Freight Broker Agent Sales Strategies 5 Seminar Part 1 of 2

Well, what we're going to talk about today is winning phone

sales

strategies

that work well. The first

part

of this will talk a lot about the phone

sales

process, really like any type of profit. Formulas or something like that, there is always a process or a system to sell well and sell face to face, sell online, sell over the phone, everyone has different systems, so today I am going to share with you a system, this is not the only one . The system is a system for selling over the telephone and divides it into modules, the first module is the planning prior to the call, the second is the conversation prior to the person who makes the decisions, the third is the creation of interests, the fourth is the questions, the fifth is the recommendation, the six is ​​the commitment and the last is the configuration. prepare the next action, hopefully the next action will gain some pre-call business planning.

This is something I really didn't want to just skim through. It is relatively short, but it is very important that when you start the day you set the goal. On the right day, you meet a lot of people. I see a lot of people throughout my career and you know they show up at the start time, it's 8 o'clock, they show up at 8:03 and you know, and they know they're late for a meeting or they're in a hurry. to get things going, they don't plan their day properly and you know, put together that goal for the day which really consists of things like putting together your to-do lists in a very simple way.

Things like that, you're putting together your call list, your actions, the follow-ups, that kind of thing, setting that up, setting up your day before you start is going to make your day go immensely smoother. Well, I've picked up a habit over the years. I prepare my day the night before, so what I do is I leave what before I leave I put my to-do list on a piece of paper before I leave and then what happens is I get into that work

part

at night. tomorrow and then I recategorize them based on where, at that point, I reprioritize them between the ones that I know I'm not going to delegate, the ones that I don't want to do and I go ahead and start doing the things that I need to do are fine. , so I don't want to skip that because it's very important because I see that you know a lot of people here maybe do some of that, but maybe not all of them.

I think that's a really important part. That part of your pre-call planning and preparing for your day is really important. The second part is to prepare. It may seem trivial, but prepare your work area well if you have a desk that looks like a tornado. You know there are more food scraps on your desk than pieces of paper or computer hardware, so you know that's probably not a good sign, so organize your work area because one of the things is that when you're in the middle of a call or trying to make a call, you have all these distractions when you're in the middle of a sales call.

It's like I'm in the middle of this presentation right now trying to answer calls. texting and answering the door while I'm trying to do this, it doesn't work because actually a sales call is like a presentation, it's like a conversation, okay, so you know, setting up and organizing your work area will benefit you greatly. , it's very simple, but you know, pay attention. I think you'll see. I think you'll see some good results. The last one is to prepare your mind. This is something that very few people do well, very few people, even those who set their goals. and they organize their work area, many of them do not mentally prepare well for what is going to happen because we are in sales, what is going to happen, what is the main thing that you know is going to happen to you in sales, someone lets that slip.

It's rejection right, it happens all day long that's the life we ​​lead that's the world we live in right, we chose this profession so we have to be mentally prepared so what does that mean to be mentally prepared number one? You have to leave all your luggage at the door right when you walk in you know you're sick kid listen up I know it's hard to concentrate when your son or daughter is sick I have two daughters I can relate I know and maybe you had a little fight with your spouse how can that affect you, I know how when things are tough financially or when the holiday season is approaching or health problems or any number of things can affect you, but what you have to do is really have one thing number one is you.

I have to try to leave all that stuff at the door and hopefully you have a family that understands it and if you don't, you have to sit down with them and have a real discussion, you have to talk to them. about it you have to say listen I love you I'm here for you but when I'm at work I'm at work and I have to do my job because if I don't do my job then the whole house of cards collapses so you know you have to prepare yourself mentally , so number one you have to leave the luggage at the door number two you have to prepare for the rejection that you are going to receive well, some of the rejection is very pleasant and tactful and some of the rejection is not so pleasant and tactful, you will get people who won't be too happy about you being cold calling them good and hopefully with some of the techniques I'm going to share with you today you'll get less. of that, because you're going to come in, you're going to have a little more attractive style, you're going to have a little more fun and I think the people you're going to be able to differentiate yourself from a little bit. a bit of the typical

freight

broker

running around busy and chartered, well at least that's my goal, you'll let me know at the end of the day if that actually happens, so be prepared at the beginning of the day, but then you'll know The second thing you've got What to do is prepare before each call.

