Managing Conference Calls

I have to remind myself that this is a “Common Sense” sales blog, and that sometimes people just don’t use common sense.  This article falls under that category – I’m a little surprised that it needs to be written at all.  But I keep running in to this problem so here it goes.

When you host a conference call there are a couple of things to keep in mind.  When I refer to conference calls, I mean  those calls where you send out the 888-number with an access code and expect to have a few customer/prospect attendees along with a few colleagues.  These are becoming increasingly common as companies “go virtual” and more and more selling  situations are phone and web based.

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Here’s a very recent example of how and email from my book worked yet again.  I was conducting a pipeline call with a rep.  He was frustrated that a prospect had gone dark.  After a few great meetings his contact was not returning calls or emails.  I suggested that the rep send an “Are You?” email right then, during our call.  He did and guess what happened?  The prospect emailed him back while we were still on the phone.  This, after weeks of ignoring repeated calls and emails.  That’s why I wrote the book.  The emails work – all the time!  If you have prospects that have “gone dark” – and who hasn’t – the book is for you.  There is also an email for following up on leads, and another for planning killer sales calls.  What are you waiting for?  Those deals won’t wake up on their own!

The book, Click “Send” and Sell!  Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Success  is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

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First, make sure to announce yourself as soon as you beep-in.  I was recently on a call where the host arrived and there was about 10-seconds of dead air.  That  was a very uncomfortable feeling for me, and I’m sure the other attendees.  We were sitting there on hold, listening to that aweful music, when we heard the host beep-in and the music stop.  Then . . . . nothing.  When you arrive as the host, greet the already present guests with a “Good afternoon!” or some other greeting letting them know that you have arrived.  Do not allow your presence to be greeted with dead air.

Next, make sure that everyone on the call gets a “Hello, who just joined please?” when they join the call.  Do not yammer on and on about your weather conditions while new guests get ignored.  Yes, you need to keep the dead air at a minimum, but be prepared to break when you hear an arriving guest.  Everyone on the call should be accounted for and as the host that’s your job.

As people arrive, there will be dead air.  Don’t let that be the case.  It’s easy to strike up a conversation on these calls with something like, “Jim, so where are you calling from today?”  That’s always a good conversation starter.  Again, be willing to cut the conversation short when others join, but don’t let your guests sit in silence.  It is just too uncomfortable.

It’s almost inevitable that late comers will beep-in after you have started the call .  That’s to be expected, but you should also find a natural stopping point to say something like, “I think I just heard someone join.  Can you please tell us who you are?”  Chances are very good that it was someone who was invited to the call, but these numbers aren’t particularly confidential, and you never know who just might want to drop in to hear your discussion.  Always ask who just joined to protect you and your customer/prospect.  It’s not rude, so don’t be hesitant to ask.

If the call isn’t too large, take time for each side to introduce themselves, their names, role, and what they hope to accomplish on the call.  This is another great ice breaker that’s easy to get started.  Say something like, “It sounds like we have just about everyone who plans to join.  Before we get started, allow me to introduce myself, and I’d like everyone to do the same from our side.  Karen, we would also like to hear from your team if that’s okay.”  Again ,a simple common courtesy and an extremely important part of your job as a sales rep – you need to know who is on the call, their role, and what they hope to accomplish.  What better way to set the overall tone for the call?

That’s about it.  Common Sense Selling!  Be courteous, keep the dead air to a minimum, greet your callers, and kick off the call with introductions.  Those of us that dial-in to your calls will appreciate your approach!

To Demo or Not To Demo?

It almost seems like a silly question – should I demo our solution or not?  But there are certain scenarios when you should consider tapping the brakes when a prospect asks you to demo your product.  Here’s an example of when that’s the case.

My rep has a very good customer who buys a significant amount of product from us.  And, our vendor manager there is fantastic.  She is constantly introducing our capabilities to colleagues within her company and brokering introductions for us.  Just recently, a business unit approached her with a problem and she immediately recommended our solution (this is an information-centric product offering).  She reached out to my rep and asked if he could schedule a WebEx demo of our solution.   This was a very nice development for us.

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Here’s a very recent example of how and email from my book worked yet again.  I was conducting a pipeline call with a rep.  He was frustrated that a prospect had gone dark.  After a few great meetings his contact was not returning calls or emails.  I suggested that the rep send an “Are You?” email right then, during our call.  He did and guess what happened?  The prospect emailed him back while we were still on the phone.  This, after weeks of ignoring repeated calls and emails.  That’s why I wrote the book.  The emails work – all the time!  If you have prospects that have “gone dark” – and who hasn’t – the book is for you.  There is also an email for following up on leads, and another for planning killer sales calls.  What are you waiting for?  Those deals won’t wake up on their own!

