Selling For Dummies (UK) E-Book

Ben Kench

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 532

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Get a handle on the most up–to–date selling strategies and techniques that will help you grow your business. 

Are you looking to enter the world of sales, or are you looking for new tips and tactics to expand your business? Selling For Dummies gives you the latest information on how to research your prospects, master the steps of the sales process, follow up with happy customers, and much more. This straight–talking guide helps you develop the sales, communication, and negotiating skills you need to deliver successful presentations, win and retain customers, and get the results you want.

• Discover what selling is - and isn′t!
• Find out how knowing your clients sets you apart from the rest and helps you get to ‘yes’
• Use the seven steps of the selling cycle to score appointments, make a good impression, give winning presentations, address client concerns, close sales and more
• Get valuable tips on how to follow up and build a long-term relationship with clients
• Learn how you can sell well in any economy

Leseprobe

Selling For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichester www.wiley.com

This edition first published 2013

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ISBN 978-1-118-48943-7 (pbk), ISBN 978-1-118-48944-4 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-48953-6 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-48954-3 (ebk)

Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

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Selling For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/sellinguk to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organised

Part I: Laying a Solid Foundation for Selling

Part II: Doing Your Homework before You Sell a Thing

Part III: The Anatomy of a Sale

Part IV: Growing Your Business

Part V: You Can’t Win ’Em All: Keeping the Faith in Sales

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Laying a Solid Foundation for Selling

Chapter 1: Selling Is All Around You

Understanding What Selling Is

Identifying Key Selling Methods

Going face-to-face

Ringing around with telemarketing

Sending email

Selling online

Using direct mail

Appreciating What Selling Skills Can Do for You

Chapter 2: Working Through the Seven-Step Selling Cycle

Step1: Prospecting Effectively

Step 2: Qualifying Your Prospect and Making Appointments

Step 3: Building Relationships

Step 4: Delivering Your Sales Presentation

Step 5: Handling Objections

Step 6: Winning the Business

Step 7: Getting Referrals

Chapter 3: Selling and Your Mindset for Success

Making Sure You Get Job Satisfaction

Thinking of Your Job as a Hobby

Attitude makes a difference

Passion supplies meaning

Becoming a Lifelong Student of Selling

Making time to learn about selling

Working in bite-sized chunks

Knowing that it’s okay to get it wrong sometimes

Moving out of your comfort zone

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day: Understanding Your Development Process

Unconscious incompetence

Conscious incompetence

Conscious competence

Unconscious competence

Knowing How to Sell What Your Customers Want to Own

Part II : Doing Your Homework before You Sell a Thing

Chapter 4: Understanding Your Potential Clients

Understanding Why Research Is Important

Getting to Know Your Clients Inside and Out

Working with Different Types of Buyer

Buyer 1: The Halfway-there-already Buyer

Buyer 2: The Deal-maker

Buyer 3: The Cool, Clinical Cat

Buyer 4: The Scarlet Pimpernel

Buyer 5: The Moaner

Buyer 6: The Bully

Buyer 7: The Drifter

Being Aware of Unique Cultural Needs

Arranging meetings

Dressing appropriately

Meeting and greeting new people

Presenting your business card

Respecting personal space

Making presentations

Giving gifts

Dining out with ease

Responding to Your Clients’ Fears

Fear of being sold to

Fear of making the wrong choice

Fear of being in debt

Fear of being lied to

Fear of embarrassment

Fear of the unknown

Fear of repeating past mistakes

Fear generated by others

Choosing Your Words Wisely

Knowing which words and phrases work best

Using only the language your clients understand

Developing your picture-painting vocabulary

Becoming a Better Listener

Chapter 5: Knowing Your Product

Knowing What You Need to Know about Your Product

Attending training sessions and reading product literature

Talking with current clients

Picking your colleagues’ brains

Going directly to the source

Keeping an eye on the competition

Chapter 6: Making Technology Your Friend

Readjusting Your Perceptions about Technology

Setting aside your fears

Understanding the benefits of technology

Using Technology to Make Your Life Less Complicated (Not More)