You know, boy, this is a lot of work, right? We just started and you know, you're already doing it. There is a lot of work here, but you prepare at the beginning of the day, but you have to prepare for a retreat. One of the things we covered in a previous

seminar

and in different sales trainings we've done is about sales intelligence and about Researching your prospects before you call them, so doing research online or offline on websites that known. If you call a company you know, doesn't it make sense to look at their website and try to see what products they offer?

Doesn't it make sense that you want to know the name of the CEO or the VP of Operations or any senior manager so you can include them in the conversation? Doesn't it make sense that you want to know a recent press release where they were talking about acquiring another company or launching a new product line or opening a new location and these are all simple things and that information is you, it's becoming easier and more available because websites are common and getting better and better. and so you'll find a lot of that information on the website, what you won't find on the website, you'll find on the search engines.

Google, right. Google is one of my best friends, as sad as it may seem, there is very little I have ever done. I want to know that I can't ask Google and it won't give me the answer if you know how to search now. We're not going to spend a lot of time today gathering sales intelligence because that's a whole part of training on its own, okay and we've already covered some of that, if anyone has any interest in that, see me later, I can point you in the right direction. , okay and lastly, know your database, if you have a CRM or a folder, some type of information repository that you use during your prospecting or your account management you have to go to those things you have to look at it you have to update you what did I do?

Isn't it great to be able to go back to a CRM or some type of information? database and I say I talked to this guy 90 days ago and this is the conversation we had at the time when his son was playing in the world in the Little League World Series and wouldn't that be a great topic to talk about or what any nugget? of information or updating the conversation because they were having trouble with XY and Z and you know, go back to those tools and use those tools for some of your pre-call planning. Now a lot of this sounds very rudimentary, right, very basic, well, I hate doing it.

I tell you guys, but most sellers don't do it and even more

broker

s don't do it, so in my experience, okay, secondly, you have to set a main goal, okay, and the main goal is what I want you to do, what do I want? that they don't think, feel or believe, what do I want them to do as a result of this call and what will I do, the goal is something actionable, right, it is something actionable, it's not smooth, okay, it has to be actionable, secondly, you want to focus In goals, they are action-oriented, which is what I just mentioned, so when you want to set a main goal for a call, you have to ask yourself before that call what exactly do I want to happen after this call, because remember If you It's a first call, you know, an introductory call, your goal is very different than if it's a, you've been talking to this guy on and off for six months, but you still need a goal because and in most cases what I see like I see people who on the first few calls, particularly introductory ones, will have some kind of goal, their goal is not very well defined: to establish a little relationship and gather a little information during the week, but it's better than nothing where I see a lack of focus.

On follow-up calls, one of the things that drives me completely crazy is when people call and say, "Hey, just call a contact base to see how things are going, guys, I mean, that's your way, you immediately told him that you are." There to waste their time you have to be better than that you have to be smarter than that there are better ways to do it right so set your main goal on every call no matter where that call is in the process the first call to you without engagement calls or closing calls, okay, whether you've known them for 15 minutes or 15 years, you should have a goal on those sales calls, so the goal of the week of pre-call planning I talked about Of that, I introduce myself a little and see if there is any interest is better than nothing, but still, a week define a little better the current challenges or pain points of the prospects and have them send me the current offer or package little compelling, look how it's actionable, they'll send me something that's defined, it's not significantly different, but it's significantly better, okay, that's an example.

The second is to follow up and see if they would be interested in seeing a proposal. It's better than nothing, but a week isn't feasible, so generating interest and getting them to agree to review a proposal is a little better. In consideration of your future order, the action is to get them to agree, they're going to say yes, I'm going to do this or no, I'm not okay, so those are examples of how to set goals correctly. I'm not going to spend. There's a tremendous amount of time spent on that, but it's really important before every call, based on the information that you've collected that you can review before the call.

