That one word resulted in the release by China of the 24 U.S. spy plane crew members. “Regret” wasn’t good enough. “Sorry” wouldn’t do. But adding “very” to “sorry” did the trick.

Perhaps a word or two of yours might not save 24 lives, but words certainly can make your job easier and more profitable, or more difficult.

According to communication experts, the impressions you make in your first two seconds of communication are so vivid, it takes another four minutes to add 50% more impression-positive or negative–to that communication.

Here are a few telephone communication tips that can help aid in the release of your customers’ dollars.

1. Use the words “you” and “your” to help them visualize themselves already enjoying the results of what you have to offer.
2. Saying “Do you understand?” or “Are you following me?” is insulting. Instead, place the burden on yourself: “Did I explain that clearly enough?” or “What’s your understanding of what we’ve agreed to do?”
3. Be specific about times and dates. Don’t say, “I’ll call you sometime next week.” Instead, ask, “Would next Thursday at 1:30 be a convenient time for you to speak with me again?” or “What would be a good time for me to reach you next Thursday?”
4. While in your car (preferably alone!) pick out a billboard, a building, or an object, and practice describing it in colorful, emotional, desirable terms. Use plenty of inflection. Avoid words like “thing” and “stuff.”
5. Don’t use five words when one will do. For example, use “now” instead of , “at this point in time.” Use “because” instead of “due to the fact that.” Use “many” instead of “a great number of.” Think of the wordy phrases you use.
6. End calls with a positive, instead of the self-demeaning, “I don’t want to take any more of your valuable time.” Simply say, “Thank you. I look forward to our next conversation.”
7. When dealing with an irate customer, don’t refer to their issue as a complaint. Use terms like, “situation,” “concern,” “this matter,” “issue”, or “misunderstanding.”
8. Avoid using the word “just” to belittle yourself and your importance. For example, “I was just calling today …”
9. Avoid words that put them on the spot, such as “Of course you will agree …,” “Everyone knows that …,” “And of course you’d want that, wouldn’t you?”
10. To direct them back to business after going off on a small-talk tangent, transition by saying, “Getting back to what we discussed earlier…,” then ask a question.
11. Avoid saying “I’ll be honest with you …” It’s a waste of words. Plus, people might wonder what you were when you didn’t say it.
12. Avoid the use of “disclaimers” like “I might be wrong, but …,” and, “I could be mistaken, but …” People want definite answers, not wishy-washiness.
13. Use “when” instead of “if” to help your prospect visualize himself enjoying your benefits. For example, “When you use this system, you’ll find yourself breezing through your projects in a fraction of the time it took before.”

As you can see, how you say it is often more important than what you say.

Good selling,

Dave Rothfeld

Cold calling, prospecting, networking, account development, and business development are but a few of the words used by salespeople to describe activities that they dislike doing – going out and getting the business. Intellectually, they know how important continuous prospect is, they just seem resistant to doing it, continuously. Not just when they have to. Like when they’ve lost a major account, or when a project ends. But when they don’t need the business, but want the business! That’s the best time to prospect. When you don’t need it. No one wants to do business with a loser. When you’re desperate and really need the business, it’s tough to get. Understanding the difference between needing and wanting is the first step in the process.

Most salespeople I’ve met when asked about how they prospect, usually think I’m referring to making “cold-calls.” And most admit to really disliking the process. In fact, “I’ve only met two types of people who really like making cold calls…. Liars, and people who have never really made one!” If this quote sounds familiar, it’s because it’s fundamentally true. Most successful sales people simply hate to make “cold” calls. They admit that it could be an effective way to talk with prospective customers, so why do they treat it as having all of the characteristics of a root canal?
Two possible reasons:

1. They hate interrupting a stranger’s day and,
2. Shrink from the concept of being rejected by someone at the other end of a telephone line.Maybe there is a third reason. Maybe they just don’t know how to make a call that works . . for both parties. A call that doesn’t sound like one you heard in the movie Tin Men. Instead, a consultative call that enables you to get through to the party you want to speak with, and to mutually determine whether or not you should meet or if they are a prospect for your services or products. Keep in mind that you are an expert in your field, with information, service and benefits to offer. Don’t put your prospective clients on a pedestal. They have a job to do, just like you.

Most of the star salespeople I have worked with remind themselves that every call, even one that doesn’t get an appointment or an order, has monetary and intrinsic value. If it takes you five calls today to get an order and that order is worth $500 to you, than each call was worth $100.

