SalesHQ

You lie and tell them who you really aren't.  Kind of like when you are trying to get to someone when you work in payables and receivables. lol But seriously, you must do your homework before you call and don't expect to get thru the first time.  You must always keep your enemies close, such as the gatekeeper.  Keep him or her interested and that eventually will get the door opened. 

LIE to the gatekeeper?? Great way to start off your relationship with a potential customer. Lying has no place in professional selling. 

I am going to guess the reason that you are calling the suspect in the first place is because you think your offering will help the suspect's company aka your target market. And I am sure you feel your offering is a fit because you have existing clients that are in the suspect's industry. For example, let's say you have an existing client in the pharmaceutical industry, let's pretend the name of the company is AZ Pharmaceutical. Now when you call for the DM at the suspect company and the gate keeper asks the inevitable question, "What's this in reference too?" or "What's this in regards too?" You tell them the truth, "Its in regards to AZ Pharmaceutical...s/he'll know." So now what happens is the gatekeeper puts you on hold and rings the extension of the DM and says, "CTexecathome is on the the phone for you its in regards to AZ Pharmaceutical, (now the DM recognizes the name of AZ Pharmaceutical but not your name) so the DM asks, "What about AZ Pharmaceutical?" The gate keeper replies, "She said you would know" BANG the phone call goes through to the DM and the first thing out of your mouth is, "DM? The purpose of my call is I currently work with/provide services too/just completed a project for AZ Pharmaceutical, and our services were able too... buzz buzz buzz, I know they are in a similar industry as you so I thought my service might be able to do the same for you." Yada yada yada.

I hope this rather lengthy answer is of help to you. Good luck!!

Max

I've posted this before, did it for a couple of clients, works all the time, feel free to use it if you wish

The target was 400 chefs at major restaurants. The product was super thick cooking cream. The client originally wanted an incentive sales campaign for their jobber distribution unit (would never work).

The chef is a hard target to reach, ..salesmen get thrown out of the kitchen. So I bought 400 eel skin wallets, printed some dollars that bestowed the features and benefit, put a 5$ phone card that when pilled out activated a voice chip “your getting a free liter of cream” and wrapped in a plain brown wrapper.

What made it work is that I had a team hand write “Cher Antione found your wallet at the café”. Yes it was hand delivered directly to the chef. /by passed the front desk /went straight to the kitchen. Gave them the wallet and free liter of cream and their jobbers business card to order more

Long of the short of it is I sold more cooking cream in three weeks using students to deliver than the client sold in 1 ½ years.

I watch all my sales promo deploy like a scientist studying behavior. What was cool here is when the chef was receiving the packaged wallet he would tap his pocket and even though he felt his wallet he showed immense appreciation for finding his wallet. Weird eh!!!

Good point. WE ARE NOT SHEEP!

Rich unfortunately I don't have back end slippage numbers for you. I gotta trashed by the major chains. Me and four other guys (my competion) used to collaborate....we controlled 80% of the packaged goods dealer loaders. The chains sent leeters to all the clients and their independant stores banning load ins. They delisted my peanut guy as the sacraficial lamb. I switched to soft loaders and finished /was discovered so I went to work for their bannier mutiple. Three successful contracts later head office discovered me and immediately fired me, ...paid me in full, ...fastest money for least effort I have ever seen

Here's what I do know:::::

The package end cost was 44$ + 10$-17$ delivery + 1 liter of cream

400 targets, 252 confirmed trials, 180 re-directs to jobber, 75 orders for five liters first three weeks

To maintain continuity we shifted to award winning recipes and other contests for "Super Chefs"

What we learned about the chefs reaction /ego to contest prizes taught us more and we launched "Client Gift catalogues" where the chef could use points to purchase gifts for their clients. Works like a dealer loader. Eventually banned by the major chain