Establish some type of clear and defined objective. Well, so we were talking before the rejection, right? and rejection affects. people in different ways, okay, some people it falls on them, other people, you know, they take things very personally and it affects them the next call on the next call, on the next call, okay, other people, You know, it's the flavor of the day, you don't If you don't know what you're going to do well, one way to prepare yourself so you don't feel rejected is to set a secondary goal and they said that this has a lot of value and that the secondary goal is something that is so simple as getting them to agree that they will do it, this is what you will achieve at a minimum level, so the secondary objective is what you will achieve at a minimum level, what is my absolute alternative if they do not agree ? what I am proposing or that I achieved my main objective.

What is my backup plan? So your backup plan can be something as simple as agreeing to take your call in 90 days to determine if there are any opportunities at that time that you know how to take advantage of. that they say yes, call me, no problem, call me in 90 days, we will have that conversation, so it does two things, number one, it prepares you for a future opportunity, a possible opportunity number two, you know it will really change your way of thinking. a little bit when you get off that call, you know you could it could be A, he rejected me and everything, it's me or B, he rejected me, but he agreed to talk to me again, okay, so there's a difference, there's a difference there.

Okay, the next pre-decision conversations, this is a very, very complicated topic, okay, and we're going to spend a little time on it. There are different approaches. Here you have the people who will be evasive, lie and try to understand. finding ways to get around the gatekeepers and then you have people who are a little more advanced, you know, and they're going to be a little more strategic, okay, so let's talk a little bit about how this works, so, first of all, you know when you are. trying to get through to the doorman, whether it's a secretary or someone within the department or someone who answers the phone, whatever it is, you know the basics,identify yourself in your company, the most important thing I found that works is to ask for help, just ask for it. help hey, can you help me?

I hope you can help me. There's some things in here, some phrases that you can use, that I've used and then really like you know, I was wondering if you could help me. I use it, a lot of people will tend to want to help if you ask at that moment, there will be a lot more information and there will be a lot more information. It is more cooperative if you ask them for help than if they think you are trying to sneak something out of them, and that is one of the things you should keep in mind, so you know, ask for the name of the person who is in charge of logistics and transportation or shipping or whatever department or category or label that you want to put on it but you want to know the name that you don't necessarily want to be transferred to that person, right?

The mistake that I see many people make is that hello, I can talk to the person in charge of shipping. Well, what can happen if you ask for that? Well, they train you, they transfer you well, and well, what happens if the guy picks up the phone and says hello, well, now you seem like a How silly, right? No, no, you can't address the guy by her name. You'll have to ask him. Oh hey, can I talk to whoever is in charge of shipping? ding ding ding wow, I don't want to talk. to this guy or this girl, so this is where sales intelligence comes in, so you know before you know a phrase that you can use or a strategy that you can use with those gatekeepers, what you can say before you transfer me.

I would like to know the name of the person who manages this or that thing before I transfer. Give me that name. So you'll want to make a mental note. You may not even know it. There are times when you may not even want to talk to that person. right now, but you want that person's name because then maybe you'll try to find their email or look up information about them on LinkedIn and then call them back, so there will be times when you have that. The information can be extremely valuable and you don't necessarily want to talk to them and that's a really simple strategy to do it right.

There's a section here that we're going to talk about, it's called screening tips and voicemail. There is always this great debate. I left a voicemail I didn't leave a voicemail? How many voicemails do I leave? What do I say? How long should it last? And you know, for me, you know, I don't think there's no perfect answer, there isn't, you're not. I'm going to put in your information, you're not going to come out of this with some message that I'm going to give you that will work all the time, it just doesn't exist, right? You know, if you want. have someone call you back and tell them you are an IRS

agent

.

