“I’m sorry I just can’t help you, that is something you will have to figure out.”

That’s what I heard yesterday when I approached someone about my creative paralysis. That response flattened me out temperarily and then the pendulum swung back to full force.

Perhaps it’s the rebel in me who hears NO and says, watch this. Perhaps it’s the hopeful part of me that believes there is always a way and NO is not the path. Perhaps it’s the ambitious side of me that believes we fail when we say, I’ll try it or I can’t do it. So when I hear NO from someone else about my work and my contribution, I feel compelled to convince them otherwise.

It is a sad sales reality when many salespeople accept NO from someone who can’t say YES. 

Last week I coached about a dozen inside sales reps and provided a live demo for the group on navigating techniques. I like to call it the ”Josiane unplugged” session because they get to see me in action and it’s a great way to model the skill.

Navigating is the 3rd skill in the TeleSmart 10 training methodology. It falls in the early part of the sale cycle as it follows the Time Management and Introducing skill. This skill is all about building org charts and leveraging contacts by calling deeper and wider and aiming for 2×2. In org chart terms, that means calling two people deep, two people wide, two people up the chain and two people down the chain. This totals 8 potential contacts you can have for an account instead of one.

Now that you have names of 8 contacts, you must try to reach them live. You do not leave voice mail messages but instead press the O and # key to get yourself back out and reconnected. You keep going down the list of contacts you have until you reach a live one. When you finally get someone live, you immediately leverage the names you have in your opening to capture credibility and earn more time. Here’s how it works:

In building the org chart, you learn the following with 5 contacts:

Bob Smith, Director of IT

Tom Jones, IT Manager

Eric Day, Systems Engineer

Donna Stuart, Project Manager

Mark Toll, Network Administrator

Let’s say you get Eric on the line, you want to say, “Hi Eric, I’m with ABC Company and I understand you work closely with Bob, Tom, Donna and Mark and the reason for my call is to introduce our product.”

Easy to do and yet very powerful.

I don’t believe cold calling is dead and although social networking is hot and hardly anyone answers their phones anymore, I am not convinced. Today, I ventured out into the prospecting realm as it’s been awhile since I really worked the phones. I felt out of shape, sluggish, and lacked good articulation. My prospecting muscle had atrophied and I could tell my list of reasons not to prospect were getting longer and longer until I realized it was an excuse to keep me off the phones.

I opened up my tools and started gathering names and calling. I spent about 3 hours just navigating into one company, collecting names and sending email introductions out. A few people answered their phones and gave me 2 minutes on the call to explain what I do and a few others wouldn’t talk but wanted info first. I talked with nice executive assitants who gave me more names and even a brilliant receptionist by the name of Sally who remembered everyone in the company and could update 6-8 names for me in one call.

I got a real work-out today but I feel I’m just getting warmed up. I like this part of selling the most which is why I’ve created a business on this. I just read Bill Caskey’s blog on Occam’s Razor and he suggests cold calling only to referral sources and I tend to believe that is the lazy salesperson route as I like to be authentic and intuitive in my prospecting efforts.

This blog is dedicated to the champions who pound the phones each day creating new sales opportunities. The ones who call up to 30-40 people per day and spread the sales talk. Keep up the good work.

It’s been 18 months and 388 blog posts since I first ventured into the blogsphere. Today, my writing life is full and my blog is my business partner, my confidante, my inspiration and my mirror. 

Why do I blog? Mainly because I love to write and communicate my thoughts, ideas and values to the world.  I like to get up close and personal with inside sales people as well as field sales, service and support teams.

Sometimes I think I’m moving very slow on a highway that is racing. Other times, I feel I’m speeding in a 25 miles per hour zone. Today I am going at exactly the right pace.

I want to dedicate this blog posting to YOU. Thanks for stopping by and reading a post or two, thanks for the time you take to read and comment, thanks for your kind words of support and most of all, thanks for being my inspiration. 

I have compiled my top 50 list of favorite blog post- here is the best of the Life in the Telebusiness Blog:

