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about these 10 skills and where you rank. |
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Linking
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| After training thousands of inside sales professionals and managers, we’ve come up with the TeleSmart 10 - Sales Booster Series for generating revenue by phone and email. Our sales methodology has 10 essential skills for telephone effectiveness that actually work. This month we’ll be delving into Linking, one of the most critical skills in sales. |
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Whose got the power? Where do you find it? How do you recognize it once you found it? How can you manage and build on this power? Within every organization there is an invisible power structure that has little to do with org charts, this power is based on Influence and Authority. This power is dynamic and always changing; people gain power and lose power every day.
As we prepare for Q4, the pressure is on to bring in those sluggish deals we’ve hung on to for way too long. The cool thing is once you understand how to identify the political power structure within your target companies, you will no longer have tolerance for “no-po’s” - those non-decision-makers who often say “no” but have absolutely no power to ever say “yes.”
How do we find these? How can we identify these over the phone:
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“What do you mean by Authority and Influence, aren’t these the same?” |
Although these two relate to the power structure within an organization, they are very different. Someone with authority carries the budget dollars. Someone with influence is capable of influencing someone with the budget. |
| “So if I were to align myself with the power source, would it be someone with high authority or someone with high influence?” |
Ideally with both. Influence is top priority because they have the power to influence someone with authority to spend the dollars. Knowing who has influence is identifying which people drive sales. Influencers do not need to have authority to influence the decision-making process. |
| “It’s pretty simple, I just call at the highest level within the organization to get something done, I don’t mess around.” |
We know that the “C” level has very high authority because they have access to budgets but sometimes they are too high level and too far removed to have a lot of influence. Ideally, you want to align with someone who can influence that level and move something along faster for you. |
“When you have a face-to-face meeting
or demo with a team of decision-makers, it’s pretty obvious who has the most influence in the room. You can look around the room and spot who holds the power just by studying the non-verbal clues. But when I’m on the phone, how can I tell? How do I know that I’m not talking with the right person and they have no power even though they claim they do?.” |
There are so many red flags we must pay attention to and stop spending too much time chasing the non-influencers or the “no-po’s.” Ways to spot the high influencers:
- They can easily and quickly access the highest level for a meeting, question, etc.
- They can put teams together for a meeting
- They can speed up the decision-making process
- They are in demand because they have good communications skills and a strong understanding of the bigger picture. They usually sit on multiple committees
- They are well liked within their organization
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| “Now that I understand this concept, I can take it anywhere I go and apply it to various situations.” |
In July, I went to a big family gathering in Paris and while I sat watching all the cousins, great uncles, aunts and grandparents. I started to think about the Influence/Authority matrix. It works in our personal lives, look around in your own family structure, the people with high authority are usually the eldest. But there’s always some sibling or cousin that has high influence and everyone looks to them. What is it about them that makes them different, think about it. |
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| Does your inside sales training consist of “smile and dial” techniques that fail to generate consistent revenues? Has your team participated in field sales training only to find that it didn’t translate into a 7 second phone call or email which must carry impact?
TeleSmart provides one complete solution for inbound and outbound call centers at both the manager and team level. Whether you are calling on installed base, enterprise or transactional business, our TeleSmart 10 methodology applies for all. Contact TeleSmart Communications at 415-759-6537, or send an email at getsmart@tele-smart.com
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