I don't know if they'll be happy that they're okay, but at the end of the day you know you're going to get the call. I just do not know. I think it's yours, they'll be happy about it, so you know one of the things is not to get lost in the Bermuda Triangle phone system. Has anyone ever gotten trapped in the Bermuda Triangle phone system? Raise your hand well, that's why it's up. here because it happens to everyone when you call large organizations, you usually know you're going to talk to someone and since they have a ton of calls going on they just want to transfer you as quickly as possible, it doesn't necessarily mean they want to send you to the right location , they just want to get you off their phone so they can move on to the next call on the next call and whatever else they have going on, so if during that process you notice that maybe you don't quite understand where you want them to ask you questions.

Don't get transferred, transferred and transferred again. You are wasting your time. You know one of the keys that you know as a sales manager in the past and just as a business owner that I've struggled with. The goal is to get people to request higher-level decision making in the organization regarding the products they sell. Most salespeople want to start here and work their way up. You're probably making your job that much harder. It's starting as high as you can, so if you work from the top down, even if that's not the person and they don't necessarily want to talk to you, you can be transferred as a perfect example.

Here I was talking to Karen for Mr. . Jones and felt that mr. Smith would be the correct contact at the pond that I can talk to or talk to, so what I said before does not lie or imply that mr. Jones said anything about you wanting to or should buy from him. Don't lie about it. Don't exaggerate too much. Don't embellish it. You know that being transferred from there should be enough to get people's attention. One of the things I used to do. do all the time all the time I make a living doing this, instead of almost every phone system, you can see where the calls are transferred from, you know the person or the department office, you can see it, so one of the things What I used to do was call one of the executives, whether it was a vice president or a CEO or someone who could get their extension or their name or get to their office and then when I got to them I would say, "oh, they ".

They sent me to the wrong extension. I'm sorry, can you transfer me to Joe and logistics or Joe and transportation and then that call would come from the CEO's office or the VP's office and you would see it come in and then? They usually answer the phone and at that point they pick up the phone and they're not necessarily the CEO, but I would at least call them on the phone. I didn't do that on the first few calls. that when I couldn't get through to people on the phone and I didn't, it wasn't a common practice, it was just when my normal routine or strategy wasn't working well, so that's just a little tip you could employ when you're struggling to call to someone you really want to talk to on the phone, that's fine, but be prepared to dance at that point because their expectations are a little higher and than just an average call, yeah. yeah, some other things, tips, you know, another big tip is to go to other departments.

You know, I was just giving you my example of going to an office of executives coming down from an executive suite or C-level or president or vice president of sales, going to another one. department, this works particularly well when the evaluator is not authorized to name names. Do you ever call a company and ask who the transportation manager is and they say, "Well, we can't, we probably can't give the name if you don't know." I can't even transfer the person's name to you. I have called companies that said if you don't know the contact's name I can't send you to a department.

I can only communicate if you know his extension or know his name. I'll transfer you, I think I don't think it's very good customer service, it's a company policy, but I don't control their policies, so all we have to do is remember their chests, they're not ladies right, we have to figure it out . We have to find a way to win, so one way to win is to get it, although you almost always get transferred to sales. Why do they think you are going to buy something good? So they transfer you to the sales department. Ask for someone in sales.

I'm almost always happy to talk to you, in fact, if you want to talk to someone you know and you're bored, just call the sales department of almost any company, they'll be happy to throw up on you. all their products and all the crap they have to offer, that's fine and the way to do it is, you know, say something like hey, I hope you can help me. I'm not in the right department and I hope you can point me in the right direction. I'm Joe with so and so you know I'm looking for the name of the person who handles your logistics or shipping, the sales staff will almost always give it to you, okay, they will almost always give you that information and if you ask more questions the right way and ask the questions the right way, not like a court martial, but build them into a conversation, you will get a lot of sales intelligence and a lot of information about that person before the call, which could be very beneficial how long they have been with the company they are really decision makers you know hobbies things you know things about them you'd be surprised if you could get that information do you think any of that could be valuable when you're talking to someone on the phone for the first time and you're trying to make a huge, absolutely good impression.