Embracing mobile technology

Being available, always

Making travel plans

Using slides in your presentations

Using CRM software

Part III: The Anatomy of a Sale

Chapter 7: Finding the People Who Want What You Sell

Knowing Where to Start Looking for Prospects

Starting with a few prospecting basics

Taking your search online

Taking advantage of lists generated by your company

Finding the Right People: Proven Prospecting Strategies

Going to the people you already know

Tapping your business contacts

Talking to salespeople you currently buy from

Staying alert as a consumer

Remembering that nothing is permanent

Using your customer list, past and present

Capitalising on the ‘new model’ mindset

Reading the news

Knowing your service and support people

Talking to anybody

Chapter 8: Arranging Appointments That Stick

Getting the Basics Right

Reaching Your Prospects by Telephone First

Step 1: The greeting

Step 2: The introduction

Step 3: The thankyou and time check

Step 4: The purpose and person verification

Step 5: The actual appointment

Step 6: The over-the-phone thankyou

Step 7: The confirmation letter

Putting Mail, Email and Face-to-Face Interactions to Work for You

Sending mail

Using email

Interacting face-to-face

Getting to the Elusive Decision-Maker

Getting past the receptionist

Using creativity to get you in

Chapter 9: Building Relationships and Gathering Information to Ensure Success

Making a Good First Impression at Your Meeting

Dressing for success

Paying attention to your body language

Getting your potential clients to like and trust you

Establishing Rapport with Your Potential Clients

Keeping the conversation light

Acknowledging your prospect’s pride

Avoiding controversy

Keeping pace with your prospect

Touching on emotive subjects

Telling stories

Sharing secrets

Understanding that the sale isn’t all about you

Fact-finding: Asking the Right Questions

Asking tie-down questions

Using the alternate of choice question style

Trying the involvement question style

Knowing How to Approach Prospects in a Retail Setting

Making the right approach

Reading the signals your customers project

Chapter 10: Making Winning Presentations

Getting More Than a Foot in the Door

Finding the power players

Being quick or being sorry

Breaking well, and prospering

Knowing How to Present More Effectively

Making adjustments according to the prospect’s perspective

Presenting at the prospect’s pace

Being confident that your prospect will buy from you

Recognising and understanding body language

Not letting distance phase you

Letting the Product Be the Star

Getting out of the picture

Staying in control

Mastering the Art of Visuals

Using the visuals your company supplies

Developing your own visual aids

Demonstrating Products to Your Prospective Clients

Presenting Intangible Goods

Avoiding Nightmare Presentations

Finding the power sockets and knowing you can reach them

Being sure your visual aids are in order

Testing everything ahead of time

Personalising as much as you can

Bringing a protective pad

Chapter 11: Handling Client Objections

Understanding What Clients Are Really Saying

Addressing Your Prospects’ Concerns with Some Simple Strategies

Bypassing your prospects’ concerns completely

Helping your prospects see that they’re trading up

Raising the objection before they do

Knowing the Do’s and Don’ts of Objection Handling

Do acknowledge the legitimacy of the concern

Do get the clients to answer their own concerns

Don’t argue with your client

Don’t minimise a concern

Handling Objections in Six Easy Steps

Step 1: Hear them out

Step 2: Feed it back

Step 3: Question it

Step 4: Answer it

Step 5: Confirm your answer

Step 6: By the way . . .

Chapter 12: Winning the Business and Closing the Sale

Knowing When to Ask for the Order

Recognising That Sometimes All You Need to Do Is Ask

Taking your client’s buying temperature with basic questions

Asking assumptive questions

Giving your prospect alternatives

Jumping to an erroneous conclusion

Feeding back with the porcupine method

Overcoming Your Prospect’s Hesitations and Fears

Getting past ‘I want to think about it’ to a concrete final objection

Responding to ‘It costs too much’

Reducing an expense to the ridiculous

Making the indirect comparison

Citing a similar situation

Noting a competitive edge

Chapter 13: Getting Referrals from Your Present Clients

Understanding Where, How and When Referrals Arise

Figuring out where to get referrals

Knowing how and when to get referrals

Getting Referrals in Five Powerful Steps

Step 1: Help your client remember why he bought from you

Step 2: Help your client think of specific people he knows

Step 3: Make a note of the referrals’ names

Step 4: Ask qualifying questions and get contact information

Step 5: Ask your client to call the referral and set up the meeting

Setting Up Meetings with Referrals

Aiming to Get Referrals Even When the Going Gets Tough

Part IV : Growing Your Business

Chapter 14: Following Up and Keeping in Touch

Knowing When (And with Whom) to Follow Up

Paying Attention to What Your Clients Want from Follow-Ups

Recognising How to Follow Up

In person

Phone

Direct mail

Email

Mobile messaging

Remembering the Importance of Thankyou Notes and Gifts

Knowing when you can send a thankyou note

Going beyond notes with thankyou gifts

Maximising Results from Your Follow-Ups

Imposing order

Avoiding becoming a nuisance

Keeping track of your successes

Sticking with the follow-up programme

Chapter 15: Managing Your Time Efficiently

Investing Your Time Rather Than Spending It

Avoiding ‘Fluffy Time’ by Planning Thoroughly

Urgent activities

Important activities

Secondary activities

Emergencies

Accounting for Your Time

Investigating your past

Analysing your today

Discovering your tomorrow

Organising Your Workspace

Keep only immediate activities on your desk

Be proactive with your time

Handle phone calls wisely

Avoiding the Most Common Time Traps

Desperately seeking what shouldn’t be lost

Failing to do the job right the first time

Procrastinating

Making unnecessarily long phone calls

Holding unnecessary or unnecessarily long meetings

Attending lengthy client lunches

Engaging in negative thinking

Not using driving time wisely

Neglecting to confirm appointments

Watching television mindlessly

Handling Physical Interruptions

Chapter 16: Partnering Your Way to Success

Knowing What You Want Before You Partner with Anyone

Arranging Joint Ventures

Knowing where you’re aiming

Determining who has what you need

Profiting from cross-promotion

Benefiting from Affiliate Programmes

Part V: You Can’t Win ’Em All: Keeping the Faith in Sales

Chapter 17: Staying Focused and Positive

Finding Out What Motivates You

Money

Security

Achievement

Recognition

Acceptance from others

Self-acceptance

Knowing What De-motivates You

Loss of security

Self-doubt

Home life issues

Fear of failure

Change

Surveying Strategies for Overcoming Failure

Doing the Opposite of What Average Salespeople Do

Mixing Your Personal Life with Your Professional Life

Chapter 18: Setting Goals to Stay Focused

Setting Realistic and Effective Goals

Breaking Down Your Goals into Smaller Steps

Long-term goals

Medium-term goals

Short-term goals

Looking at Particular Types of Goals

Sales-specific goals

Personal goals

Fulfilling Your Goals

Putting the goal down on paper

Committing completely

Figuring Out What to Do When You Achieve Your Goals

Chapter 19: Selling in a Challenging Economy

Understanding the Economic Cycle

Spotting Thriving Economies

Smoothing Out the Dip with Technology

Keeping Your Clients Loyal

Finding the Upsides to Downturns

Staying Poised for Economic Recovery

Part VI : The Part of Tens

Chapter 20: The Ten Biggest Sales Mistakes to Avoid

Misunderstanding Selling

Thinking You’re a Sales Natural

Talking Too Much and Not Listening Enough

Using Words That Kill Sales

Not Knowing When to Close the Sale

Not Knowing How to Close the Sale

Being Insincere

Failing to Pay Attention to Details

Letting Yourself Slump

Neglecting to Keep in Touch

Chapter 21: Ten Strategies for Improving Your Selling

Prepare Yourself

Be Disciplined

Rehearse, Perform and Critique Your New Skills

Make a Good First Impression

Quickly Determine Whether You Can Help Your Client

Give Every Presentation 110 Per Cent

Address Concerns Completely

Confirm Everything

Ask for the Decision

Tell Your Clients about Others

Make a Commitment to Lifelong Learning

About the Authors

Cheat Sheet

Introduction

Welcome to Selling For Dummies. Although this book is about selling products and services to businesses and consumers, it goes beyond that knowledge. This book is really about people skills. After all, knowing how to get along well with others is vital, especially if your career involves persuading them toward ownership of your ideas, concepts, products, or services. In this way, selling is a life skill that you use in many situations, both at home and at work. Life is a sales game and you fare better when more people see things your way!

To be successful in sales, you must be able to co-operate, have good listening skills and be willing to put others’ needs before your own. With the selling skills that we cover here in your arsenal, you’ll have more happiness and satisfaction in all areas of your life, not just in your selling career (although your selling will certainly benefit too).

About This Book

Selling For Dummies,can help you get more happiness and contentment out of your life right now by helping you gain more respect, more money, more recognition for the job you do, more agreement from your friends and family, more control in negotiations and, of course, more sales. Above all, this book is a reference tool, so you don’t have to read it from beginning to end. Instead, you can turn to any part of the book that gives you the information you need, when you need it. And you can keep coming back to the book over and over again throughout your selling career.

As the original dummies in sales, we’re the perfect people to write this book.

Ben started his career selling double-glazing. He remembers vividly his mother’s reaction to his new job: ‘Oh well, that’ll do until you get a proper job.’ But somehow, he never got the proper job. At the time, double-glazing sales, for many, epitomised the lower end of the selling spectrum – national television at the time spent most Sunday evenings exposing ‘cowboy’ selling tactics. However, the job served Ben well. He started in January with no money, no proper overcoat and a battered, barely legal Hillman Avenger car that had no heater. The experience was tough, but it served as excellent leverage. Ben wanted money, so he had to make the job work!

Ben listened and copied and learned and developed. He was constantly hungry for a new idea or pitch style, and when he added in his cheeky personality, he soon started winning – big. But he has never forgotten the lessons he learned at the start of his career. Today, Ben is recognised as the UK’s number one sales and business growth specialist, and, within his successful business coaching and sales training entities, he still applies himself to constant learning. He’s delighted to be able to share all the knowledge gained through his experience and hard work, so that you can enjoy, as he has, a life dedicated to sales . . . ‘not a proper job’!

Tom started his selling career in property at the age of 19. Property may have been a great career choice, but at the time he owned neither a suit nor a car. All he had was a band uniform and a motorcycle. And selling properties on a motorcycle wasn’t easy; rather than loading up the prospective buyers in his car, he had to tell them to follow him to the properties and hope they didn’t get lost along the way. When they finally came to their senses and realised that this kid couldn’t possibly be for real, they’d keep going straight when he’d make a turn. (To make things even worse, wearing a woollen band uniform in Southern California’s summer heat didn’t allow him to present the coolest image, either.)

But he stuck it out, because he knew there was big money to be made in the selling business – if he could just find out what the successful people were doing that he wasn’t. He learned the hard way, through trial and error. Early in his career, a professional, experienced salesperson told Tom that he had to learn how to close, meaning ‘to close the sale’. Tom responded, ‘I don’t have many clothes.’ See why he only averaged $42 a month in his first six months of selling property?

Needless to say, Tom has come a long way since then, and it thrills him no end to give you the chance to benefit from the mistakes he made, as well as from the subsequent success he’s had. Yes, he’s had successes. He achieved his goal of becoming a millionaire by the age of 30, beating his own deadline by nearly three years! At age 27, he was one of the most successful estate agents in the United States – a guy who started without a decent suit or a vehicle with four wheels!

Just goes to show you that it doesn’t matter how much of a dummy you are on this subject when you start. With this book by your side, serving as a reference for all the selling situations you encounter, you’ll master the selling, persuasion and people skills you need to really shine.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you navigate this book, we include the following conventions:

Boldface highlights key words in bulleted lists and action steps that you should follow in a specific order.

New terms and words we choose to emphasise are in italics.

Web addresses appear in monofont.

When this book was printed, some of the web addresses we reference may have needed to break across two lines of text. If that happened, rest assured that we haven’t put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. So, when using one of these web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, pretending the line break doesn’t exist.

We also use some terms interchangeably in this book. For example, the people you look for to present your offering to may be called prospects in one area. In other areas, we refer to them as potential clients, which we believe creates a more positive, powerful mental image about who they are.

What You’re Not to Read

If you’re reading this book just to get a better understanding of the more serious bits of how to sell your product or service, skip past content preceded by the Anecdote icon. These are stories from our pasts or experiences of our students that demonstrate a point but may not be necessary to your understanding of the topic at hand. The same goes for sidebars, which are the grey-shaded boxes sprinkled throughout this book.

Foolish Assumptions

When writing this book, we assumed that its readers would either already be in sales careers or considering going into sales. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling corporate jets or chocolates, the basic selling strategies apply simply because you’re selling to people.

We also assumed that you like people in general and that you enjoy working with them: you’re not a hermit or a recluse, you don’t have an extreme case of anthropophobia (a fear of people) and you aren’t painfully shy.

Another assumption is that you’re interested in learning and willing to experiment and apply the strategies in this book. If you’re not serious about at least trying something new to get different results from those you’re getting now, you might as well give this book to someone else. This book contains answers, strategies and tactics for successfully selling products and services, but they won’t work until you put them to work.

How This Book Is Organised

Selling For Dummies is organised into six parts, and the parts are divided into chapters. In the following sections, we give you a quick preview of what to expect from each part so you can turn to the part that interests you most.

Part I: Laying a Solid Foundation for Selling

In this part, you find out a little about what selling is and what it isn’t. We share ideas on what selling skills can do for you in all areas of your life, and give you a quick tour through the seven steps of the selling cycle. We also let you know how important your attitude is to the art of selling – encouraging you to have fun and get all the satisfaction and success out of selling that you get out of the things you do for fun.

Part II: Doing Your Homework before You Sell a Thing

Just as with virtually any pursuit in life, preparation is the key to success in the world of selling. In this part, we cover the steps to preparation – everything from knowing your clients to knowing your products – that will set you apart from average persuaders and help you hear more yeses in your life. We talk about the importance of understanding the cultural needs of your clients, and how to use this understanding to your advantage in the preparation stage of the game as well as in making your selling life more successful. We also cover many ways technology can make your life less complicated as you navigate the sometimes challenging course of business.

Part III: The Anatomy of a Sale

In this part, we give each of the seven steps of the selling cycle its very own chapter. We pack in lots of useful information – including some suggestions for wording and nonverbal communication tips – in each stage of the process. You’ll discover how to find the people you can sell to, how to get an appointment with those people and make a good impression, how to build better relationships that increase the likelihood of sales, how to give fantastic presentations, how to address customer concerns, how to close the sale and how to get referrals . . . so you can start the process all over again.

Part IV: Growing Your Business

This part is where you begin to separate yourself from average salespeople to become one of the greats. Average salespeople make their presentations, win a few, lose a few and move on. But the great ones view every presentation as an opportunity to build a long-term business. So in this part, we give you tips for staying in touch with your clients, making more sales through the help of the Internet and managing your time wisely so that you always have time for your clients as your business grows.

Great salespeople build not only businesses but also relationships, because relationships take them further and bring them a lot more satisfaction in the long run. We also cover strategies and tactics for partnering with other non-competing business professionals to tap into their clientèle who just might have a need for your services as well.

Part V: You Can’t Win ’Em All: Keeping the Faith in Sales

Rejection is a part of life. So you need to expect it, accept it and get over it. The fact that a prospect rejects your product or service doesn’t mean that he’s rejected you as a person. But when you’re in the world of selling, where rejection is just part of the territory, your self-esteem can easily suffer. So in this part, we help you imitate a duck by letting things run off your back like water. We show you how to think like a pro – not an average salesperson – and how to work through challenging times without losing faith. We also help you understand how best to use your time and keep focused on the big-picture goals so the little negativities of life don’t bring you down. Remember: With every no, you’re that much closer to a yes.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

The short chapters in this part are packed with quick ideas about selling and persuading that you can read any time you have a few minutes. They’re a great way to get yourself psyched for a presentation or for making calls. And they’re good for pumping up your attitude and invigorating you for each day. Remember: No one will ever want what you have, if you’re not excited about it.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are those little pictures you see in the margins throughout this book, and they’re meant to draw your attention to key points that are of help to you along the way. Here’s a list of the icons we use and what they signify.

When you see this icon, you can bet that stories from our years of experience in selling and from our students’ experiences are nearby. And, oh, what stories we have to share. . . .

This icon highlights advice to follow to go beyond the basics and become a true champion at selling. When you see this icon, you’ll find examples of exchanges between you and your prospective client so you can see exactly how a conversation can develop if you know just what to say.

Instead of being the typical warning that red flags usually indicate, this icon highlights the crucial pieces of information and skills you need for selling anything. When you see this flag in the margin, take notice. Great selling tips are at hand.

Some things are so important that they bear a little extra attention. So this icon – like a string tied around your finger – is a friendly reminder of information you’ll want to commit to memory and use over the long haul.

When you see this icon in the margin, the paragraph next to it contains valuable information on making the sales process easier or faster – anything from prospecting to closing and beyond.

This icon highlights things you want to avoid and common mistakes salespeople make. An important part of achieving success is simply eliminating the mistakes. And the information marked by this icon helps you do just that.

Where to Go from Here

Glance through the Table of Contents and find the part, chapter or section that flips your switch. That’s the best place to begin.

To benefit the most from the material in this book, do a little self-analysis to see where you’re the weakest. We know admitting your faults is tough, even to yourself. But reading the material that covers your weaker areas will bring you the greatest amount of success.

Studies have shown that most traditional salespeople are not highly skilled at relationship building. They visit a lot of people and try hard but just never quite get enough connection and interest to wrestle the sale from another competitor, or never quite make the sale happen for them when they’d like. If you’re in traditional sales and you aren’t sure whether relationship building is your weakness, Chapter 9 may be a great place to start.

The most successful people in life are those who continue to grow. The fact that you’re reading these words now puts you into that realm – because it isn’t how much you know that counts, but how much you can discover after you ‘know it all’. Congratulations for believing in yourself, in your ability to change for the better, in your ability to improve your lifestyle and in your ability to improve the lives of the people you help with this book’s many tips on the art of selling. We wish you greatness!

Part I

Laying a Solid Foundation for Selling

In this part...

Here you discover the components of the selling cycle and how you can use the process to generate greater success for yourself. We also look at the importance of attitude in your sales role. Whether you’re a new starter or an old hand, this section offers excellent, simple suggestions and key reminders to keep you upbeat and focused for success.

Chapter 2

Working Through the Seven-Step Selling Cycle

In This Chapter

Finding the people to sell to

Making a positive first impression

Determining who’s a true potential client

Understanding the benefit of benefits

Expecting concerns

Closing the sale: the only step that pays!

We like to think of selling as a cycle because, if it’s done properly, the last step in the cycle leads you back to the first. Your new, happy client gives you the names of other people she feels would benefit from your product or service, and then you have your next lead or prospect to work with.

Selling breaks down neatly into seven steps that almost everyone can remember. But don’t worry, you can always refer back to this chapter if you don’t memorise them immediately.

The seven steps we cover in this chapter are an overview of what you’ll find available in greater detail in Part III. Each step is equally valuable to you. Rarely can you skip a step and still make the sale. Each step plays a critical role and leads you to the next step in a natural, flowing manner.

The cycle sets out with finding prospects (people who you target at the outset of the selling cycle who haven’t yet purchased from you, but who might do so) to turn into customers (people who spend money to buy goods or services) and clients (usually people who represent a professional organisation or business), with the ultimate aim of converting them to advocates (people who sing and dance about your product to others and hopefully bring in even more sales for you).

Step1: Prospecting Effectively

Prospecting means finding the right potential buyer for what you’re selling. When planning where’s best to sell your product or service, ask yourself, ‘Who would benefit most from this?’ For example:

If the end user is a larger corporation, you need to establish exactly who’s involved in the buying process. Typically, you have a purchasing director and then a layer or two of managers involved. You need to make contact with all if you’re to be successful.

If your end user is a family with school-aged children, you need to go where families are for example, football clubs and school events such as summer fêtes or Christmas bazaars. Or you can simply connect through strategic alliance partnerships with others who serve a similar audience. (More on that in Chapter 16.)

To make an informed decision about which prospects to approach, you need to find out some information about the people or companies you’ve chosen as possibilities. Do some research about any prospective client company at the local library or online. This legwork is a sort of prequalification step in prospecting. You’ll do even more qualification when you meet a prospective client – but why waste time on an appointment with a company or person who wouldn’t have a need for your offering?

Pre-qualifying is your own personal market research. In fact, one of the best places to begin your research if you work for a larger company is your company’s marketing department. The marketing department may well have done research during the product development stage to determine what people want in the product or service you sell. Study their results, and you’ll get a handle on where to begin.

If your company engages in advertising to promote your products, you’ll likely receive leads – names of people who called or otherwise contacted the company for more information about the product. Treat any client-generated contact like gold. What better person to contact than one who’s called you for information first!

In truth, potential is all around you and you need to always have your radar on alert and your ears and eyes open.

A word of advice here that applies to all selling situations: never begin any selling cycle until you’ve taken a few moments to put yourself in the shoes of the other person. Take yourself out of the picture and look at the entire situation through the eyes of the buyer. Mentally put yourself in her shoes and think about what would motivate you to invest your valuable time in reading a letter about your product or taking a salesperson’s call. If you can’t come up with solid answers, you may not have enough information about your product to even be selling it in the first place. Or you may not know enough about your potential audience to sell to them. If that’s the case, it’s back to the books for you. Study more about both areas until you’re comfortable with being in that person’s shoes. In other words, don’t start prospecting until you have something of value to share with your prospects – something you’re confident is worth their while to investigate and, hopefully, purchase.

If you ever face challenges getting through to potential clients, you may want to take a slightly different approach to get their attention or bring about a positive response. Some ideas our students have used include:

Enclosing a professional photograph of you smiling: If you’re selling into the domestic home environment, then naturally people are more cautious. Being open and honest enough to publicise your photo carries a lot of weight and will definitely increase your success rate. Showing that you’re a real person dramatically improves connection.

Enclosing a newspaper or media article about the situation your potential customers find themselves in without your product or service: If you source an article about something going wrong that your product or service solves, potential customers notice and remember when you follow up with a telephone call.

Adding a clever quote or anecdote to the bottom of your covering letter: You can find books that have quotes for nearly any occasion, or simply surf the Web and tap into an on-going supply. Indeed, you can even download an application on your smart phone that provides regularly updated, inspirational and humorous quotes, so you’re never without something quirky to add to your approach letter.

Sending a lottery ticket with the mail piece: Use a cheeky headline question like ‘Is this the best plan for your brighter future?’ or ‘If this doesn’t work, what’s your plan B?’ and stimulate the idea that maybe the customer could look at other ways to secure her future. Whatever happens, the customer will remember you as different and speak with you when you call.

Sending a small toy to the target prospect: It’s entirely possible that your prospect has a hobby or pastime in which she’s heavily involved. Discovering this and then sending something that resonates with the pastime is a brilliant door opener. For example, Ben once discovered that a prospect in a major target company was keen on vintage cars and so he sent a toy car along with a note saying, ‘Here’s a new jaguar to add to your collection!’ His prospect saw the funny side, and when Ben dropped in, he remembered him and welcomed him in for a chat.

These ideas might, at first glance, appear a bit gimmicky, and you must adapt to suit your own style, but always remember that being noticed is half the battle won. The idea is to open your creative mind to unusual ways of reaching people and capturing their attention.

Step 2: Qualifying Your Prospect and Making Appointments

If prospecting is where you identify those who might be qualified to purchase your offering, then the next stage is to qualify the prospect. Then you make an appointment with the prospect so that you can proceed with your selling mission.