avoid “Woulda, coulda, shouda” Deja vu

Reality is that we probably didn’t do half of the things that we knew had to be done and should have been done to improve sales efficiency and productivity before the downturn. Many are holding their heads in their hands lamenting their woulda, coulda, should of’s.

Three months from now, six months from now, don’t be filled with sorrow and regret, and suffering the consequences of the things you could be doing right now, but never did.

  1. Get moving

If you are a business owner, CEO or leader of a sales team, you must get your organization moving in the right direction right now.

Think it is tough now? Wait a little while until your financially stronger or more strategic hustling rivals start peeling off your best accounts. Then you will be a real professor of pain.

This is a “decisive moment” in the life of your business or sales career. You must act now on the right strategic response and balance defensive (cost-cutting to survive) and offensive tactics (new investments, new markets) to emerge able to compete and quite possibly outperform competitors.

The study I cite found that over three recent recessions 17% of companies did not survive. Three years post-recession less than 10% had outperformed rivals to achieve breakthrough performance. The rest were struggling to get back to where they were.

Where are you going to end up?

Article that highighted some key points in this post and got me thinking about others.
Roaring Out of Recession

Other articles with surviving recession strategies
When A Recession Comes, Don’t Stop Advertising

How to Market In a Downturn

Sales Contrarian: Time for Biggest Goals Is Now. Don’t Settle for Survival.

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This is very contrarian given the times, but I really believe it.

If you are in business, this is the time to have the biggest goals of your life.

Why do I say that when so many are staring at disaster? Wondering if they will barely survive?

Because major disruption of client relationships is happening and will escalate.
You will never (hopefully) have an chance like this again.
To dislodge your competitors best clients/accounts.
To pick up market share by better meeting the needs of those looking for more value… and very willing to ditch current providers to get it.
To fill the void when a good number of your competitors go out of business.

Make a note of this.
The battle for new clients/accounts has already begun.
It does not start when the recovery begins. It has started now.

Many companies know that shortly there will be fewer competitors and a lot of weaker competitors. They are preparing now to pounce on those willing to change providers and those whose providers went out of business. They know some companies will have new needs/new priorities when the recovery begins and they plan on being there at the right time, with the right offering in front of the right client.

What used to be done in months or weeks, is right now getting done in weeks/days.

Companies are closing gaps in their systems, processes, capabilities right now in anticipation of having only a short window of opportunity to leapfrog the competition and pick up new accounts in numbers just not possible in normal times.

I guess you could wait…
Good things do come to those that wait.
But only the scraps leftover from those that took decisive action.

What woulda, coulda, shoulda things would you have done a year ago if you could have predicted this black swan event?

Those things need to get done right now. And you need to do those things and strategize with the 80/20 rule in mind. You need to leverage your time and resources for the greatest impact on results. The virus picks the time period, you don’t.

Let me tell you what the clients I am working with right now are NOT doing.
They are not rewriting their responses to objections or other matters trivial to meeting the challenge ahead.

They are laser focusing and executing on systems, processes, offerings, behaviors that will enable them to emerge from this mess stronger than they were before. That is the way I urge you to think.

Final word, these times are not an “opportunity” in the normal sense of the word. For those of us (including me) that have loved ones on the front lines caring for the sick and dying and stress about their safety every day, and know a lot of people who will be financially ruined, this is not a positive event in any way shape or form. Far from it.

But this crisis is a reality. These are the cards that have been dealt. We must deal with them.

Those that were financially weak before are toast. It would take extraordinary strategy, focus and execution for those weak before the crisis to survive. Unlikely.

Those that were strong before this in a financial, structural, talent and sales capabilities sense. They are positioned well to pick up your best clients and greater market share in this tsunami of change.

To all the firms that were in the middle of the pack, whether you survive, thrive, go under now or suffer a slow financial death will largely be determined by what you do now, in this decisive moment, not months from now.

Set big goals right now and take massive action on them.

Are you thinking woulda, coulda, shoulda about things you wish you had done in the last year or two?