Huge, look at me. I would never call him after getting the name. I would immediately go to LinkedIn and find it on LinkedIn if I didn't find it on LinkedIn. I try to find it elsewhere online and I would with any of you and I have been on sales calls with many of you. It's different for different reasons at different times and one of the first things I do. when you tell me who the person is, I go to two places, where do I go, Dana, where do I go, when, when you and I do a sales call together, where are the two places I go and number three is our database? consider making that phone call, taking that phone call, or doing anything with that phone call until you go through all those notes and all that information, okay, so I suggest you do the same thing so that you gather that sales intelligence from another department. can really help you achieve it. those filters because once you know that person's name now you can ask for their name, you can also get their extension and many times they will even give you their email, their email address, okay another tip you know not that it's a little bit different is listening to the entire voicemail if you go to someone's voicemail, okay, and you keep getting someone's voicemail over and over again and you can't call them on the phone, listen to the entire voicemail because sometimes that voicemail may contain Nuggets, particularly if it changes, they might talk about the fact that they're on vacation, which might be helpful to know when they get back that they were on vacation, they might talk about them, whether they're working from another location, They could talk about them working. from home today I could talk about it I could even give you another phone number to contact them I could give you an email address and give you a series of things so that something as simple as that doesn't hang up on the voicemail listen to the voicemail until the end because sometimes there are nuggets in there, not always, but sometimes there are nuggets next, you gotta be prepared to leave a voicemail, face it, you know it's the world we live in, people hide behind voicemail What are you going to receive? a lot of voicemail, okay, so you have to be prepared to leave a voicemail, okay?

And what I mean, I don't mean just leaving a voicemail, I mean, you got it, you got an interesting sound, you can't be a robot, you know? you have a convincing sound you have a sound like you want someone to sound like they left you a voicemail you would call yourself and in most cases the answer is no because you've never really listened It's so funny because some sales people don't They speak differently when answering a voicemail than when someone answers the phone. I don't understand it, it's like a psyche, for some reason I don't automatically know. when you answer the voicemail, they go into robot mode and sound like a robot, but when they talk to someone on the phone they will be very dynamic.

I don't know why, I just realized that over the years sometimes it's like they hear that message and it sounds monotonous so all of a sudden they become monotonous and you know it and they're very boring about it it's not convincing. It's not interesting you know you are if you go to leave a voicemail it has to be convincing it has to be like a convincing opening that we're going to talk a little bit about okay worst case scenario don't leave a voicemail If you're not ready, just hang up the phone. It's better to hang up, gather your thoughts, get your head together, get a little organized and then call back and leave a voicemail than it is to leave a voicemail that no one would answer and no one wants to hear.

What I told you, I talked about this a little bit before, if an evaluator asks you questions, he better answer the questions honestly and not be evasive, you'll get a lot more cooperation from him. I can tell you that the people who are paid to screen and screen their organization's phone calls get very upset when they let calls go through that shouldn't have gone through, so they get quite upset when someone tries to sneak in, you'll usually get a a lot more cooperation just by telling them the truth and you know that by building a little bit of a relationship with them and giving them a compelling reason, you're going to get a lot further, you're going to get a lot further, so you know. something like let me explain why I'm calling we work with companies like yours to help them save money on their logistics you know you're doing everything you can to try to get her to call in sick hey I know my company wants to save money.

I know logistics is always one of those problem areas we have. The boy looks like a boy or a girl. Seems nice. You know they're not trying to elude me. Maybe I will. Maybe it will hit them. a little bit of information maybe helps them, you know, and then obviously asking for help is always the critical part, that's how we start, so a few more things and then we're going toto conclude this piece, another tactic that is very simple, but most people don't do it and I found that it has worked very, very well. When you leave a voicemail, you also leave a live message with a secretary, so you leave a voicemail.