There are five things that could happen on every prospective sales call, and they all have value to you.

1. You could get an order
2. You could book an appointment
3. You could get a “no” – it’s over.
4. You could get a referral.
5. You could learn a valuable lesson.

The worst case occurs when you make a cold call and don’t get anything.
Preparing for a prospecting call.

Carefully research prospective companies within an industry that you are comfortable dealing with and take notes on all of the pertinent aspects of their business. Newspapers and the trade press are often good places to start as well as several of the commercial directories. Don’t overlook putting your name on their mailing lists as a way to learn more about the suspect (prospect). The web offers a great source of information about potential prospects. If you call the firm in advance and say “I am planning to send some information to the person responsible for . . . . , would you mind sharing with me his or her name?” Check the spelling and exact title. No one like to see their name misspelled.

RULE: Start at the top. You might be referred lower in the organization, but you’ll have access to the top if need be. Besides, the people at the top of the decision making ladder are usually open to new ideas that will help their firm and probably not hung up on the C.Y.A. syndrome that flourishes in the insecure halls of middle management today.

Send your prospect a clear, well written one-page pre approach letter, and follow up in a few days with a telephone call. The initial call can be the most frustrating part of the prospecting process if you’re not aware what is really going on. If you don’t shoot yourself in the foot by sounding like every other salesperson, you’ll find that your odds for success will rise dramatically.

Getting past the gatekeepers.

Receptionists / secretaries take calls all day long. The calls come in three flavors: 1) Customer calls. 2) Personal calls. 3) Sales calls.

They hate getting sales calls and they know how to get rid of them. The other two calls are routinely forwarded.  Make a call that sounds like a personal call and you’ll be forwarded to the person you want to speak with, and not get caught at the gate. Don’t lie. Struggle. Assume that your prospect probably knows you and why you are calling. If you don’t give a lot of information, and don’t sound like a salesperson, you’ll get through. Receptionists don’t interrogate personal calls. It only takes a little practice . . don’t give up.

When you do get through to your prospect.

This is not the time to revert to a feature + benefits, 1960’s hard sell. Be consultative. Ask questions and wait to listen to the answers. The first 10-20 seconds are the most important. Establish that you have expertise in your field, working with people in their industry and that you are willing to meet with them to share some information or to discuss an opportunity. Find a “pain” they’ll admit to and learn if they are committed to getting rid of the pain. Treat objections as opportunities. Remember, you can’t handle their objections. Only they can do that, with your guidance.
The point of this is that if you are new to sales and don’t have a large enough client base to be making referred calls ( the best), then learn how to make a good cold call. One day, soon, you will only make cold calls when you want to . . .not because you have to. It’s a lot more fun that way.
It takes more than cold calls!

Don’t get the wrong idea! There are far more effective ways to speak or meet with prospects for your business. Consider these:

1. Attending formal networking events, at least once a month.
2. Conducting Executive Briefings on a topic of industry importance.
3. Utilizing a referral process for getting referrals from clients and prospects alike.
4. Entering into joint venture / strategic relationships.

Details on these will follow in future articles.

Good selling,

Dave Rothfeld

To show you what we mean, lets take a closer look at why many professionals underachieve in areas of business development. The reasons we find most prevalent are:

• They simply don’t know how to market or sell. Many accountants lack the full complement of skills necessary to bring in business. In fact, many view business development as a natural talent rather than a skill-you’re either born with it or you’re not. They also mistakenly perceive marketing as glitzy brochures or high profile public relations which should automatically result in business. Many see selling as simply persuasive talking or high-pressure closing tactics;
• There is no good reason for them to hustle harder to bring in work. As professionals, people face enormous pressures to stay chargeable. This keeps most of them extremely busy. Doing proactive business development, even with present clients, is often seen as extra work.
• Many professionals don’t know where to look for new business. Numerous professionals, especially younger professionals, don’t know who to target for promotional efforts, or where the best sources of new business are. And, in many firms, there is no way to learn where to focus your effort for the best payback. Even if there are proven business generators within the firm, rarely is time or effort devoted by the rainmakers to teach their skills to others.
• Many professionals don’t like prospecting and selling. If they did, they would have become salespeople instead of accountants. The prospecting and selling process often leads to feelings of personal rejection and failure as well as lowered self-esteem. Logically, many professionals seek to avoid this unpleasantness by avoiding the prospecting and selling process altogether. Also, many professionals set themselves up for failure because they don’t effectively use marketing tools to pre-qualify hot prospects. Without effective personal marketing, every business development call ends up being a cold call or a tough sale. And this leads to more frequent rejection and failure.

