Thursday, January 22, 2009
Cold Calling and Time Management
In this new article by Frank Rumbauskas, author of the New York Times best-seller Never Cold Call Again and founder of FJR Advisors, LLC and nevercoldcall.com, learn why cold calling and time management are the top two challenges facing salespeople, and how to solve them once and for all!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Real, Secrets Costs of Cold Calling
Learn about the real hidden costs of cold calling - even if you think your organization is saving money by having your people out cold calling instead of investing in a marketing campaign:
The Real-World Costs of Cold Calling
By Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr., author of the New York Times best-seller 'Never Cold Call Again' and founder of FJR Advisors, LLC and nevercoldcall.com!
The Real-World Costs of Cold Calling
By Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr., author of the New York Times best-seller 'Never Cold Call Again' and founder of FJR Advisors, LLC and nevercoldcall.com!
Cold Calling 2.0: It's A Big Lie!
Heard about Cold Calling 2.0? Or a New Way to Cold Call? New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas says it's all a big lie:
Cold Calling 2.0 Is A Big Nasty Lie
Frank is the author of the best-seller 'Never Cold Call Again' and is founder of FJR Advisors, LLC and nevercoldcall.com which have trained tens of thousands of salespeople and small business owners all around the world how to stop cold calling forever!
Cold Calling 2.0 Is A Big Nasty Lie
Frank is the author of the best-seller 'Never Cold Call Again' and is founder of FJR Advisors, LLC and nevercoldcall.com which have trained tens of thousands of salespeople and small business owners all around the world how to stop cold calling forever!
Cold Calling Is Dead and Gone, Forever
Learn why cold calling is dead forever in this new article by New York Times best-selling author of Never Cold Call Again, Frank Rumbauskas, who is also the founder of FJR Advisors, LLC and nevercoldcall.com. Enjoy!
Monday, December 1, 2008
YouTube Video: Cold Calling
Think cold calling works for you? It probably isn't. Even if you're making your sales numbers, learn why cold calling is holding you back from your full sales potential. Learn more and download 10 free chapters of Frank's book at http://www.nevercoldcall.com
Friday, November 28, 2008
Sales Prospecting For Complex Sales Cycles
I probably receive more correspondence from salespeople who deal with long sales cycles, or what is commonly referred to as the complex sale, than from anyone else. They contact me because they’ve seen my website or heard about my books and are skeptical about whether or not my lead-generation techniques can work for them, or if they only work for commodity products with short sales cycles.
Stop! That’s what I usually say as I hear their objections. Stop jumping to conclusions without considering the possibilities first.
The fact of the matter is that the self-marketing systems I teach work even better for complex sales than for simple sales! The reason why is quite simple: Rudimentary sales techniques such as cold calling will be more effective for simple sales. Something more sophisticated, however, will be required for the complex sale. To me this is basic common sense, but for some reason, people have a tendency to get it backwards. Nearly everyone I talk to says that my self-marketing systems are probably fine for commodity products, but that complex sales will require cold calling! Like I said, they have it backwards.
There are a number of reasons why this is so. Rather than elaborate on theory, here are some points to consider as to why self-marketing techniques work even better with complex sales:
1. If you are involved with long sales cycle products or services, you need to have more than a business card and brochure on your side. You need to have your own website. I don’t mean your company’s website – I mean your very own personal website, just for your prospects and customers.
2. Since you are selling a complex product, it’s very important that your prospects are educated on it. Think about it – isn’t one of the biggest challenges in selling complex, or high-ticket products, the simple fact that most prospects fail to realize what the benefits are to them? By having a well-educated prospect base, you increase your odds of closing them. You do this through a good e-mail newsletter, not something that pitches them to buy from you every week or month or however often you choose to send it out, but rather something that benefits the prospect by educating them in areas either directly or indirectly related to your area of expertise.
3. In addition to educating your prospects, your e-mail newsletter serves to place you in the position of a leader and a recognized expert in your field. This is extremely important, because once you have accomplished this, your competition doesn’t stand a chance! Everyone wants to deal with the recognized expert, not the amateur who wastes his time by cold calling.
4. From this moment on, your primary goal in making new contacts should be to get them on your newsletter list and visiting your website. Your job from now on is to get them into your system, which will keep them in your pipeline permanently and will establish your credibility as the recognized expert, and the only person to buy from.
As you can see, there is a lot more to self-marketing than the myth that it is nothing more than sending out mailers and hoping someone will call. The very basic steps I’ve described here will do wonders for your sales – you will amass a huge list of prospects who hear from you on a regular basis, automatically, but even better, they will look up to you as the undisputed expert in your field, and won’t even bother talking to your competition!
Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr. is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Never Cold Call Again: Achieve Sales Greatness Without Cold Calling (Wiley, 2006). Founder of FJR Advisors, LLC, Frank has taught over 15,000 salespeople how to become top producers without cold calling. For Frank’s free Sales Tips newsletter, please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com
Stop! That’s what I usually say as I hear their objections. Stop jumping to conclusions without considering the possibilities first.
The fact of the matter is that the self-marketing systems I teach work even better for complex sales than for simple sales! The reason why is quite simple: Rudimentary sales techniques such as cold calling will be more effective for simple sales. Something more sophisticated, however, will be required for the complex sale. To me this is basic common sense, but for some reason, people have a tendency to get it backwards. Nearly everyone I talk to says that my self-marketing systems are probably fine for commodity products, but that complex sales will require cold calling! Like I said, they have it backwards.
