Leaving The Perfect Voicemail When Prospecting Your Next Big Client

There isn't a day goes by when our team are hit by the dreaded tone... the answering machine. 

Most of the time our customers would put the phone down... ...or leave a garbled message because nerves get the better of them and they start to sweat and stutter!

When you work as part of a telesales team that simply isn't an option. If you quit every time you were faced with the voicemail, you would never secure that next big meeting. 

Next time try this:

 "Hi, my name is X and I was trying to catch you today. I will be available until 5:30 today. My number is 079381 4 8384, thank you!"  

Why not try it? Let us know how quick your returned call rate increases. 

New Business For Financial Advisors

We regularly speak with Financial Advisors who tell us if only they could get in front of people- the RIGHT people more importantly, their company would continue to grow and their sales would flourish. So why does it prove a challenge? To allow someone access to your finances requires one thing- trust. That is where we step in. 

We work with financial advisors to identify who your ideal client is. From business owners who require assistance with tax planning through to people who are approaching retirement and need assistance with pension planning - there is little we haven't worked on. 

Once we establish who your ideal client is, we work with you to tailor a strong group of messages which along with telephone calls we utilise to build up a relationship and establish trust. When the potential client is ready to meet with you, that is when we will arrange for you to sit with them face to face. 

If this is something which could help you, get in touch with us today!  

Lead Generation for Ecologists- How to get results...

If we had a pound for every time an ecologist told us of the struggles in terms of building and maintaining a relationship with clients we wouldn't be sat here writing this blog article! Whether is be town planners that you deal with, councils, home builders or architects, each sector is not without a challenge. 

Here below are the most common things we hear and how we can help you overcome them:

1. We can't get in front of the right person

Often when you need to speak to a decision maker in a council or a large house building firm, the person with the buying power isn't willing to take a call from a name or company they don't recognise or have dealings with. But thats ok. By effective use of a combination of marketing strategies, we have a team of sales staff who have a strong understanding of ecology services and an even better understanding of how to build a relationship with the person who has the power. Ask us today for more information. 

2. People keep moving on

We often find with our ecology clients that they have a list of customers they have dealt with yet none of their direct marketing seems to generate any huge results. Why they ask? Well its simple. From previous projects and experience our team have established that people who work in the industries referenced above move on quite quickly as they want to progress in their career. A new person comes in and its a case of building up the relationship all over again. Through the simple method of courtesy calls, we can assist you in keeping your customer database accurate and retaining strong relationships with your key clients. 

3. We just don't have the time

In busy periods when surveys are underway we understand that your days in the office may be limited. And that is fantastic. But where problems arise is in the quieter periods business may be slow or alternatively you may be out of the loop of new projects coming up. Nurturing relationships is time consuming- we know this as well as anyone. Imagine if you could outsource this to a team to ensure you keep up to date with your existing customers to make sure you are at the forefront of their minds for every project that comes up, you were up to date on projects coming up over the next calendar year and you were able to target more companies you want to deal with- and you are only required when the decision maker wants to discuss their project requirements. Well now you can! 

Get in touch. We have developed a strong niche working with ecologists and are more than confident we can deliver what you need- on time, every time! 

How To Write The Perfect Sales Email

1. Keep Your Sales Email Short & Sweet

Writing a long sales email can be detrimental, causing prospects to delete or ignore it. The key is to write emails that are simple and to the point. If your email requires constant scrolling, there’s a good chance it will end up in the trash.

2. Call To Action

If you’re writing a sales email to a prospect, chances are you are expecting something from them. Ask yourself a few questions while drafting your email – why are you sending this email? What is your expected outcome?

3. Don't Be Afraid To Give Deadlines

If you are expecting a response in regards to a proposal, give a deadline. Of course, do it tastefully. Don’t make it seem like an ultimatum. You want to yield some sense of urgency, while adding some friendly pressure to ensure the process moves forward.

