Josiane Feigon interviews Daniela Micocci , senior inside sales rep with EMC.

Let's hear Daniela’s quarter-end success strategies:

1. Make everyday and every month count as though it were quarter end
2. Stay on top of your deals- be proactive in getting things through the system.
3. Stay focused on keep your eyes on the ball

Good focus, Daniela!

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Josiane Feigon interviews James Wortham, part of the named accounts enterprise team at Apple.

Let's hear James’ quarter-end success strategies:

1. Build structure within the chaos- organize and pre-plan everything weeks before quarter-end

2. His secret to having the best quarter ever is to build trrust and strong relationships that eventually pay off

3. Pace yourself to get through this time

Congratulations, James!

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Josiane Feigon interviews Gorav Saran, solution specialist with Microsoft LiveMeeting.
Let's hear Gorav’s quarter-end success strategies:

1. Invest time early in the quarter drawing a strategic plan of attack and spend the last month reaping the benefits

2. Be confident and ambitious- strive to over exceed your numbers

3. Position yourself well with other decision-makers and other influencers to assure your deal is solid

Good planning, Gorav!

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Josiane Feigon interviews Rachel Collins, account manager at VeriSign.

Let's hear Rachel's quarter-end success strategies for maintaining balance and staying focus in the midst of a large Siebel/Oracle merger:

1. Leverage many contacts within the organization
2. Keep a good positive attitude and live and balanced lifestyle to relieve stress
3.Stay organized and establish a strong momentum

Smart thinking Rachel!

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Josiane Feigon interviews Brian Mory, inside sales territory manager at VeriSign.

Let’s hear some of Brian’s quarter-end success strategies:

1. Staying focused
2. Aligning at the right level
3. Persistence

Good work Brian!

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It's end of quarter and the most important week of the year for closing business. How are the inside sales champions doing this week? What are their closing tactics? Let's hear their story and learn best practices for surviving quarter-end this week.

Josiane Feigon, President of TeleSmart, will host a series of 5-minute interviews with inside sales champions who are closing deals and making things happen. Listen to these daily podcast interviews with champions from some of the largest Fortune 500 giants in the industry.

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Are you supersticious? Do you have calling rules? Food rules? People rules? Are these rules rigid? I have to admit, I have calling rules where I favor certain days of the week over others. Tuesdays and Fridays are my favorite and Monday is my least favorite. I also have food rules- I can’t eat pizza or ice-cream in the morning for breakfast nor can I have my chai latte at night.

It’s Friday today, all day long and a great day to make things happen. People commit on Friday’s. They seem to say "yes" more. You get more appointments, more return calls, more presentations and more mind-share on Friday’s.

Be ready to make things happen today!.

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I went to a great improv class last night taught by the guys from BATS and came back refreshed. Some of you may have taken acting classes and practiced some Inprov techniques where you are forced to think on your feet, be spontaneous and energize your left and right brain.

One of the biggest problems we face in sales is  growing stale with our messaging. We say the same thing over and over and put ourselves and our prospects to sleep. We need to change it up constantly. An improv class is a great way to get energized, inspired and creative.

In our session, we played with some basic intros  the old fashioned way of “telephone.” That’s when you whisper something into someone’s ear and after it goes through a chain of 14 people, you hear how it was received. So I was first on this exercise and was asked to whisper what I do for a living into someone’s ear and it had to go down the line of 14 people. I decided to speak very clearly and whispered to the person next to me that I owned a company which taught corporate teams to sell by phone. Well after it went through the chain, the fourteenth person said, “you own a company which makes satellite phones.”  Ouch!

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Okay, so nobody is picking up their phones these days– especially if they are a decision-maker that has budget. Why? Well because picking up the phone usually means something where they have to spend more time figuring something out and money which they have very little of.

No, I take that back- they do pick up their phones, if they don’t recognize caller ID and think it’s the concall they were supposed to climb on minutes ago. Of if you are smart enough to call high and ask to be escorded back down, they’ll pick up. But they won’t appreciate your tricky way of getting to them. .

That brings us back to why we call people who have no power. After we’ve dialed about 100 outbound for the week, we just want to connect with someone live- it’s easy to find comfort in someone who wants to talk. However, these are usually called the "No-Po’s" which are the ones that have no power.  You see,  we don’t realize they don’t have power simply because they don’t either.  It’s not like they’ll say, "hey this is John Smith and by the way, I have no power here- I can talk with you all day long, ask for proposals, comparison matrix, set up meetings that get cancelled, even meet you for lunch. But, oh by the way, I can’t make anything happen but keep calling me for the next 8 months and we’ll become fast friends."

It’s getting harder and harder getting attention at the level which can make something happen for you which means you must do your homework, qualify the account, find a coach, vary your messaging and build value for the contribution you can make to their organization.

Remember to not hang out with the "no-po’s".

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Isn’t it frustrating when you’ve had a great conversation with a prospect where you receive all the buying and interest signals. Everything is clicking, connecting and aligning with their needs and your solution.  You capture the moment and progress to the next steps. Whether they ask you to put a proposal together or tell you they are going to speak with a few more people or schedule a meeting, things are moving along. You are satisfied, you forecast the deal, it’s a qualified opportunity, you feel good, your manager is happy.

The following week you try calling them, you follow-up with a quick email, you try to get them live. No response. Nothing. Nada. You try again a few days later, you poke around to see if they are out of town, you leave another message and shoot a quick one sentence email.. You get in super early and try to get them before they turn their office lights on. You call around to see if they are actually still in their office. You are tempted to call their cell phone but that’s too close to home for now. Still no response, absolutely no response.

We all know that feeling too well. What do we do? Give up? Let go? Apply more pressure? Get frantic? Become desperate? Take it personally? Start stalking them? That’s what going radio silent is all about. It’s about not knowing and wondering what happened. Salespeople never do well not knowing as it’s their job to know.

The truth is your prospect thinks about your solution, service or product about 1/300th of the time while you think about it 24/7. There are a trillion other things that occupy their time and mind and face it, you are just not top of mind.

Once we really know this, we can let go of some anxiety and also learn new ways to stay in front of our prospect while allowing them some time to be distant. That doesn’t mean letting go of the deal, quite the opposite, it means you keep re-qualifying the deal, verify the hierarchy and create a compelling event that helps create a timeframe around response.

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