Three months from now, don’t multiply the consequences of that by thinking woulda coulda, shoulda about what you could have done starting right now.

Sales Survivor or Casualty: 2 Things Will Decide

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“You don’t want to realize economic recovery has begun by seeing competitors’ close clients that should have been yours” Scott Channell

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is not another train.

Next few months will be super rough. Companies need to survive the present but be ready for the recovery.

Before you even get to sales strategy, tactics, scripts, qualifying or closing there are two qualities you must possess to come out of this poised to rise.

Objectivity and willingness to accept stone hard cold reality.

Let me share a little secret I have learned in the training business. “People” in general do not like having a mirror held up to them. They do not respond well to hearing that they have made mistakes, that lack of results was within their control, that things could have been managed better. No way. If I write an article about common mistakes to avoid or anything reminding people of things they may not be doing right, those articles have the lowest open and time on page rates.

If I write an article on scripts or some super success story. That gets read over and over. People are attracted to what they want, not necessarily what they need.

Interestingly, “people” in general act very differently than those that are most successful.

The most successful, whether it be an owner, manager or sales rep, are very open to hearing “the whole truth,” warts and all. They don’t take it personally. They use such input as an opportunity to learn. To make better decisions in the future.

When accurate reasoned information is provided as to why database quality is poor, 50% of more of their sales time is being wasted, why their scripts are not helping them, the top performers are objective, willing to move on and learn from it. They do not take it personally. Most “people” don’t. They will regale you with stories as to why they did it that way waiting to hear “It’s ok. You did the right thing. It’s not your fault.” PS: they don’t hear that from me.

I wanted to mention these concepts because those that can be objective about their strengths and weaknesses and accept reality quickly, are the ones that will be able to focus on what needs to be done to be ready for the economic recovery. The recovery will come. The question is will you be ready for it.

Good consultants (and sales trainers) are willing to deliver news that is uncomfortable for clients to hear.
The most successful clients want to hear it. Actually welcome it. 

I will often speak to prospective clients that describe their situations and mention that they have hired a couple of sales coaches, tried a couple of programs (Usually flavor of the month miracles,) that nothing has worked and express reluctance to try again. It sucks to be them as they will typically do nothing or make another bad decision. They are doomed to fall farther behind.

I have often wondered how it is that a company can hire multiple “experts” to help them and yet perpetuate systems, practices, scripts that are not close to being right. Either their experts were incompetent, or unethical in the sense that they were not willing to share observations or advice the client would not like to hear. They chose to keep the client comfortable rather than tell them what they needed to hear to improve their business condition.

If you are going to get through this, you do not have time to have your ego tenderly massaged. Time is of the essence. Those that are most likely to survive disasters be it fire, airplane crash or terrorist attack are those that act in “decisive moments.” When faced with mortal peril there are three stages: denial, deliberation and the “decisive moment” where those that survive decide to act and move. Those that do not survive, wait, ponder, pause, see what everyone else is going to do. They are far more likely to perish.

I see companies and reps in three categories. One is unlikely to survive. One is highly likely to do well despite the economic crisis. They third group, whether they come out of this competitive or falling behind depends upon what they do in this “decisive moment.”

Those that were weak in the strong economy be it financial, sales or skillsets are probably toast no matter what they do. It is not in their DNA to change or improve. That is why they were weak when most were strong. Bye bye.

Those that were top performers be it company or sales rep will probably not only survive but gobble up a lot of market share as weaker players disappear or can’t compete effectively. They have the systems, talent and know how. As a sales organization they have been identifying and cultivating ideal clients, have a quality database, higher margin accounts, low client churn and a lot of quality prospects. Ka ching Ka ching.

But the middle group is being presented right now with a “decisive moment.” What they decide will determine whether they go under, fall further behind or are ready to pick up market share when competitors disappear or are not able to compete.

If you cannot be objective right now you will not make the right decisions.
If you cannot accept cold hard truth and reality you will squander valuable time and not pivot in time to compete.
This crisis is a “decisive moment.” Your action or inaction in a very short window of time will probably decide your fate.

What is your decision?