1. Setting Appointments.

2.  Get More Live Voices

3. Change up your messaging

4. Oops, when you realize you’re in the wrong place

5. When someone goes radio silent on you

6. 5 ways to set your non-negotiable time

7. The Dynamic Duo

8. Keep in shape

9. Clues we lose

10. Telestressed?

11. 8 reasons to test your phone courage

12. Email rejections

13. Changes lead to uncertainty of power

14. Listening for red flags

15. Are any No-Po’s lingering in your forecast?

16. Learning your No-Po lacks power before they do

17. Betrayed by No-Po’s?

18. I just have one more question

19. When a No-Po has to protect their turf

20. Winning coaching qualities

21. Are you avoiding being coached?

22. Sales intuition

23. The cancelled sales appointment

24. Is voice mail in or out?

25. Key words and phrases that lack influence

26. Trend talk

27. Sales training is like going into rehab

28. The first few times it’s tough and then it gets easier

29. Are salespeople happy?

30. Notes on motivation

31. Mr. Unavailable is a No-Po

32. Sales yoga

33. Tuesday conversation with a No-Po

34. You finally get the appointment, now what?

35. Let’s talk about trust

36. Different messages= different titles

37. End of quarter sales stats

38. Watch out- it’s the No-Po entourage

39. You sound busy so I’ll let you go

40. 10 tactics for engaging a gate-keeper

41. Looking for motivation in all the wrong places

42. Unavailable power

43. When was the last time you…..

44. Sales 2.0 prospecting

45. Opt-out of desperate discounting

46. The 3 C’s of social networking

47. Sales 2.0; A Report from the front lines

48. Top 7 responses impatient salespeople hate to hear

49. What’s on your wish list?

50. Why do we can people who have no power?

I’m usually good with gatekeepers- they like me. I make them feel special and treat them with respect. I even use verbal hugs when talking with them and say genuine things such as: “thanks so much, you are really helpful” or “I appreciate all your help” or “ I’m wondering if you can help me with……” or “John is lucky to have you as his assistant.”

Not all gatekeepers are created equal and most are mostly concerned about protecting her boss’ turf. 

I think of this woman when I think of gatekepers- do you agree?

Here are the 10 Tactics for Engaging the Gatekeeper:

1. Remember their job is to protect the decision-makers’ time.

2. Treat them like allies; show respect; learn their names.

3. Assist them by giving them exactly what they want, when they want it, in the exact order in which they want it.

4. Remember you are not selling your product or service.

5. Humanize the interaction by being direct, honest, and straightforward. Be very clear about exactly what you want.

6. Be aware of your voice tone and be confident. Give verbal hugs.

7. Listen for subtle clues on your decision-maker, depending on how much responsibility the screener has.

8. Be fast and quick; when asking questions as your actions should be seamless.

9. Talk about “needs” instead of “wants,” and be specific about what you “need.”

10. Ask for help, “I’m wondering if you can help me.”

The best part of my day was having lunch with Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw, a smart guy who came up with a bright idea to design a contact management tool that provides complete, accurate and fresh data. Most lists we get today have old phone numbers, email addresses and names of contacts that are no longer with a company. The time it takes to scrub data takes away from our time selling.

The coolest part of Jigsaw is it puts YOU in control of the data. That’s right, it’s entered, managed and maintained by the ones who are dialing away every minute of the day. I know what your next question is: who will ever find out if I just put funky data in there? It works on a point system so you get dinged if you put bad data in there. That’s what I like, consequences.

Everyone is talking about these guys. Read their latest Inc. article titled Turning Sales Into Science and an interview with Jim Fowler. Many of you who have been in my training know how much time I spend on calling the right people and not spending your time with the No-Po’s. Well, this tool helps you build a robust org chart in minutes instead of weeks. The sooner you focus on targeting the right people the better.

So next time you can’t find your corporate Hoovers password and you are spending too much time Googling your prospects, check out Jigsaw. But email me first for a secret password so you can check it out. Shhhhh, don’t tell Jim about this.

There’s a great Dave Matthews song called The Space Between. Check out the lyrics. I like this phrase because in sales The Space Between is when we want to do our best work. When you are prospecting, The Space Between is the time that has passed from your last conversation until your next conversation. Sometimes days go by, sometimes months and we have to start a dialogue all over again. But you can shrink this time by doing the following:

1. Gain a commitment before hanging up from the call. If they want to review your material or proposal, set it up so they are prepared to review it when you contact them the following week.

2. Integrate information from your previous call to quickly bring them up to speed on what you are calling about.

3. Shorten the time of the request for a call back by half. For example if they want you to call back in two months, call them back in one month.

4. Time and space are not always tangible; we keep notes in our SFA tool of the last time we spoke, your prospects do not have these notes. We remember, they don’t always remember. Always provide a refresher in your introduction.

5. Realize how much can change within seconds and don’t assume the last conversation will carry you forward. The more time that passes usually ensures you’ll have to do more selling.  

I’m back from my world-wide summer road trip training and certifying inside sales teams, managers and trainers on our TeleSmart 10 methodology. It’s been fun and very rewarding.

These days, I seem to find deeper meaning in my training as I believe the real message is helping inside sales people stay away from talking with ”No-Po’s.” I introduced this term this year and it has resonated with everyone. A No-Po is someone who has no power, 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 is that talking with vendors is a way for them to believe they have some power.

Because of this, we naturally wind up spending time calling and talking with them. We even forecast sales opportunities based on discussions with them. Then one day, it’s usually after our deal has gone south, that we realize we’ve been hanging out with the wrong person and we feel betrayed by them.

That’s the part of my training that I find most significant as I help prevent the feeling of betrayal you can experience if you are not positioned well within the account. The cool thing is the sales cycle moves so much faster when you are aligned at the right level. So where are these No-Po’s? How do we stay away from them? How do we recognize we are talking with them?

Stay tuned for a podcast this week on this topic.

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.  

The World Cup starts tomorrow with the first game being Germany vs Costa Rica. Soccer is a sport of strategy, drive, competition, team spirit and focus. Sales has the same qualities- let the games begin.