Okay, you'll have a really compelling voicemail message and well, maybe it'll be a follow-up conversation and there you go. good sales intelligence about what you were going to talk about on that call. Sometimes it's difficult with the first call. true, because you don't have a lot of information, so it's hard to craft a compelling statement, but maybe it's a follow-up call and you have some really good information, some really good feedback, some really good ideas, something really meaty that you want to share with them. and you leave a good voicemail message and then instead of just leaving it on voicemail, you call and leave it with a live person too, if you can, sometimes you can, sometimes you can and leave the voicemail voice saying something. as hey, i left a detailed message for mr.

Jones on how I could do this or a couple of ideas that I had that I wanted to share with him that I thought might help, so in addition to leaving the voicemail, leave a physical message and action, okay, it's pretty simple , but sometimes it's the difference between getting that call room back or not now this is a strategy I've never used, okay, but it's a strategy I thought was really interesting. I read an article a while ago about a guy who did this and a seller who started doing it. This strategy was the one you read here, dear Mr. prospect my name is Tom Smith and I work for a company called dynamic logistics on May 15th I spoke, by the way, this is an email, ok, I spoke with Jennifer and Jennifer and she suggested that I speak to you about what we do here.

I tried to contact me. you on four separate occasions and so on the reason for this email is that I am worried that I have done something wrong and this and that this is the reason why you are not returning my calls, hence the title of the advanced email Sorry if I have done something wrong. I would like to know so I can correct it. If you want to talk to me, call me or email me now with comments on this article. Again, I've never done it. I implemented this, but I thought it was interesting because you really have two options: you can keep hitting that voicemail and hitting that voicemail and hitting that voicemail and try to catch them at the right time, which we all know can be difficult and painful.

You know, it's not that fun or we could take a little different strategy. I didn't see anything wrong with this. I thought it was an injury now that I do this all the time, no, but if it was someone I really wanted to get in with. contact where I thought I had a good level of engagement with them before that and for some reason I can't get through to them on the phone. I would do this. I would use. I would try. Will it work 100%? % of the time no, but if it worked 30% of the time it took an email, you're not going to send this email more than once, you send this once, that's it, if you improved your odds by 20 or 30 %, that can mean a lot of money in the door in the sales game, a lot of money, okay, so it was an interesting idea that I wanted to incorporate into anyone, you know what I don't think about at work all the time, I do.

You'll work a small percentage of the time, you'll force some people and you'll say, oh, you know, I feel really bad, you know, at least I'm going to call this guy back. I'm not saying that the ending is clear. The end result is going to be different, but you know you have to be in it to win and what I mean by that is you have to be talking, you have to have a certain level of conversation to get somewhere right, so I think. It's an interesting tactic, I think it could work, and again, you can customize this however you want, it doesn't have to be just an example, so there's a really important part of the equation here.

When you talk about selling over the phone, you know that up to this point everything has been about trying to get people to communicate properly on the phone and we've spent the last half hour or 45 minutes talking about

strategies

on how to get people on the phone, That's a big struggle now, what do you do when you have them there? Well, most people don't do a very good job, so let's try to improve that a little. First, these are the things I want you to avoid and never say please okay, and the reason I want you to avoid them and never say them is because this is what all the amateur salespeople say and if you want to sound like an amateur and you want to sound like every other salesperson who calls these people and you don't want to differentiate yourself, say what's on this screen right now, okay, it's a sure way to get a lot of rejection and just put yourself in the crowd of Everyone Joe Shock salespeople are fine so things like "I'm calling to talk to you" "I'm just calling to talk to you" or I just wanted to get in touch with you or I wanted to see if there's anything you need that isn't horrible. but I still think there are much better ways to have an opening statement by calling to see if they get my information.

Come on guys, please never do that. I mean, spend five minutes thinking of something better to say than that. never ever be your opening okay never let that be your opening before you have that opening call me and I will personally help you develop an opening okay before you use any of these openings okay I wanted to introduce you to my company wah wah wah wah wah, they don't care, that's fine, they would like to schedule a time to meet, well that's a little presumptuous, the problem with that is that it's a little presumptuous, you call me and say that, and I tell you who you are, you haven't earned it.