Try something like this:

 “Here’s our proposal based on the details we discussed today. These terms are valid until close of play Thursday. I look forward to hearing from you before then.”

4. Use New Technology

There are many new sales technologies available to make email communication more efficient. Email trackers can help salespeople determine sales email effectiveness as well as learn the habits of potential clients.

Let’s say you sent a proposal to a prospect via email. With an email tracker, you can see whether that email has been opened and the type of activity it might be generating – was it opened several times? Forwarded to co-workers?

5. Email Opens

A great source of information is seeing when emails are most commonly opened which in turn allows you to know the optimum time to send future emails 

21 Ways To Generate Brand Awareness

1. Direct Mail

2. Effective Advertising

3. Referral Systems

4. Host Beneficiary Relationships

5. Word-of-Mouth Marketing

6. Telemarketing

7. Qualified Lists

8. Networking

9. Circle of Leverage

10. Internet/E-Commerce

11. Become a Recognised Authority

12. Public Relations and Publicity

13. Special Events and Promotions

14. Advertorials and News Stories

15. Brochures and Corporate Literature

16. Making profits on the ”Back End”

17. Newsletters

18. Leaflet Drops or Inserts

19. Use Your Competitors Resources

20. Exhibitions and Trade Shows

21. Offers

5 Great Ways To Generate Leads!

Looking for ways that you can create new leads and drive your sales up? Read our list of tips below! 

1. Directly engage with your leads

It seems like common sense but if you don't directly engage with your leads, how can you expect to do business with them! Pick up the phone, invest in life chat and interact with their linkedin posts and profiles. 

2. Outbound and Inbound Marketing

Stats show that outbound marketing is still more effective than inbound marketing. So pick up the phone and make your next sale happen- don't wait for it! 

3. Social Media

There are a variety of ways to find new leads on social media. From directly doing a search on posts for people requesting your services to finding the correct decision maker- there is a wealth of knowledge to be found on social media.

4. Automate Your Marketing

Don't have the time to send your next batch of sales emails or keep forgetting to send out your company news letter. There are many platforms which allow you to automate your marketing. Try it today! 

5. Pick Up The Phone!

It goes without saying that picking up the phone is becoming more of a feared task in businesses. From bad previous experiences through to the fears of rejection, the phone is the less preferred methods which sales staff prefer to adopt. However... Not to be overlooked, a telephone conversation is a great way to build up rapport, a personal relationship and warm up prospects to the point of generating either a face to face meeting or a sale. 

Don't have the capacity or the expertise to do this? Pick up the phone and talk to us! 

Which Social Media Platforms Do You Need?

A question we get asked on a regular basis, primarily from small business owners, is “which social media platforms do I need to be on?” Unfortunately, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to answering this question.

When we’re asked which platforms are best for which businesses, the first thing we need to take into consideration is the target audience of your company – there’s absolutely no point in wasting time, effort and budget where your audience isn’t present and engaged. You’ll be left frustrated, out of pocket and no further forward.

Next, it’s worth looking at the big players in the social media world and asking whether or not you can keep up with your competitors on these platforms. Does your rival have a fantastic Twitter account that you could only hope to replicate? Is their Instagram amazing and something that is totally out of your reach? If so, it’s better to have a presence on less platforms, but to execute these really well, then if and when your capacity increases, so can your social media presence.

Once you’ve established where your audience are and which platforms you can effectively manage, it’s time to work out a social media strategy to help your posting. A plan helps you stay focused.

Before posting, it’s also worth thinking about whether you can undertake the work yourself. Many think that social media management involves throwing up a post every now and again and that’s the end of it. If only! Creative copywriting, graphic production, budget management, monitoring insights, community management and market research just about scrape the surface of managing a social media campaign, and if it’s not done properly, it’s likely you’ll see minimal to no ROI from your efforts.

This is where we come in! 

