"I need to talk with the other owner."

Go ahead and talk with their competitors, starting tomorrow.

If you feel that the meeting went well (at least for your side of it), then you are in the zone. Every day that you allow to go past waiting for an answer from them is another day that you will doubt yourself.

Never forget that you are offering a service of great value. If they don't want to profit from what you have to offer, others will.

You need to "pop by" in person within a day or two to overcome some objections and "throw in" a bonus for acting today.

For the future, when they say that you should respond with "let's git 'im on the phone right now." Say it with a smile and again add the reason for acting now. If you have enough rapport during the meeting you can usually tell if it's BS or for real. If I'm in rapport and I get a lame "not now" objection I flat out ask them, "Is that just a 'get rid of the sales guy' line or do you really need to talk to (wife/partner/dog)?" You can also ask in the beginning of the meeting if they're the only decision maker, and if not schedule a time for you all to meet.

I plan on calling this business in the middle of next week. If they decide not to go with my services, then you can bet that I will be contacting all of their competitors.

A great trick is to ask "who do you have to talk to before you make this decision". Then tell them to talk to that person and that you will call tomorrow at a certain time.

With the chiropractor just move on. You are best off looking for chiropractors who are under 35 years old or so.

Look for ones with terrible websites (obviously self made) and hit them up. Skip the guys who have been in business for over 20 years, it's a badge of honor for these guys to have a 'referral only' practice. The ones with ridiculous websites have bought them pre-packaged and the seo is included.

It's the cheap ones that they did themselves but would pay to have the traffic and patients it brings in.

Please allow me to throw in my 2 cents about selling. I am a newbie to IM but I have 20 years outside sales experience calling on small businesses. MYOB and Morgan are right. The best way to stop this problem is to try and get all the decision makers in front of you, which may be difficult on a first appointment. If you are looking to only have 1 Chiropractic client and this office is your best potential (most money), then don't give up, stick with them for a bit. At the very least make them give you a definitive "no" before you move on. Be prepared that most potential clients will not call you back, and almost never will they call back the same day. It doesn't mean you can't still get the business. I would give them at least 2-3 days before following up. Morgan makes a valid point about popping in. This may come across as pushy but it will also give you a chance to get by objections and it is harder to say no in person. Finally, be prepared for rejection and don't take it personally. You can have the greatest product in the world and some will still reject it. Part of sales is rejection. Learn from it, move on.

Tiger,

You presented the classic, "One Legger".

This is when you present your services and ask for the business without having all the decision makers present at the time you met at the business to give your presentation.

What essentially has happened is that you not only did yourself a disservice, you did the business a disservice as well. Its is EXTREMELY important that you learn to take the latter view also. You truly have done the business a disservice by not having every one present at the time of your presentation.

Next time, ask exactly how many people need to be involved in making a decision and make the appointment at a time that will allow for every one to be there.

If you can't get an appointment with every one present then you should consider moving on.

On the other hand, if this is an account that you really want because you know its a juicy deal then your strategy should compensate for possibly having more then one meeting to pitch your services. But still try and get a single meeting with every one present, even if the meeting has to take place at a much later date then you might want.


Anyways, in this case endeavor to communicate that you'd like to meet with the other decision makers instead of having them just pass along the information. The passing along information thing just ends up giving the other decision makers partial or incomplete information, which usually ends up not being a deal.

Hi Tiger Claw,

Don't fret. No love loss for you. Getting all the decision makers sit in your next presentation should bring you closer to the deal. Now they'll know you are keen and mean business. What do you think many of them in that meeting will think of you?

Go get them Tiger!

Hi Tiger Claw,

Just with regards to the rejection, you have to learn how to not take it personally. It is a part of the business. You could be offering them something that increases their revenue exponentially but if they are not "ready" for it they are not going to bite. You never know in a few weeks they could be calling and begging for your services!

Lots of great advice here. It is best to ask if all the decision makers will be at the meeting. Small Business owners have very little time and many get bombarded by sales people selling them the next great thing. Don't take rejection personal, because some small business owners would reject you even if you pull $500 out of your wallet and try to give it to them with no strings attached.

Here is something to remember. Most sales decisions are made when you are not in the room. I run a family insurance agency and I never decide to buy anything without speaking to my father, our book keeper and other people who the decision to buy may affect. Even if they are in the room during the sales pitch.

