Archives for September 2015

Body language speaks louder than the words you utter and your beliefs affect your body language. If you want to be more persuasive, project a stronger image. If you want to project a stronger image you he to have a strong belief in yourself and what you are saying. Any self-limiting beliefs you have will detract from your belief in yourself and what you are trying to get the prospect to believe. So in order to be a more effective at persuading, you need to understand your hidden self-limiting beliefs and work to overcome them. in that way the prospect will get a stronger “pre-sense” of who they are dealing with.

Have you ever had a technical person take over a sales call? Talk at inopportune times? Say the wrong thing? Tell the prospect he didn’t know what he was talking about? Derail a sales call for you? Interrupt the close? If you haven’t you are in a very small minority. The problem does not lie with the technical person it lies with the sales person. After all, the technical person can’t be expected to know how to sell just as you can’t be expected to know all the technical details. Furthermore, they don’t know where you are in the sales process, what the goal of the sales call is, what the prospect needs to hear technically, what they don’t need to hear technically, what outcome you are expecting … unless you tell them! You should tell them all of this before the call and most importantly you need to tell them when to talk and when not to talk. Take control of the sales call and you will never be surprised by the techie or have your sales call derailed by her.

Ask the prospect when you should follow up. Most follow up is a waste of time. However, even when it is warranted, it can be neve wracking trying to decide how soon to follow up or how often without seeming like a pest. To alleviate this problem just ask the prospect when you should follow up and for good measure ask what will happen when you do. And if you are really on the ball you might say something like “You know George, even if you are not ready to move to the next step on Tuesday when I call, could you be sure to answer my call or get back to me and let me know the length of the delay so that I don’t keep pestering you”. Doing this will make you seem more professional and will save you lots of time and be much easier on your nerves.