Dust Off Those Sales Resolutions

Sales resolutions, like fitness and diet self-promises, are already starting to lose their grip. Selling professionals have fallen back into the same old rut of not prospecting, not filling pipelines and doing anything to avoid paper work or worse, making a cold call. And when it comes to organization and time management, most good sales people lack the skills.

Don’t despair, the year is young and you can get in touch with your resolutions once again and make this a great sales year.

Here are 8 steps to get your well-intentioned sales resolutions back on track:

Get out of the comfort zone, really! Tackle the tasks you hate without much thought. Pick up the phone, prospect and handle paperwork efficiently and timely.

Quit talking. Quit talking about you. A prospect wants to buy from you if you’ll only let them tell you why and they will, if you just start listening.

Forget the close. If you’ve been selling for anytime at all, you remember the ill-taught closing techniques. Forget them. Closing is a natural part of the sales conversation. Don’t push it.

Take time to research your prospect. Find out what it is that you may be able to help with. Far too many sales reps fall down here. You are not too busy to skip this.

Get in the Game. Many a sales rep rearranges drawers, handles personal errands and does anything but work a sales system. Quit putting it off and get to work.

Enough with the dumb questions. Ban the following questions to prospects: How are you? What’s new? Ban the following statements: I was just calling to check in (substitute touch base). Have a nice day.

Deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. How many of you spend far too much time dueling with gatekeepers while the decision maker remains elusive.

Track, track, track your efforts and results. If you don’t have a CRM or sales planning system like Goldmine or ACT, get one now. You’ll learn a lot about what efforts pay off most and you’ll be more organized than you ever thought.

If your sales are suffering, look in the mirror. Better yet, look at your 2009 selling resolutions and commit to them. You made them for a reason. Remember?

Sales Appointment Setting: A Matter of Geometry?

by Brian Grinonneau


Amazing isn't it, the number of smart business types trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with their approach to sales management. It doesn't fit! It never will. Open up to some new options.

A sharp sales rep wants to sell. That's all. No cold calls. No prospecting. No scheduling meetings. No paperwork. He wants to get in front of the client and perform. (see: close the deal) Problem is: overwrought sales management thinks that you need to push the cocky sales staff to build a skill set that focuses more on the mundane tasks of sales planning. Ridiculous! Delegate the job to someone else.

Before you say it costs too much to bring on new staff to work for the sales reps, you need to really consider the ROI. MaSM studies in late 2007 show that sales productivity can more than double and cash flow is akin to ocean waves when using appointment setters.

A sales appointment setter is an introvert who prefers making a connection by phone and setting the stage for the performer. The sales star is an extrovert focused on the gratification of the sale and the money and bragging rights it brings. Two distinct halves of the sales equation that make for one hell of a result.

Sales appointment setting brings real meaning to the most overused word in business today: synergy. Pair up sales appointment setters and even the most average sales reps and you've got a team that will blow away quotas and projections. ROI will finally mean something.

Doing what you've always done and expecting different results just doesn't work. You know that. It really is the square peg, round hole theory.

Don't Make Sales Reps Schedule Appointments

By, Brian Grinonneau

Having sales pros cold call and prospect is like having a star baseball player stock the concession stand. It’s a lousy use of talent and terrible waste of money. Sales stars shine when selling. Let them sell!

A sales super achiever wants to meet with prospects, determine a fit, suggest solutions and close the deal. It feeds his competitive nature. It assuages the hunger to perform.

A sales super achiever hates making endless calls to find the right prospect with whom to meet. The process dampens the spirit and kills motivation.

Those who think a salesman should be a prospector and sales genius can stop here. The paradigm shifted a few turns back.

In today’s sales world, an account rep must exploit strength--not work on weakness. Forget about a well-rounded rep, focus on a super star that closes the deal and brings home fists full of cash.

Appointment setting, telemarketing companies will set any sales staff on a course for success. Highly qualified sales appointments are scheduled with those who have an interest in your solution and have the ability to buy from you; appointments that are the result painstaking prospecting and hours of dialing.