There are a number of reasons why this is so. Rather than elaborate on theory, here are some points to consider as to why self-marketing techniques work even better with complex sales:
1. If you are involved with long sales cycle products or services, you need to have more than a business card and brochure on your side. You need to have your own website. I don’t mean your company’s website – I mean your very own personal website, just for your prospects and customers.
2. Since you are selling a complex product, it’s very important that your prospects are educated on it. Think about it – isn’t one of the biggest challenges in selling complex, or high-ticket products, the simple fact that most prospects fail to realize what the benefits are to them? By having a well-educated prospect base, you increase your odds of closing them. You do this through a good e-mail newsletter, not something that pitches them to buy from you every week or month or however often you choose to send it out, but rather something that benefits the prospect by educating them in areas either directly or indirectly related to your area of expertise.
3. In addition to educating your prospects, your e-mail newsletter serves to place you in the position of a leader and a recognized expert in your field. This is extremely important, because once you have accomplished this, your competition doesn’t stand a chance! Everyone wants to deal with the recognized expert, not the amateur who wastes his time by cold calling.
4. From this moment on, your primary goal in making new contacts should be to get them on your newsletter list and visiting your website. Your job from now on is to get them into your system, which will keep them in your pipeline permanently and will establish your credibility as the recognized expert, and the only person to buy from.
As you can see, there is a lot more to self-marketing than the myth that it is nothing more than sending out mailers and hoping someone will call. The very basic steps I’ve described here will do wonders for your sales – you will amass a huge list of prospects who hear from you on a regular basis, automatically, but even better, they will look up to you as the undisputed expert in your field, and won’t even bother talking to your competition!
Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr. is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Never Cold Call Again: Achieve Sales Greatness Without Cold Calling (Wiley, 2006). Founder of FJR Advisors, LLC, Frank has taught over 15,000 salespeople how to become top producers without cold calling. For Frank’s free Sales Tips newsletter, please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Cold Calling: 5 Reasons To Avoid Cold Calling
Cold calling, once the only method of sales prospecting, no longer works in today’s world. Here are the top five reasons to avoid it:
1. Cold calling makes you look desperate.
We all know that people want to do business with those who are successful; however, cold calling makes you look totally unsuccessful! Prospects think if you’re cold calling, you must have nothing else going on, and they should avoid doing business with you.
2. Cold calling makes timing work against you.
How can you know if someone is ready to buy when you call them at random? You don’t! If you get leads from cold calling, there’s a good chance they’re looking to buy next year, not now. And most people you call at random will never buy, ever.
3. Cold calling limits your sales production by time.
Leverage is very important, and is missing from cold calling. In other words, you can make only one call at a time or knock on one door at a time. There is no leveraged system working on your behalf, and as a result, even if you get leads from cold calling, there are only so many hours in the day to do it.
4. Cold calling is the leading cause of salesperson turnover and lack of morale.
Endless surveys show that the requirement to make cold calls is the number one reason why sales people quit, and the lack of cold calling is the number one reason why salespeople stay. Cold calling is very demoralizing and has a very negative impact on sales performance.
5. Cold calling fails to get qualified leads and generates unqualified leads.
Managers tend to measure the results of cold calling by the number of appointments set; however, appointments gained through cold calling have the lowest close rate of all. People who respond to cold calls generally aren’t the busy, successful people we want and need to meet with.
Frank Rumbauskas is the author of the hit sensation "Cold Calling Is A Waste Of Time: Sales Success In The Information Age". The founder of FJR Advisors, LLC, his training and products teach salespeople how to generate hot leads without cold calling and how to keep their power and remain in control of sales situations. For more information please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com
1. Cold calling makes you look desperate.
We all know that people want to do business with those who are successful; however, cold calling makes you look totally unsuccessful! Prospects think if you’re cold calling, you must have nothing else going on, and they should avoid doing business with you.
2. Cold calling makes timing work against you.
How can you know if someone is ready to buy when you call them at random? You don’t! If you get leads from cold calling, there’s a good chance they’re looking to buy next year, not now. And most people you call at random will never buy, ever.
3. Cold calling limits your sales production by time.
Leverage is very important, and is missing from cold calling. In other words, you can make only one call at a time or knock on one door at a time. There is no leveraged system working on your behalf, and as a result, even if you get leads from cold calling, there are only so many hours in the day to do it.
4. Cold calling is the leading cause of salesperson turnover and lack of morale.
Endless surveys show that the requirement to make cold calls is the number one reason why sales people quit, and the lack of cold calling is the number one reason why salespeople stay. Cold calling is very demoralizing and has a very negative impact on sales performance.
5. Cold calling fails to get qualified leads and generates unqualified leads.
Managers tend to measure the results of cold calling by the number of appointments set; however, appointments gained through cold calling have the lowest close rate of all. People who respond to cold calls generally aren’t the busy, successful people we want and need to meet with.
Frank Rumbauskas is the author of the hit sensation "Cold Calling Is A Waste Of Time: Sales Success In The Information Age". The founder of FJR Advisors, LLC, his training and products teach salespeople how to generate hot leads without cold calling and how to keep their power and remain in control of sales situations. For more information please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com
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