The book, Click “Send” and Sell!  Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Success  is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HEREto download and print the book in any format you want.
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However, I told the rep to hold off on the demo and ask instead for a brief meeting with the business users who had approached our champion with their problem.  Why in the world would I recommend something like that?  Simple, really.  We don’t know anything about the problem that they are trying to solve, and our champion – while she is really great – may not have recommended our best solution to her colleagues.  So instead of agreeing to perform a demo, I directed the rep to request a 30-minute call with the customer in order to learn more about their specific situation and whether or not a demo would be appropriate.  That suggestion was extremely well received by the customer and they are grateful that he was willing to take the time to understand their needs before performing a demo. 

We live in a world of instant gratification and as sellers we are constantly being pushed to close deals today.  Delaying a demo for a few days is a bad idea when you are farther along in a sales process.  But if you are conducting your first meeting, why in the world would you do a product demo (again, think more of a complex sale here) before you understand your prospects pains and opportunities?

Take the time to listen to your prospect before you ever make a recommendation or demonstrate a potential solution.  Chances are you may lengthen the sales process a little bit, but it will very likely increase your odds of winning their business and their trust.

Land and Expand!

Don’t you just love those situations when the customer wants to buy everything you sell? I conducted a white-board session with a large company that does very little business with us, and by the end of the day they wanted to buy everything! It was a very interactive session and our heads were spinning by the end. What made me nervous about this experience is that we had the exact same reaction from them a year ago and they didn’t buy anything. Sensing we were headed in the same direction I said, “Here’s a solution that you can use immediately, has the biggest bang for the buck, is easiest to implement and that you already have agreements in place for. Let’s start with that one right away.” They agreed.

This problem – selling too much at once – happened in a different scenario many years ago. I was the EVP of Sales for a dot com and was accompanying a rep to a major retailer to close a deal. We were in the executive suite of this Fortune 500 company, and the goal of the meeting was to close a very important piece of business with them. The meeting started off well, but soon digressed as the rep seized every opportunity to introduce new products to the executive. He was engaged and interested so the rep just kept selling. By the end of our appointment the executive had so much to think about that he didn’t commit to anything that day. And, he didn’t buy anything from us over the long run.

That same scenario repeated itself with one of my reps just recently.

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Here’s a very recent example of how and email from my book worked yet again. I was conducting a pipeline call with a rep. He was frustrated that a prospect had gone dark. After a few great meetings he was not returning calls or emails. I suggested that the rep send an “Are You?” email right then, during our call. He did and guess what happened. The prospect emailed him back while we were still on the phone. This, after weeks of ignoring repeated calls and emails. That’s why I wrote the book. The emails work – all the time! If you have prospects that have “gone dark” – and who hasn’t – the book is for you. There is also an email for following up on leads, and another for planning killer sales calls. What are you waiting for? Those deals won’t wake up on their own!

The book, Click “Send” and Sell! Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Success is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

It is important that you close the deal that’s on the table today before making the customer’s head cramp with all of the other solutions that you can provide them with. My rep refers to it as “Land and Expand”. I think that’s an apt description.

When selling to a new prospect, or a new division within an existing customer, close the deal on the table and create a near term win for both companies. Leverage that win to sell the next solution and continue to expand the relationship over time. It is unlikely that the prospect will buy a full suite of solutions from you from the very beginning – it is more likely that they won’t buy anything. You’ve got to establish credibility and a relationship in order to sell additional more complex solutions.

So, while it necessary for you to present your full suite of capabilities, forego the temptation to sell them all at once and focus on the one thing that can help your prospect now. Earn the right to sell more and expand the relationship over time. Otherwise you risk selling them nothing at all.

Make Time to be Proactive

Taking time to be proactive in sales is a must. Yet too often sellers are too busy doing their jobs to prospect, filling the top part of their funnel. With everything that is asked of sellers like maintaining existing accounts, helping with collections, proposal development, travel, and the myriad of other tasks, somehow the job of being proactive tends to get left behind.

Yet nothing may be as important to your success as some quiet time prospecting new accounts, or doing some additional proactive work in your existing book of business. Inbound activity is nice, but rarely is that level of activity enough to make our number. Instead, the organization is relying on you, the seller, to keep the phone lines burning up and making net new appointments to keep the funnel full.