Adopting the behavior of a sales person is totally inappropriate.

• It’s too hard to change. Changing business development behavior is difficult simply because it requires change. This takes time and requires commitment and a system of application and focus on continuing incremental improvements. Most sales training efforts are one-shot programs that lack any approach for continual improvement or reinforcement. Accordingly, no improvement or positive change occurs, and no results are produced.
• They think they should behave like sales people rather than professional consultants and relationship managers. Common sales training reinforces this tendency in professionals. Sending professionals out on sales calls with old fashioned sales techniques that were originally designed to sell copy machines and other tangibles is tantamount to consigning an auditor to an engagement with an abacus instead of a personal computer. Adopting the behavior of a salesperson (which is what common sales training instructs) is totally inappropriate for the consultative personality of a professional. Credibility can be destroyed completely when an accountant “shows and tells” the “features and benefits” to a prospective client. It is even more inappropriate in an existing client relationship. As you can see, traditional sales training fails to address any of these challenges and may, in fact, add to the problems by teaching the wrong approach. So, how can you develop the skills you need to succeed?

How to get results

To get results, your skill-building programs must address each of the following six barriers. Also, as an individual, you should view each of these areas to see where you personally may fall short. In this way, you can clarify what steps to take in order to build your business-generating skills.
Here are some ways to address deficiencies in your skill-building efforts.

• If your professionals lack the full complement of individual marketing and selling skills necessary to produce results:

(1) Start by recognizing that business development is a skill that can be acquired just like auditing. It is not simply innate.
(2) Develop a plan of attack to build skills in all aspects of business development. This would include prospecting, personal marketing, face-to-face situations involving new clients and services, managing existing relationships, following through on marketing activities, telephone selling, account development strategies, and time management.
(3) Success isn’t accidental. Think about the best business generators in your firm and at other firms you know well. What distinguishes these partners from the others? What do they do right? Use them as success models to get others started using the same approaches and adopting the same behavior.

• If your professionals lack good reasons to hustle harder:

(1) Incorporate goal setting into the skill-building programs. Let each professional define his own reasons for trying harder-reasons that are personally valid and inspiring.
(2) Set specific behavioral goals-actions that will be taken-as well as desired outcomes.
(3) Set a six-to-eight-week deadline for results. Monitor results in a group setting. Give them a method that they like. Give them a Method that they like.

• If your professionals don’t know where to look for new business:

(1) Give your professionals a systematic way to define where their best opportunities lie. For example, mostprofessionals should focus first on their current client base to determine work opportunities and service strengths.
(2) Concentrate on developing ways to maximize referrals from both current clients and third parties.

• If your professionals don’t like to market and sell:

(1) Find out why they don’t like it. Some professionals may be unsure of what marketing and selling really is. Others may be skeptical of their ability to do it. Rather than ignore this area, you must surface and address any inhibitors.
(2) Give them a professional selling process with which they are comfortable. If accountants have a well-defined methodology for selling or marketing, we’ve found that they like it better and are more at ease in a selling situation. It also allows them to be natural when promoting work.

• If it’s too hard to get your professionals to change:

(1) To foster change, you need to get your people into action. One approach that works, we find, involves a contract of action-a commitment to others that the professionals will follow through on the actions he or she prescribes.
(2) Stress incremental improvement and continual reinforcement. Take care to ensure some quick successes so that professionals are motivated to continue honing their business development skills.

• If your professionals don’t want to be turned into salespeople, don’t make them!

(1) Help them use their diagnostic skills to identify with whom they should be doing business and what prospective or current clients should be buying.

Transforming your firm

Today isn’t yesterday. Proactive business development is now a requirement for professional practitioners. We’ve found that success in business development centers on the capability of individual partners and the focus, vitality, and intensity of their business development efforts. So, to enhance your results, start by investing wisely in the business generating skills of the professionals in your firm.  Be aware, however, that most sales training offers only a partial solution to the problem. Above all, you need to make a commitment to transform your firm through a planned, systematic skill-building program.

