Smart Selling on the Phone and Online: Inside Sales That Gets Results

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

But I’ve Only Got Four Minutes!

You’ve just returned from your sales kickoff meeting, inundated with

products, tools, systems, and technical information on your company.

You got to party with your field partners, and agreed that you guys

would kill your numbers this year. It was exciting to see the inside

teams get acknowledged for all their work last year—but with that

acknowledgment came a new, higher quota from your manager. So

here you are, back in your cubicle, with a laptop, high-resolution

monitor, whiteboard, your Blackberry, and a phone. You are pumped,

psyched, and ready to get out there, but—no one is answering their

phones or responding to your e-mails, and your pipeline is looking

pretty bare. When you do manage to connect, all you hear is, ‘‘No

thanks, we’re set . . .’’ or ‘‘Call me at the beginning of next quarter.’’

And even though you think you only have about four minutes to

spare, you decide to open up this book.

Congratulations! You’ve already taken your first step to becoming

a smart-selling inside sales pro ready to be transformed into a savvy

Sales 2.0 warrior who is ready to take on today’s opt-out busy crowd.

Reading this book will help you survive and thrive through your sales

messaging: You’ll learn how to craft introductions that get prospects

talking, how to get out of the No-Po zone and align with power buyers,

how to make presentations that have real selling power, how to

field objections and turn them into opportunities, and how to build

a healthy—and accurate!—sales forecast.

FINALLY! A BOOK WRITTEN JUST FOR YOU

Whether you are in inside sales, telesales, lead development, lead generation,

lead qualification, renewals, or are basically spending fiftyplus

hours a week calling on distracted, risk-averse business professionals

who only give you four minutes of their time, this book is

written for you.

If you are one of those time-crunched managers meeting with

your inside team each week wondering what’s holding them back

from hitting their numbers, this book is for you.

If you have an inside organization contributing to your sales

numbers or qualifying leads for you, and you’re wondering how they

can get some skills training fast, this book is for you.

And if you find yourself wondering what the plastic golf sets and

huge trophies filled with candy are doing in some people’s cubicles,

and why other sales reps’ names are on the ‘‘wall of shame,’’ this book

is for you.

This robust and comprehensive ten-step sales system includes ten

essential skills inside sales warriors must have in order to effectively

sell by phone and online in today’s Sales 2.0 world. Inside salespeople

are riding the crest of the wave of change in the way sales are made.

This book gives you the robust skills you need to master this sales

transformation right now.

SELLING IN A SALES 2.0 WORLD

Less than a decade ago, customers expected to receive an in-person

visit from their field sales rep. Today, veteran field reps are scrambling

to keep up with the new B2B stars. Inside salespeople, once the

‘‘neglected stepchildren’’ of sales organizations, have changed the way

sales are done. Businesses now rely on inside sales teams to generate

up to 50 percent of their revenue. Inside salespeople prospect and

manage customers at the highest levels: cold-calling directors, VPs,

and C-level decision makers within some of the largest companies in

the world. They are bright, educated, culturally diverse, sophisticated,

and extremely well-paid professionals who sell complex solutions

worth millions of dollars over the phone and online.

Today’s market, economic, and competitive conditions have created

a more complex and less predictable sales cycle. And that means

more of everything. As companies provide more tools, technologies,

and systems to help speed up the sales cycle and increase efficiency

and productivity, only sales reps who can seamlessly integrate the necessary

tools, technologies, and systems into their sales process can

earn the right to be called inside sales warriors.

Think about it: Inside salespeople average two hundred new outbound

calls and e-mails per week, risking rejection on an hourly basis.

As a salesperson alone with your phone in a warren of cubicles, you

may feel isolated and unmotivated. This book is your true friend and

companion as it sits inside your cubicle with you and helps you make

some simple changes—such as crafting a new opening statement, creating

an original e-mail template, or generating fresh questions—that

transform hang-ups and rejections into new prospects and closed

deals.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

I know inside sales from the inside out—literally, from inside the cubicle

to the mind of the customer. And I understand inside sales warriors

well enough to know that they are tired of training sessions

geared for field reps and books that just don’t get it. They are annoyed

when people misunderstand them and believe they are ‘‘smile and

dial’’ phone jocks who just ‘‘churn and burn’’ through calls. This

book reflects the whole spectrum of my work: as a trainer who knows

the skills inside sales reps need; as a coach who knows how to get up

close and personal to figure out where the rep is going wrong and

how to set it right; as a consultant who has performed many inside

sales audits; as a thought leader who predicts trends and forecasts in

the industry; as an advocate for inside sales who believes they are the

most talented sales group; and as a former inside sales rep and an

entrepreneur who has single-handedly grown her own organization

by walking her talk.

For fifteen-plus years I’ve owned TeleSmart Communications, a

San Francisco–based global training organization specializing in

inside sales training, coaching, and consulting. Our TeleSmart 10 program

is the ten-step skills program that continues to be chosen as the

flagship methodology for global fast-growing inside sales organizations.

For more than twenty-five years, I’ve carved a niche with some

of the most talented and progressive Fortune 1000 high-tech companies

in the world. I have certified 10,000-plus teams and managers on

TeleSmart methodology.

I have also spent 5,000-plus hours listening to calls with a training

Y and observing inside sales reps on the job, hearing both sides of the

conversation. I know your side—how you work, your self-talk, what

motivates you, what you are fearful of, and how you can unknowingly

sabotage your success. And I know your customers’ or prospects’ side—

the people who are sitting at their desks reading e-mail, looking at

their caller ID, and not picking up the phone when they see a vendor

calling. I also know how the Sales 2.0 landscape has changed everything,

including the old selling rules.

This book is not homework: I know you don’t have extra time!

It’s designed to be read and digested on the job—your daily drip of

tactical skills and solutions that you can test out immediately. I know

you are impatient and will want to speed through it—or maybe just

go straight to Chapter 9, ‘‘Closing’’—but I encourage you to read it

from beginning to end. Why? Because each skill builds on the one

before it exponentially, resulting in big changes. Each chapter is

packed with tons of useful tips, fresh ideas, trend info, and insights

into why you do what you do and why your customers do what they

do. It also includes both phone and e-mail tips, as these are the

dynamic duo for inside sales warriors today.

So shut off your IM buddy list, stop texting for a few minutes,

turn off your e-mail, find the nearest conference room that you won’t

get kicked out of for a few hours, and go hang out with this book.

Welcome to the inside sales warrior club! You have arrived!