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It happened again last week! I was conducting a pipeline call with a rep. He was frustrated that a prospect had gone dark. After a few great meetings he was not returning calls or emails. I suggested that the rep send an “Are You?” email right then, during our call. He did and guess what happened. The prospect emailed him back while we were still on the phone. This, after weeks of ignoring repeated calls and emails. That’s why I wrote the book. The emails work – all the time! If you have prospects that have “gone dark” – and who hasn’t – the book is for you. There is also an email for following up on leads, and another for planning killer sales calls. What are you waiting for? Those deals won’t wake up on their own!

The book, Click “Send” and Sell! Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Success is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

So why is making time for proactive work so difficult? It’s an easy answer – we are all being reactive to the immediate needs of our customers and the organization, and very few of us actually likes to prospect. That’s just an honest assessment of the situation. You are probably no different. Of course there are exceptions – many of you spend your days on the road cold-calling prospects. Or, maybe you spend most of your time on the phone calling new companies. But most of you are working an existing book of business and the organization is expecting you to grow that book by bringing on new accounts. If you let email manage your time you are in for a rude awakening.

Making time for proactive work takes effort. I would suggest a couple of simple things that you can do to help you spend time prospecting. First, turn off email or at least turn off that notification of new emails that pops up on your screen every time a new email arrives. There is a setting in MS Outlook that allows you to turn that off. Along with that, mute your computer so you don’t get an audible notification of a new email arrival. It’s just too tempting to check that new email and that inevitably interferes with your proactive time. Email is a great tool, but it is also one of the most distracting of activities that keeps us from being proactive. Turn it off and give yourself a fighting chance.

Second, I would set an appointment on your calendar for proactive time. That way when people view your calendar to make appointments, they’ll see a big, fat block of unavailable time that can’t be scheduled for internal meetings or conference calls. Set that time aside for your proactive work and commit to making some number of calls, appointments, demonstrations, or whatever you do to keep the top part of the funnel full. Make the appointment recurring and commit to a weekly regimen. I once read a great book by a sales trainer who makes ten cold calls every day no matter what. He is the president of the company, a bestselling author, and frequently travels. Yet, no matter what, he makes ten cold calls every day. That’s discipline.

Making time to be proactive can be challenging, but there are ways to create an atmosphere that keeps the distractions at a minimum. Do whatever it takes and spend the time necessary to keep your pipeline full.

Managing Large Customer Meetings - Contact Information

Recently, one of my reps was in the midst of working through a very important transaction with a large customer. One day we were both surprised to learn that our key contact had resigned from the company. The resignation revealed the fact that we were single-threaded in the account, exposing us to all sorts of risks. We had been on-site several weeks prior with a large audience of important people and neither one of us had their contact information. That’s a rookie mistake that we should have never made. Here’s a very simple solution for avoiding that situation in the future.

When you are presenting to a large group of people and you want to capture everybody’s contact information the first course of action is to grab their business cards. More often than not, the majority of meeting attendees will forget their cards, so here’s what you do as a backup. Come prepared with a simple print-out of an MS Word table that has these headings: name, title, email address and phone number. Ask them to pass around the sheet and fill in the information.

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Would you spend $3.99 to get a big deal un-stuck? Seems like a silly question – who wouldn’t. Well, I have developed a killer email that gets deals unstuck and it works so well that I wrote a book about it. And, I have also included two other emails to help you as well. It’s a short book – 22 pages printed – and it will take you about ten minutes to read. The ideas in the book are simple – almost silly. But you’ll be pleasantly surprised if not shocked with the results.

The book is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

I have done this for years and just forgot about it. It’s a great tool and makes sure that you capture everyone’s contact information. Only once has a group refused to fill-in the information. That was fine with me; we were responding to an unsolicited RFP and had not been driving the transaction. In my experience, those situations are rare. But in those accounts where you have (and are building) relationships, there’s nothing wrong with asking for attendee contact information. Most often the customer will oblige.

Sometimes individuals in the company will refuse to provide you with their contact information. That’s fine. As long as you have the majority of the participants providing theirs. At least you’ll have a backup plan for if/when your key contact leaves the company. And, you’ll be able to send a personalized follow up email to every attendee at the meeting. You never know what questions or comments you’ll receive back and what golden nuggets of information that you can gather from attendees other than your key contact.

Go in prepared with a simple table that gathers contact information and lessen the possibility of being hamstrung with a single relationship.