Therefore, here is the trick. Part of your sales pitch should be to teach the person you are speaking to to sell the others in the office. Read SPIN Selling for this one.

There have been a number of times where I've had to tell someone "I need to talk to ----- before a decision is made." It's either because:
1. The other person has no desire to sit in on a meeting, because they know nothing about technology, etc.
2. That person was just simply too busy to be there (and could possible be busy for a few days).
3. I need to weigh my options w/o the pressure of a sales pitch.

Needless to say, don't take any of it personally. Everyone's looking for something different and what you provide may just not be it.

All of this is why it makes much more sense to outsource sales.

Do you want to be a cold-calling telemarketer AND a pitch-guy/gal AND a video maker AND an SEO AND ....

Let's see, how many hours did that add up to, vs. 24 hours in a day? How many sales did you close? At what price(s)? When are you going to deliver? Do you know how to do everything you just 'sold'? (Obtw... how much are you making at month's end?)

This is gonna hurt but...

MAYBE 2 out of 10 Call Backs or "Will Call's" ever come through IF THAT and you never know how far down the road it will be... why? Because they arent urgent about it.

Remember this for the rest of your life...

Anything less than "yeah! Hey man, Im really interested... I cant wait to meet... how do I get started..." is a BLOW OFF.

Not always, however; so much of the time that its better for you to always presume thats the case.

Sure make a note to follow up, never waste any kind of lead...but dont count on it to come through.

One of the more irritating parts of training new telemarketers is that "until they get the idea".... they will come up to your desk every 5 minutes saying "I had a great conversation with ______ but he needs to talk to his partner...." or "Yeah this guy said he'd call me back he just wants me to email him some information first...."

Literally they will do that all day long... a week or so later they realize that those guys are a waste of energy. You KNOW when you have something, there's no wondering. Soon you come to realize that and quite going on goose chases...

My friend calls it "runnin deer"... when a dog is supposed to be hunting coon, but it keeps getting distracted by deer...

If you cant tell they are excited about doing something urgently...9 times out of ten "They arent your man".

Forget about em.

If they call in great, if not great... They probably wont.

Do I say this to discourage?

Of course not.

I say it for your empowerment.

Gotta disagree John.

This is where there's a very distinct difference between a telemarketer, and a consultative solution sales professional.

If you're just pitch-based selling, that might be the case, but in relationship-based B2B sales, as high as 70% will buy in the first 9 months following their first contact if they're fully qualified and there exists a strong lead development program.

In B2B selling, the chances of making a sale to a qualified prospect are increased with each contact - moving to as high as 80% with the 11th "touch".

That's why it's important to have a lead nurturing system in place to develop the relationship with the business over time.

Most businesses make decisions based on their own established process - not on an emotional, one call pitch close.

As we've discussed in the past, if you're pitch-based selling, you're looking for the extremely small percentage of businesses that will respond to that pitch right this very second. And that is indeed a valid method of selling. But it leaves piles of cash on the table.

We're talking about selling consultative services to businesses, which is a lot more complex than refilled toner cartridges. Selling "offline" marketing services is a more complex sale that involves more "stuff".

In his classic book, SPIN Selling, Neil Rackham studied 35,000 business sales calls over a 12 year period. Yeah, I know, you have a dim view of those kinds of learned people - except that since the 1980s, Rackham is directly responsible for literally billions of dollars in sales increases across multiple client companies as a result - more than all of the internet marketing gurus, Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham combined. He's one of the guys that I am referring to when I say there are gurus out there that make all the internet marketing guys look like tiny little pipsqueaks.

Those with pitch-based selling backgrounds are very zealous about their experiences, but have to realize there is indeed a much wider world of solution selling. In fact, the overall percentages of B2B selling is heavily weighted towards solution-based selling as an overal percentage of sales.

If what you say is true, and all successful B2B selling was indeed one call closing across the board, then why do so many companies develop successful lead nurturing systems these days that stomp a mudhole in the butts of their competitors?

Why doesn't IBM Global Consulting just pay a team of telemarketers to sell consulting services with one call telemarketing closes?

Because projects and decisionmaking processes are complex.

