Double your money

In my last post, I made an unscientific observation about cold calling results, concluding that one hit in twenty dials was some sort of universal constant. Suppose it were two hits in twenty. Would you double your money?

It seems likely. It may depend on what you define as a hit. It might be an appointment, or discovering an opportunity, or closing an order, or something else. It depends on what you are selling.

Since claiming that one hit in twenty was a common average, I have achieved two hits in twenty, twice! I don't mean to brag. Being inquisitive, I compared those I called to achieve a 1:20 result with those I called to achieve a 2:20 result. There was a difference. The better result came from better selection of the people I called.

Sell by Telephone

Cold Calling Constant

Having recently renewed my own prospecting activity, I have come to notice a common cold calling ratio. My experience seems to be consistent with the ratio's achieved by clients.

I divide call results into seven categories. They are a hit (objective achieved), a call returned (during the session), new information, email or post follow up, fobbed off (when I get through but have to call back), and declined (a definite no). each dial can only be recorded in one category.

In a typical, 20-dial session, my results are similar to those of client telephone sales people. About half the dials result in no contact, five will involve gathering new information, two or three will be worth a written follow up, one will be a hit, and the remaining one or two will be split randomly between an outright 'no' (declined), a call back during the session, and being fended off with an excuse.

Why so few refusals? The main reason is that I only call prospects that are well matched with our target group and I help clients to do the same.

The critical observation here is that I'd better not screw up the one hit.

Sell by Telephone

So many answers in a simple facial expression

Excerpt

Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence, Bantam, 2006, 18-19.

"One way moods differ from the grosser feelings of emotions, psychologists tell us, has to do with the ineffability of their causes: while we typically know what has caused an outright emotion, we often find ourselves in one or another mood without knowing its source. [Experiments] suggest, though, that our world may be filled with mood triggers that we fail to notice--everything from the saccharine Muzak in an elevator to the sour tone in someone's voice.

"For instance, take the expressions we see on other people's faces. As Swedish researchers found, merely seeing a picture of a happy face elicits fleeting activity in the muscles that pull the mouth into a smile. Indeed, whenever we gaze at a photograph of someone whose face displays a strong emotion, like sadness, disgust, or joy, our facial muscles automatically start to mirror the other's facial expression. ...

"We mimic the happiness of a smiling face, pulling our own muscles into a subtle grin, even though we may be unaware that we have seen the smile. That mimicked slight smile might not be obvious to the naked eye, but scientists monitoring facial muscles track such emotional mirroring clearly. It's as though our face were being preset, getting ready to display the full emotion. This mimicry has a bit of a biological consequence, since our facial expressions trigger within us the feelings we display. We can stir any emotion by intentionally setting our facial muscles for that feeling: just clench a pencil in your teeth, and you will force your face into a smile, which subtly evokes a positive feeling.

"Edgar Allan Poe had an intuitive grasp of this principle. He wrote: 'When I wish to find out how good or how wicked anyone is, or what his thoughts are at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my own mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' "

Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence, Bantam, 2006, 18-19.

Sales Training - Have your team teach themselves

Disaster recipes and schemes to do myself out of business are not what I have in mind. Just consider the idea and how it could be made to work.

If your sales people could be motivated to teach themselves and each other; if they could be persuaded to take such a task seriously, sales meetings could be a lot more fun.

If a sales manager were to simply assign a topic to one sales person each month, and insist he or she prepares a 30-minute session including exercises and presentation, for delivery in the sales meeting, the sales person concerned would have to do some preparation or risk ridicule from colleagues.

I have used a similar idea using audio tapes as the subject matter. It certainly worked for me, the sales people in the team that I was responsible for managing, and the organisation.

Here is a way to ensure it works for you. Have a sales coach spend an hour helping each sales person prepare for his or her sales meeting slot. This would provide focus for their preparation and ensure that they have some good material. The sales person delivering the session is highly likely to learn from the experience and there is a good chance that other in the team will too.

The sessions might even include some friendly rivalry to see who delivers the best session. The competition would be an excuse for some fun and serious prizes at the annual bash!

Impact of forethought, planning, and preparation

Think about it, make a plan, and prepare yourself to act on the plan. I bang on and on about this in my articles and probably in this blog. Here is an every day example. Like many, I am amongst the group of people who tend to have a glass or two of wine to relax in an evening. Also like many, I know that drinking every day is not good for my health. Every so often, I have applied a bit of will power and given it up for a few weeks. I feel better and by and by slip back into the same habit. My experience of applying will power to break the habit has been an uncomfortable one. I don’t like denying myself the pleasure I have associated with drinking the wine.

Stop. That doesn’t make sense. How can I live with the conflict? How can I get pleasure from drinking something that I know is killing me?

I have to break this association. It is, after all, just that - an association that I have formed at some unconscious level. There is nothing intrinsically pleasurable about drinking old juice that is well past it’s ‘sell by’ date. Imagine eating eggs that were twelve months old, or more.

That’s it, the solution is to use forethought, planning, and preparation to break the erroneous mental association. It is well worth taking twenty minutes to use introspection and tease out the buried associations. Then when you study them in the light of day, they evaporate. It is that easy to eliminate the pain of withdrawal. Will power works but it’s hard to inflict pain on yourself, especially after a tough day or some other crisis or intrusion. Taking the time to destroy the useless associations that accidentally form in ones head destroys the pain of giving up an unworthy habit.

Try it. What have you got to lose?

Doing it now

There is no reason for being poor, accept choice. Someone recently reminded me of this idea. It may seem a bit outrageous, particularly if you live in a part of the world where scarcity dominates people’s attention. This can’t be said for most of the western world. Abundance is obvious to all, even to those who have yet to share it. Is it an accident?

The idea expressed in the first line reminds me of a quote from Gustav Kaiser who wrote, “Success is voluntary”.

Just thinking about abundance won’t help much. You have to add some other ingredients - namely, action and persistence. High intelligence or even education is not necessary if you simply find out how someone else has achieved the results you want. Pick someone who started in a similar circumstance and with similar resources then find out what they did.

Modeling is something that we all did as children. We were very good at it. Learning how to walk and talk depended on it. Somewhere along the way, many of us, me included, seem to forget this innate ability.

When you know you don't know

So they won’t tell you what other options are under consideration
So they won’t give you access to all of the people involved
So they won’t reveal their true reasons for acting
So they won’t share their budget calculations

Seems like a broken sales process. Fix it with CLEAR – revealed in Selling Consulting Services in Reading on June 21st.

Snowdon Trek

From Pen Y Pass you can take a skateboard. I’m not kidding. You could ride some sections of the Pig and Miners tracks. Despite this, we (several friends and family members) found it a breeze. About a 100 mile an hour breeze in places. Sunday May 27th 2007 dawned grey, wet, and cold. Just like traditional English Bank holidays. Then it got wetter. As we neared the top, the rain turned to horizontal Snow. Personally, I blame Andrew, the member of our party who said we needed a bad weather practice!

If you really want to see the pics go to www.bigtrek.org. If you would like to support our efforts to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis research, go to www.justgiving.com/clivemiller.

Support MS Research

Raising money for Multiple Sclerosis research is the aim of my attempt at the Three Peaks Challenge in August. If you would like to support the cause, visit www.justgiving.com/clivemiller. I'll be publishing a diary for all contributors, and offering free writing services for anyone who makes a donation of £300 or more.