Cost of the complete marketing plan was recouped in the first three weeks

I have since used this three times with very similar results

Skype me if you want to know more. My stage name is tingchungfu

Hey SaleHQ teammates.  Thought I would turn to you guys for some help. I need to start a new list for a new client and need to purchase some names.  The cheapest way for me to do this is add some referrals to Jigsaw. Here is the referral link.



http://www.jigsaw.com/join/jigsawleads



If you have not used Jigsaw they provide access to a multitude of contacts with mail addresses, direct lines, and emails.  You can purchase the names for money or they provide a barter style way to gain access. Meaning you add names then you can get points. You then use the points to purchase names.  If the name is bad for any reason you can report that and get your points back.



I need 10 new referrals to be able to purchase the list I need.



Thanks - Shari

 

Do your homework!!! know your industry and place yourself in the prospects shoes. Try to visualize what the prime situation would be for you to take a sales call. A lot of smaller companies will have their CEO or CFO whatever the title may be answer the phones at lunch time or afterhours the phone lines will automaticaly transfer to their line. Contractors for instance are best reached early in the morning when they are getting their team set up or early evening when they are packing up equipment and sending people home. Just an example. With Larger companies get creative and always respect the first person that answers the phone. I will sometimes punch in random extensions and say :oops wrong extension what was ________ 's extension again? Ill swim through a sea of auto attendants etc. Make sure that the person you are trying to reach is the best first point of contact. Sometimes CFO's make final decisions but the gk will never let you through. Ask for the controller or accounts payables which are very common departments that are asked for. Plead your case to them and you might get lucky. Sometimes Ill call and just seem confused and ask for help.

 When I must  go through an assistant I have a different view other than a gate keeper or flunkie. They control for the most part the keys to the mint. Treat them that way.

Always treat the gatekeeper with respect.

I have a small story of a jobseeker going to his interview. He meets with the gatekeeper and says that he is here for the 10:00 interview. It willbe shortly. This jobseeker being arrogant, says no he wants to meet now. Unknown to the jobseeker, the gatekeeper is actually the interviewer. The gatekeeper had to step away for a moment. The result was that the jobseeker was told that his interview had been cancelled.

You never know who you are going to be talking too and who will have good influence on getting you in the door.

Flowers~~~~~That sounds like a winner to me.  I'd be in a better mood and more congenial on a day I received flowers.  Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah.... Chocolate works well too.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sell4U says ...

Rich unfortunately I don't have back end slippage numbers for you. I gotta trashed by the major chains. Me and four other guys (my competion) used to collaborate....we controlled 80% of the packaged goods dealer loaders. The chains sent leeters to all the clients and their independant stores banning load ins. They delisted my peanut guy as the sacraficial lamb. I switched to soft loaders and finished /was discovered so I went to work for their bannier mutiple. Three successful contracts later head office discovered me and immediately fired me, ...paid me in full, ...fastest money for least effort I have ever seen

Here's what I do know:::::

The package end cost was 44$ + 10$-17$ delivery + 1 liter of cream

400 targets, 252 confirmed trials, 180 re-directs to jobber, 75 orders for five liters first three weeks

To maintain continuity we shifted to award winning recipes and other contests for "Super Chefs"

What we learned about the chefs reaction /ego to contest prizes taught us more and we launched "Client Gift catalogues" where the chef could use points to purchase gifts for their clients. Works like a dealer loader. Eventually banned by the major chain

Cost of the complete marketing plan was recouped in the first three weeks

I have since used this three times with very similar results

Skype me if you want to know more. My stage name is tingchungfu

 

Is cream your only line? if you truffle'ize the cream, you can increase your profits by 10 fold and any chef worth his weight will stand in line to buy it. I sold exotic commodities to chef's all over the country and rarely did i leave without a sale and full payment and another order and either a meal in the kitchen or an offe to come back for a meal. If you want to get directly to a chef, show him something he covet's.

Truffle cream, inexpensive to make and highly profitable...(it used to be 10 years ago)