I’ve been talking about this in my training and it’s a bit more complex than it seems. Determining a call objective is synchronizing what you are thinking and what you are saying and making sense with it. I’ll break this down for you:

When are are calling a prospect- whether we are following up from sending them a quote and calling to introduce ourselves to the territory. This is what we are thinking we want to do. However, when we say just that, it’s actually a weak way to open a call and can set us up to receive more objections.

Be ambitious with your call objective. Take time to really think of what you want to do and what you want to gain from the call and then determine your call objective. For example if you want to follow-up from the quote and want to actually close that quote, than your call objective could be: I want to close this quote and agree on a timeframe for implementation. The stronger you are= the stronger results you will receive.

Remember the TeleSmart tagline- “teaching people to think and talk on the phone at the same time.”

The TeleSmart 10 training program is 2-day training program. I used to deliver training for 90 minutes per topic (10 topics) or half day sessions and combine a few topics. I was the first to discourage long training sessions and beieved it would take team members off the phones for too long. I’ve changed my mind, my approach and my recommendations. Here are the top 3 reasons why a 2-day training program works:

1. It creates stronger cohesiveness with the teams

2. More opportunities to role-play and practice the new skills

3. Team members can digest it and apply it immediately

Now for the tough part and the biggest payoff: I don’t believe in death by powerpoint. My training is not about dimming the lights and watching 70 slides for 2 days. It’s about turning off laptops, cell phones, blackberries and showing up to learn. Participating in my training is essential and everyone walks away with more than they walked in with.

I ask for a lot and more- I believe in stretching yourself if you want to fully develop. When each person walks into my training, they turn off their electronics and tune in.

I’m in Amsterdam and in the final phase of my summer traveling road show. It’s amazing how many people I’ve met that refer to San Francisco as “Frisco” and California as “Callie.” Let’s see, another amazing thing is that I have memorized the United Airlines landing speech:

“Good evening and welcome to San Francisco where the local time is 9:08pm. If you are on a connecting flight, please check the monitors on your way out. If this is your final destination, have a good stay. We realize you have many choices of airlines and appreciate you flying United. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened until we have reached the gate. Once we have arrived, please watch for articles that may have shifted in the overhead compartments and you may turn all your electonics back on. Thanks for flying United.” 

This is when I have to usually transition to something about sales or selling. Okay, here you go……

The nice thing about being in inside sales is you don’t have to get on airplanes on a regular basis. You can make so much happen from your desk and it’s great. I feel sorry for field salespeople who are constantly on the road. It takes a toll in many ways and you find yourself memorizing trivia like what I’ve just summarized.

If you are using email as a prospecting vehicle, you are probably receiving a lot of rejection emails. That’s good. Is there a response etiquette for getting rejected from a prospect via email? These rejection emails can come in the form of something very short and also more detail. Here’s some I’ve received so far this year when prospecting for training opportunities:

1. Not interested

2. Hi Josiane,  I believe we will be holding off for the moment.

We don’t have any current needs that require external suppliers for training and we work closely with IBM corporate to leverage training first for consistency and to reduce cost. I am happy to review information about your company and their services if you can direct me to your website link. If necessary, I will contact you to schedule a meeting. Thanks for contacting me and I will let Jim know that we connected via e-mail.

4. FYI, we will not be doing any sales skills or management development with outside vendors/consultants this year … budget constraints in FY’07.

5. We’ve decided to hold off until 2007 on this purchase.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s great to get these because rejections are objections disguised as questions. The minute you receive an email like this, pick up the phone. You are still fresh in their mind and it’s the perfect forum to start a dialogue. Remember, they are probably cleaning out their email inbox and just sending these out so they are usually in one place where they can be reached. Earn more time from this email and open up an opportunity for the future. Lastly, remember the people saying no are not always the ones who can say yes.

Everyone heard my talk about “no-po’s” in my training as I’ve coined this term to mean someone who has no power within an organization. My training participants are also adding this could mean “no purchase order” and “no potential” - sounds good to me. Well these guys are all over the place and as organizations continue to consolidate, merge, change leadership, there are more and more “no-po’s” out there than ever before.

A “no-po” is someone who has no authority or influence to make anything happen. They are a sophisticated gatekeeper and unlike the traditional gatekeepers who are very obvious about it such as receptionists and executive assistants, these “no-po’s” are very knowledgeable and are part of the committee or department. The problem is they don’t know how little authority or influence they actually have but what they know if talking with vendors is a way for them to believe they have some power.

We are all stuck on deals because we believe some “no-po” will actually make something happen for us. They have told us to stay away from calling around and above them and we have listened. Meanwhile, our forecasted opportunities are not closing and our begging efforts are going into deaf ears. Don’t wait to get betrayed by these people, be proactive and work the hierarchy to give yourself solid footing.  

As more and more inside sales organizations go after the SMB market, the ability to effectively partner with internal field, SE, channel partners is becoming more important. Although most inside sales team members are quota bearing, they must partner in different ways than just sharing a deal. The customer expects an educated and synergetic sales team approaching them for deals of $200K and above.

I find the inside sales rep is usually in control of creating, managing and communicating with partners. They must learn about their partners and have a discussion to articulate goals and expectations on opportunities. The days are long gone where partners expected the inside team member to act as a glorified admen. Now the inside team member has a lot more power in the territory and should drive all deals. Their ability to develop strong partnerships will reflect in the revenues you can generate in their territory.

Here are the top 15 traits that make you a desirable partner:

1. Attitude
2. Enthusiasm
3. Assertiveness
4. Self-confidence
5. Aggressiveness
6. Follow-up
7. Drive
8. Flexibility
9. Persistence
10. Judgment
11. Stability
12. Dependability
13. Sense of urgency
14. Imagination
15. Appearance

Yep I’m traveling alot and although my blog is dedicated to the front line champions, it also includes entries about my life as a trainer. This summer that would be the Traveling Trainer- yeah, you know you’ve seen her waiting for some cancelled flight on some concourse. She doesn’t look mad because she has surrendered to her other persona. You see, when I train I have a totally different personality then when I fly. For those of you who’s seen me in action in my training, I’m memorable. I’m like an entertainer, I motivate a group, energize them to think different, keep it moving at a fast pace, time each exercise with precision, diffuse the potentially difficult participants, encourage team members to try new techniques, and generally bring lots of life into my training. I’m in control from the minute the course is announced to the minute the evaluations go out.

 It’s super different when I travel because I have to relinquish all my control. It happens the minute I get to the United Express check-in and continues until the cab drops me off at my house. My entire travel personality is this non-descript person who just blends in with the blue and silver United decor. I look like everyone else at the terminal- I surrender to whatever happens and put my fate in other’s hands.  It’s taken me awhile to learn how to do that because I used to wind myself up and decide to blast everyone if things weren’t going right. It never helped nor made any difference. I’ll never forget the time I was stuck on United’s Concourse C21 waiting to get a flight that was running 4 late. I had been bumped off 2 flights and was so frustrated that I decided to scream at some agent at the counter only to find one of my training participants was a few steps away and did a double-take when they heard me coming unglued.  Hmmmm, Is this the same trainer I had who was so positive and upbeat?