Why doesn't Deloitte man the phone center, plodding through the logical branching script, looking for the needle in the haystack?

Again, because anytime you start talking about selling anything more than a basic commodity-type product or service to a business, it starts to involve deeper decisionmaking processes like calculating ROI, involving multiple stakeholders within the organization, budgetary cycles, etc...

Once again, it's different. But pitch-based selling rules are indeed not the gospel, and in fact are the significant minority when it comes to selling services.

This will be interesting. Lol
Nice. I’ve been pigeon holed!

Shhh… don’t tell my wife who is a science master in her 6th year majoring in quantum physics… I don’t want her to know I view educated people dimly.

I would say its presumptuous to imply that I view edgeekated people dimly, however, I know I have made statements that would lead people to think that.

The fact is that over the years I have employed and consulted a lot of people who were a lot more educated than me, and I continue to today. While I respect higher education, and while most of my friends are more highly educated than myself…I don’t feel it’s a prerequisite for success.

An ounce of zeal and unbridled enthusiasm is worth a pound of education in my book. You can’t help but get an education along the way.

I agree.

As you know Michael, I also do international exports part time, using a very methodical follow up/nurturing system to obtain $20-$50,000 overseas clients. Some of those require up to 20 follow ups over the course of 6 months… going back and forth on specs, customs details, price negotiations that last for months, and invoice and shipping details, even having customers fly in from other countries… So Im no stranger to relationship building.

Yes. High probability, pitch based selling is a different approach.

Indeed.

Well in all fairness I did mention in my post, to make a note of a call back and put it down as a follow up. Being that only 1 or maybe 2 follow ups out of 10 are gonna come through over the course of the year, it is in your best interest to put them in the follow up system and move on.

You cant count on any one particular follow up to come through, even then you can’t predict “when” it will come through. You can however count on the fact that if you have a decent follow up system in place you can make a minimum of one out of ten callbacks come through over the course of a year.

That’s just real life experience from overseeing thousands of call backs and “will calls”… You get a “callback” or a “will call”, great; put it in the follow up system, but move on to your next call and don’t give it any major energy.

Your follow up system is a machine… but cold calling is the steam that feeds the machine and keeps the pressure going… Unless the numbers of call backs (steam) you have built up in the system are significant, then sales are few and far between.

Example: If you only have ten call backs you can only count on 1-2 sales this year from that, if you continually follow up, which is great if you are focused on marketing only to fortune 500 companies.

What if you haven’t got even got 10 call backs built up yet…? What odds are you counting on?

Chances are you could make “sales” before you even build UP to 10 call backs… so focus on those and the call backs will build up naturally.

Call people with the intent of selling them, not putting them in a follow up system, but just have the follow up system handy if you can’t sell them.

Newbies tend to get hung up on imaginary semi interested “will calls”… for weeks on end and get complacent with delusions that their “call back is in the bag…”. They stop stuffing their pipeline, and lose momentum.

So I say… if a person hasn’t expressed real hardcore interest, give them energy but not to much because there is a an 90% chance they arent the one out of ten that’s gonna come through, and if you haven’t got 10 call backs built up yet…you may not have one coming at ALL yet… better to keep focusing on making a “sale”.

To quote the great Poet Rudyard Kipling in his classic :rolleyes: poem “IF”,

“ Let all men count with you, but none too much…”

No offense to anyone here who may view dimly the starry eyed, willy nilly, philosophically inclined type.

You know, the type who would rather practice " business", and study "great classic literature".

Through consistent cold call or contacting business owners in significant numbers, on a daily basis, soon call backs build up and that 1 or 2 out of 10 call backs actually amount to something… you can even predict your sales off of the call back percentages at a point waaay deeep in the numbers.... But it only works if you are PLOWING through the prospects hard.

If you haven’t even got 20 call backs in the pipeline yet, its not time to look right or left, put em in the follow up bin and move forward.

In closing on this point,

I don’t think I discourage people from call backs, I just try to help them get them into perspective… reduce their value to its proper size, and keep the energy and process where it needs to be on getting todays sale, keeping the pipeline stuffed..

By all means don’t stop looking for the guy who wants it now!

You will love this.