A December 2007 MaSM study found that appointment setting firms can double the productivity of a sales staff because it can concentrate only on selling and not the mundane associated tasks. When qualified sales appointments are scheduled, closing ratios climb and cash flow improves.

Don’t make sales reps schedule their own sales appointments. They hate doing it and aren’t very good at it. Leave the job to professionals who love doing it and are good at it. Sales stars shine when selling. Let them sell!

The Reality of Telemarketing

Forget what you think telemarketing is and embrace the reality that it is used by the largest companies in the world to introduce new products, gauge customer satisfaction and schedule qualified sales appointments.

Today’s telemarketing is the purest form of direct marketing and direct marketing is the shortest distance between two points for business success. With the overload of messages crashing into consumers, a clear voice that rises above the din must be found. Telemarketing is that voice.

To be sure, there are a few firms that still practice boiler room telemarketing tactics of days gone by. The majority, however, are professional organizations committed to your complete success.

When hiring a telemarketing firm, look for very specific attributes:

• Knowledgeable, well-spoken company representatives

• Expertise in telling your story

• Excellence in building the right list of qualified prospects to call

• No long-term contract

• A non-disclosure, confidentiality agreement

• Clear and understandable campaign reporting

• Open, meaningful communication

• Establishment of goals and measurement tools

• Interaction between your sales and management team and the professional telemarketers

• Pricing that is clear and fair

• The ability to analyze, test and refocus campaigns for your maximum result

If you sell any product or service, and want to put it in the hands of your best prospects, you should use telemarketing professionals. If you have a customer base and want to build loyalty and repeat business you should use telemarketing professionals. The investment will pay for itself many times over and become the centerpiece of your direct marketing strategy.

Sales Appointment Setting: What You Should Expect

A sales appointment setting, telemarketing or telesales firm can bring you more business than you ever thought possible. The best campaigns include a great list of prospects to call, a trained, professional calling staff and strict procedures for following up on leads.

Appointment setters will:

· Make twice as many calls as your average sales rep
· Set an average of (1) qualified appointment per hour
· Disqualify those that will waste your time and effort
· Double the productivity of your sales staff
· Help build a prospect data base
· Provide valuable feedback about your position in the marketplace
· Bring you a strong ROI
· Obtain referrals
· Reduce sales management headaches
· Help you make more money

Appointment setters will not:

· Close the deal--They set the stage and let your pros shine
· Force sales reps to attend scheduled appointments
· Improve a salesperson's presentation skills
· Turn a poor prospect list into a good one
· Provide vast product or service detail--They spark interest

Your success depends on getting in front of the prospect that has the interest and authority to make a buying decision and for that reason you have to learn more about how a professional sales appointment setting firm can help. Those who do make more money quicker than they ever thought possible

Call Centers: Inhouse or Outsource?

If you are running sales appointment setting and lead generation services in-house, you are leaving money on the table. That’s why some of the biggest companies in the world like Microsoft and Wal-Mart outsource some, or all of their call center functions to professional appointment setting firms like ours. We help you make more money.

Call center outsourcing vs. in-house call center activities:

• In-house call centers can’t afford to pay appointment setters enough and performance suffers because of that. We pay our professionals well.


• MaSM talks to the right people at the right time. It isn’t about more calls it’s about meaningful conversations that turn into sales.


• You need qualified sales appointments set for your staff—not an unlimited number but one that allows your reps to present, negotiate and close.


• Appointment setters function much better when working on your project 2-4 hours a day, not 8. It becomes a case of diminishing returns.


• Provides a significant return on investment that is trackable.


• MaSM professionals dial the phone three times more often than most in-house call centers scheduling many more qualified appointments.


• Focuses on disqualifying poor prospects to maximize your closing ratio.


• Allows you to do what you do best: close deals.


• Drives new revenue without having to expand or provide additional office space, computers, telephones or employees.


• Gives you the ability to have trained, skilled and experienced personnel to fulfill your call center needs with the ability to utilize appointment setting; phone sales; lead generation and lead qualifying; list and database scrubbing; database building; surveys; market research; seminar registration and fundraising.

If you have you’re an in-house telemarketing department, we ask that you run a test campaign with MaSM. We are confident that you will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome—you’ll make more money in less time.