I take my time seriously and I'm a little tired because I get a lot of sales calls, so I'm inundated with salespeople calling me all the time and any of you who were in my office when I took one of those calls. I'm not a very nice guy, okay, and I'm not because you know I have to be like that and so you know I can relate to the person on the other end of the line, you know, regarding their frustration in talking to the people. sellers. squashed and they all sound the same and then about one in 50 I'll say I mean approximate numbers.

I mean, not very often one in 50 will surprise me with something interesting at the right time and I'll actually talk to them and I and the problem is when I talk to them I end up buying it, that's the problem, that's why I don't like it talk to sellers, I'm just a natural buyer, I want to buy things I don't like. I know I don't want to be sold to, but I love to buy, so if you ever want to sell me something, just skip the first five minutes of your spiel and if I can still hear you, I'm probably going to buy.

Okay, so that's just a personal note, but these are all opening statements that I want you to avoid like the plague, please try not to use them. Okay, in the first half of this, in the first, let's call it the first third of this, okay. training we covered some of the key components that were okay, there are actually too many we talked about how to get in the door we talked about being prepared we talked about tips for passing checkpoints and voice messages and now what we're going to do is we're going to get into a little more meat and potatoes and one of the most critical components where we left off was what not to do in his opening statements.

Well, so we talked a little about that now while we're at it. I'm going to talk about opening rules, tips and ideas, ideas on how to make a proper opening statement, so when you're making an opening, when you're making an opening to any call and this is not just an opening to a call in cold or a first call, this is an opening of each call in the process. Well, you need to think about your opening for each call throughout the entire sales process. Right, and you should personalize that call for each person in each circumstance.

When we're dealing with that, there are only two main goals: Number one is to put them in a positive frame of mind. Okay, you want them to be positive about the information and the fact that they're going to spend at least five or ten minutes with you. I want them to feel good about that, okay, and secondly, you want to move them to the question portion of the call, so that's all you're trying to do in the introduction. Okay, if this is a follow-up call you're going to make. connect this call to the previous follow-up call, so you'll say something like call to continue our conversation.

I would like to continue where we left off. You know it's a continuation call, so you'll need to customize it. that on your follow-up calls and then if it's a follow-up call, you'll remind them of your interest that we discussed this or that topic, challenge, problem or idea, okay, so you want to remind them because sometimes it's not the next day. most of the time it's not the next day most of the time it's the next week or it's two weeks or it's three weeks, someone ever had prospects they thought were really interested and the next thing you know it's a month later , You have not done it.

I talked to him again, they took a lot of calls, a lot of water went under the bridge during that time, if you don't cover that call very well in the opening, it's just another cold call, so you have one. I have to save that okay and it's very important that you can do it well so one of the critical things that I see salespeople missing is that they know that they have value added points on every call, you know they have a tendency to it goes into this mode where you know your first call sounds like this and your second call sounds like this and the third call sounds like this and it becomes very scrappy and very robotic, we'll call it, you have to find value in your goal.

It's finding value in every call, if you don't do that, you run the risk of just being shut out, you know? I compare sales, whether over the phone or face to face. face to face like in a football game you kick it and field it, let's say you are at the 10 yard line when you receive the ball and in your first decision your goal is to get to the 30 yard line if you get up to the 30 in that first call, it was successful on the next call, you have to take it to the 50, if you don't bridge the call very well, you could be starting at the 12 yard line if you bridge it very well, as I mentioned. you could be at 25 and now you can take a little momentum get to 45 or 50 and the next call and so on the most difficult part of football is what it is not the kickoff return not between the 30 and the 30 it is inside from 20 to the right, that's the hardest part of sales.

Okay, you know, this is an opening, you know, this opening is really critical and when I throw this opening, just oh, this is my cold call opening or this is my presentation opening on a presentation call. No, on every call you need to think about what your vacancy is and you need to add and provide value. