While traffic might be down and we aren’t seeing as many people in our sales centers, we are still seeing potential buyers. If someone is shopping in November and December, they are shopping for a reason. If someone calls or shows an interest in your product, they move from a suspect to a prospect immediately. If it is cold and raining outside, but you get a prospect thru the door, this is someone looking to be sold.

Traffic may be down, but the quality of traffic is much better. We must use our selling skills to close these people, because I guarantee, our competition is thinking the same things we were and have become lazy due to these excuses.

The F.R.E.A.K. must come out of us all in the Holiday Season.

Good luck and good selling!!!

I’ve been adding the following:

E-mailing current news articles with pertinent information and a note to remind them of how it applies to our discussions.

Offering free demo (if I haven’t done that already)

Talking with the admin who does answer the phone to find out more about the business needs.

Sometimes I also leave a message saying I’ve tried to contact them and left several messages. Sorry to bother you, won’t bother you any longer. Believe it or not, this actually works sometimes.

Great post! I am feeling it right now too. Thanks for your insight. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Respectfully,

Arnel Tanyag

I fully agree with the “going warmer” above. I found a better talk & close ratio nurtured with these types of contacts. The other thing I did was be in town, hit the Sam’s or Costco and bring treats for my clients and the office folks, no big business push, but I was a little easier to remember than the standard holiday cards, and I did always ask for that one person my client felt I could help.

Here’s the way I see it. If we’re working, prospects are working too. They may be checking Caller ID and hiding behind voicemail but a lot of them are there.

For starters, you may want to press *67 before dialing your prospect to block your calls. Or you may want to break out the cell phone and call from an unrecognized number.

Next, try to reach the highest ranking people at the job. The company can’t function without them and they surely aren’t taking vacation at the same time.

I don’t like to use e-mail in conjunction with calling because a)it’s tough to overcome objections via e-mail, especially if the response is “remove me from your list.” b) filters catch a lot of e-mail so there is no guarantee the prospect is even receiving it. I guess you use a read receipt though. I only use e-mail as a last resort these days.

There’s only a certain amount of dials you can make in a day. I make the max regardless of the time of year. Although the holiday season might be a good time to do other things, like training.

I’m going to suggest a couple of things that have kept me swamped this week (we’ll see what next week brings):

* instead of cold calling – I’m “a little warmer” calling: following through with people who sounded interested in what I do BUT didn’t have anything when I cold called them.

You know the ones who will remember your voice, but not what you do. I wish my US prospects a Happy Thanksgiving and ask about how they wrap up their year end money. (also if you sell internationally – call someone where it ISN’T a holiday next week!)

* another thing is many of my high level prospects are in the throws of budget renegotiation (they submitted their 2010 budgets and have been given them back for revisions) – calling and offering my assistance in either revamping or revising the proposals they used makes for a great call.

what does the voicemail sound like?
“Hey ________, it’s Lynn Hidy from UpYourTeleSales.com most of my customers are telling me they’re swamped because their 1st budget was kicked back for revision – give me a call so we can make the revision process easier. My number is 315-751-0146, again it’s Lynn from UpYourTeleSales.com 315-751-0146″

plus I completely agree on the tag team email approach.

Regards,
Lynn

best
Dave

Thanks! Go Cowboys!

Lisa

Cheers to you.