My very best friend of almost 20 years who I still talk to on an almost daily basis, built the largest wallpaper border manufacturing plant in the world

(" He's one of the guys that I am referring to when I say there are gurus out there that make all the internet marketing guys look like tiny little pipsqueaks..."). I will add that: "They dont even think of themselves as gurus, because that term is only meaningful to people who seek a following...".

Anyway,

For a 10 year stretch my best friend David had his own brand of products in walmart , lowes, home depot, biglots, family dollar… and all the major chains. Having hung out with him daily for almost 20 years… I was there through the whole process and witnessed the multi, multi millionaire lifestyle he achieved from that...

I have even personally been to more than a few multi million dollar board meetings with him with major players from the warner company, biglots and others present... Im no stranger to a broader range of selling styles and scenarios, in fact I myself have dealt with several celebrity level clientele over time...

You will find this interesting Michael.

My friend (David Weinberg of DW Wall covering, started in culver Indiana whose history anyone can google) started with just a handful of employees in a sweat shop… and struggled just to make a paycheck and pay his small payroll for months on end…

Then one day an ole Baptist preacher with one leg shorter than other, by the name of Paul Begely,hobbled into Davids office , which had no air conditioning btw… and said “I don’t know nuthin bout wallpaper, but Im a cold caller, I can sell anything on the phone..."

Well David said “Okay, Ill give you a shot for 8 bucks per hour plus commission… I could use the help and you look like you could use the break..."

It gets better Michael…

David gave that man a list of every small big and large retailer in the country… and that guy sat at that sweaty desk and made hundreds of calls… then one day he happened upon a number and it was the “purchaser” for Walmart.They said “send us a sample”. The sample was sent… and weeks later so was a check for 5 million dollars!!!

My friend didn’t look backs for 10 years and made millions upon millions of dollars and walmart opened the door to every retain chain in the country for him… he was mass producing millions of rolls of wallpaper per month.

But you know what?

Without that uneducated, wobbly ole Baptist preacher, so full of humility that he would even take a job sweating on a phone in an office with no air condition for 8 bucks an hour… My friend would have never made his first million, he may not ever even have been in business for a whole year.

Later that 8 dollar an hour telemarketer would be on salary and make over 250k per year managing major accounts and other salespeople.

Hope you enjoyed this absolutely true and fascinating to story that I am a first hand witness to. I didn’t realize I would be typing this , but how powerful is that?

That’s the power of a straight up cold calling “Telemarketer”.

Thanks for inspiring some interesting banter here.

Ps.

I believe in relationship building... but what I "teach" is getting down in the sweat shop like Paul Begely and creating a miracle! Its amazing how money and success transformed Paul by the way. He's new man, and went on to become the president of another major wallpaper manufacturing corporation. And he's still a baptist preacher with alittle hell fire and brimstone church...

You can here him preachin a block away from his church at the top of his lungs....with veins all poppin out of his neck...lol, and would never guess he was such an esteemed executive.

I went there and played piano one time... It was the scariest sermon I ever heard, but thats another story entirely...

Dont say I didnt post anything interesting on the Warrior forum today!

haha... I had to yank your chain John... turnabout being fair play and all.

I know you understand the idea of following up and nurturing a lead into a qualified prospect.

As for the DW Wallcovering story (awesome story BTW), indeed, the cold call opened the door - BUT there was a whole flurry of activity that happened between that door opener and getting the check for $5 million. Ol' Paul didn't just make the cold call and send off the sample, and then a check show up out of the blue for $5 million. There were plenty of discussions about everything from production capacity and supply chain systems to financial balance sheets and whatever else Walmart needed to see in order to be satisfied that this supplier could meet their needs as a large distribution center and be around to support the relationship for longer than a few months.

THAT is the real selling process. Overcoming all of those objections, of which any one could have brought a halt to the entire show. So yes, Paul's cold call to the purchasing agent was the center snapping the ball, putting it into play, but there was a whole bunch of other stuff that went on to cross the end zone.

What I've found to help is saying this BEFORE the meeting:

"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me. Oh, before I come out (call back, get online with you, etc.), I just need to know that...if this is something you decide will absolutely not be something you could use, you'd be able to let me down softly (tell me no, etc.), right? (Wait for answer!) By the same token, if this was a service you see could be something...that would earn more business for you, would you be able to give the go-ahead to move forward? Or should I be prepared to present this to someone else with you?"