Ten Top Social Media Tips

Social media marketing is an important aspect of promoting your small business. In order to set up an effective social media marketing strategy, a basic understanding of the relationship between business and social media is needed.

Top 10 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses:

1. Use Social Media to Sell Your Product
2. Join Twitter to Improve Your Customer Relationships
3. Increase Twitter Followers to Increase Your Reach
4. Build Relationships First
5. Optimize Volume of Tweets to Fit Your Needs
6. Optimize Tweet Times to Maximize Impact
7. Join LinkedIn to Establish Your Social Media Presence
8. Create a LinkedIn Company Page
9. Improve Your Facebook Page Engagement
10. Ensure First Point of Contact is Successful

If you would like someone to manage it all, don't hesitate to give us a call! 

Price- Is it a deal breaker?

We met with a customer last week who we have known and worked with for a number of years and have a fantastic relationship. We were discussing price and whether it was always a deal breaker. Their response not only made me smile but also inspired me and I thought it would be something other people would enjoy reading about. 

Our customer (lets call him Bill for illustrative purposes) received a phone call from a client that he had worked with for over five years now to explain they had received a phone call from a competitor who said they would offer the same service but for £100 less per month. Bill did nothing other than say "Stay where you are, il be there in 10 minutes" and hung up. 

Bill drove to his clients office who was slightly shocked he had got in his car and drove all the way to see him all because of the phone call he received. 

Bill said to his customer:

"Ok Mr Customer, you have just called me and told me that to you are considering terminating our services to save yourself £100 after five years of working together. Now Mr Customer, what I would like you to consider carefully is this... 

During our five years of working together, when you have called me at unsociable hours with a problem that perhaps we didn't directly deal with- have I always fixed it. The customer said yes. On a Saturday evening when you can't work out how to get onto your emails (which again isn my remit) and I have been out dining with my wife and family, have I always dropped what I am doing to help you. The customer said yes. "

Bill went on to explain that he respected saving £100 was a lot of money and so on but also expressed that he didn't work for his competitor and essentially in saving £100 per month he would lose him as an account manager and someone he could rely on regardless of the time or the day. 

The customer (starting to turn slightly pink by this point) explained to Bill he didn't know what he was thinking in even considering moving his business elsewhere. They shook hands and Bill got back in his car and continued on with his day. 

I think this illustrates strongly the value of relationships and going the extra mile. Not only has Bill gone the extra mile in the five years of the relationship he has had with his customer, but he also did this by dropping everything and getting in his car when the customer was considering making a saving.

The moral to the story is that if your over deliver and continuously exceed client expectations, you do not need to be the cheapest in the market. 

Closing the sale and getting the order...

Everyday we talk to our clients and contacts and the one thing we hear time and time again is this... The customer seemed interested, our price was competitive and we offer a service which is exactly what we need- yet somehow we didn't manage to get the order. 

Does this sound familiar?

We have been faced with many situations ourselves when sales representatives have came and met with ourselves, listed the endless benefits, gave a competitive price and even reduced the price- however one critical aspect is missing from this and so many are guilty of forgetting. 

Whenever you meet with prospective clients or before you even arrange the meeting you need to do one thing (it will save your time and theirs!). 

QUALIFY!!!

Lets use Hockey Sticks as an example. 

You work for a company and they sell THE BEST hockey sticks on the market. Not only are they the best, every famous hockey player known to man uses this hockey stick and to top it all off - not only are they competitively priced, you can provide me a deal if I buy here and now...

The catch: I don't play Hockey and therefore have no requirement and wont be making a purchase regardless of any of the factors above!

It seems obvious but in actual fact by asking the right questions you would save yourself and your prospective clients a lot of time. 

So the moral of the story is: 

Identify if there is a need- if not, save their time, your time and move onto the next prospect who does have a need for what you do! 