Good Selling,

Dave Rothfeld

But before we do that, it might be worth asking a simple question. Why would anyone ever go out and intentionally derail their chosen career? The answer to that is, I think, very simple. Most people don’t make a conscious effort to derail their best efforts, they simply don’t know which actions tend to be most destructive to their careers. It is a matter of awareness, recognition and action. Given that reality, let’s take a look at the 20 Dumbest Things Salespeople Can Do:

1. They don’t become a student of their craft. Professional selling is a science that when practiced correctly can become an art form. Unfortunately, there are lots of salespeople who are more a student of their product than they are of the science and art of selling it. Do your best to study your profession daily, repetitively and in-depth.

2. They don’t “narrowcast” their activity. Some salespeople try to be all things to all people. The most successful salespeople are able to define their market and become specialists who are known for what it is they do. No one can be the master of everything.

3. They fail to position themselves correctly. The concept of attracting customers is more often a function of attraction rather than consistently having to find customers. This is a function of positioning yourself correctly.

4. They fail to prospect. Perhaps the greatest cause of failure in salespeople is an inconsistent flow of qualified prospects. What causes this? Becoming overly comfortable with existing customers, believing you are in control of your marketplace… the list is endless.

5. They get in front of the wrong people. Simply making sales presentations is not enough. Salespeople need to be in front of the right people at the right time with the right message. It is essential to be in front of qualified prospects as often as you can.

6. They listen to their peers. There is very little question the 80/20 Rule is alive and well in the world of selling that 80 percent of the sales are made by 20 percent of the top salespeople. The problem is salespeople listen to the bottom 80 percent! Problems, difficulties and reasons why things can’t be sold often outnumber the reasons why they can be sold according to 80 percent of the people!

7. They don’t understand the economics of their product. Would you sell something for $1.50 that cost you $2.00? Of course you wouldn’t. Lots of salespeople don’t understand the concept of margin versus volume.

8. They mentally spend income before they earn it. The problem? No sale is ever consummated until the check is deposited and, in some cases, until that check is cleared!

9. They fail to ask the right questions. This is often a function of talking and not listening coupled with a simple lack of knowledge.

10. They are either digitally compulsive or digitally impaired. We live in a world of evolving digitalization of processes and systems. The problem? Lots of salespeople who love computers won’t sell, and those who sell are fearful of computers. The secret? Become balanced.

11. They fail to manage their time well. Manage your time well and you will sell well. Manage your time poorly and you will sell poorly. It is as simple as that. The only inventory you have is time.

12. They are either too timid or too aggressive. Salespeople either allow the prospect to direct them or they are too directive with the prospect. The bottom line is simply this: You need to know when to be bold and when to retreat.

13. They fail to match their product offering to the prospect’s stated needs. This is the greatest flaw salespeople have.

14. They can’t deal with change, or change too much. There is little doubt there are massive amounts of change going on. Resist it and you will lose. By the same token, if you change things just to change them – you’re going to be in just as much of a quandary as someone who refuses to react to change at all.

15. They place themselves into a situation in their personal life that lacked a strong support system. Most successful salespeople have a support system that allows them to invest the vast amounts of time, dedication and effort that professional selling requires.

16. They fail to pre-call plan and organize for calls. There is a direct correlation between pre-call planning and long-term sales success. It is as simple as that.

17. They never learn how to ask questions. Remember earlier I discussed the concept salespeople fail to ask the right questions … this is a corollary to that flaw. Asking questions in the correct order, and in a way that is non-threatening, open-ended and qualitative in nature, is essential to sales success.

18. They don’t understand service is part of sales. Sometimes it is as if salespeople fail to recall the importance of referral and repeat business.

19. They fail to provide value-added solutions. This is the salesperson who believes people buy products and services. Instead, they buy solutions and answers to issues they are trying to have resolved, and the more value they see in that solution, the more they’ll buy.

20. They fail to ask for the order. In the final analysis, asking for the order is why salespeople exist. Perhaps one or two of these show their heads in your day-to-day sales career. If that’s the case, work hard to eliminate them. Perhaps, if you are a sales manager you may want to pass this article on to salespeople and identify some of the areas where they have specific weaknesses. By the same token, if you have a handful of things to tackle here, take them on one at a time. Remember, sales careers are not built – or ruined in one day. They are, instead, built or destroyed on long term, consistent activity.

Good selling,

Dave Rothfeld