7 Quick Methods to Increase Your Sales

1. Create a referral program. If word of mouth was effective in the past, it’s even more effective now. Create an offer that incentivises your contacts and customers to refer you. The key to the offer is to have a way to tie the new sale to the referrer so you can track the success of this strategy. You can use promotion codes, business cards with a tie-in to your customer, even a verbal confirmation. 

2. Adopt a direct sales/marketing approach. Send a direct message to your customers, community and fans that focuses on solving the pains and frustrations that are holding them back. You may choose to use newsletters, sales email campaigns, a social media campaign, postcards and letters that have a clear call to action and drive your customers to buy.

3. Call people and ask for the sale. Telemarketing is a word that creates anxiety on the part of the seller and dread and avoidance on the part of the prospect. And yet, your prospective customers can’t know that you are making an offering available if you don’t tell them. So pick up the phone and explain how you can help them. People love to help and if selling directly to them doesn’t work for you, at least tell them that you have an offer that will benefit them or someone they know.

4. Target high-volume prospects. Identify companies, associations and large communities that would benefit from your product or service and create an email campaign specifically for them. You can offer a webinar or free audit that helps them put the product to use and inspires them to promote it to others.

5. Create a trigger event. There is nothing that drives sales like a trigger event where your product or service can be put to use. 

6. Offer your product or service as a companion. Look for products or services that are complements to yours and offer it as part of a bundle. Partner with brands and potentially competitors that already have a distribution channel to your target customers and ask them to distribute your goods along with their own.

7. Build a social media following. You can use social media channels to share insider information and data around the benefits of your product or service that builds curiosity in your target audience. Do not directly pitch or sell on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn—this will anger your audience. Instead focus on enrolling existing customers to talk about the value and benefits they’ve experienced. Think of it as a social media referral.

10 Tips to be a more successful sales person

# 1 - Mouth Shut, Ears Open

#2- Sell with questions, no answers

#3- Pretend you are on a first date with your prospect

#4- Speak to your prospect as you would speak to someone you care about. 

#5- If you are asked a question, answer it briefly then move on

#6- Assess the needs of your prospect before you go on to offer your product

#7- Refrain from lecturing your prospect about your product

#8- Ask your prospect about any barriers or doubts they have which will prevent them from moving forward

#9- Invite your prospect to take action

#10- Ask for the Sale!!! 

3 Sales Tips to Increase Your Performance Today!

Number One

You can have the best sales presentation in the world, but if the customer doesn’t believe your proposition, then you don’t have a chance in closing the deal! Take the time to engage with the customer and build up a rapport.

Ask them questions and let them tell you their wants and needs.  Yes, many times they don’t know what their needs are and you’ll have to guide them, but in the end, if they don’t believe or trust what you can offer, you don’t stand a chance!

Number Two

Never go into a sales call not knowing how you’re going to close the sale... Ever!

If you don’t know where you’re going, then how will you get there?  The most common part left out of any presentation is the close.  Plan for it upfront by developing the strategy and your course of action.

This does not mean you’re only going to use one type of closing technique, you may need to use a couple.  On the contrary, it means you’re going to be ready to close using several different techniques based on what the customer tells you.

Number Three

Too many salespeople find themselves spending far too much doing everything else but prospecting.  If you don’t schedule it and hold yourself accountable, you won’t do it. No prospecting = no new business!

3 Tips To Increase Your Ability to Close...

So many of our clients when we talk to them don't actually know who their target market is. Our biggest tip in order to be successful in terms of gaining new clients and generating sales :

• Know "who is your who". You can't be everything to everyone. By targeting a more specific market and becoming an expert in that area, you are more likely to be successful in gaining trust and delivering great results. Great results = repeat business. 
• Follow up, follow up, follow up. Did you know in 2016 it was reported on average you need to follow up on a lead between seven and twelve times to close the deal.
• Ask for the sale- so many people try to generate rapport, nurture the relationship and keep the lead interested. But what amazes us is when people don't dare ask for the sale. Ask the question- you might be pleasantly surprised!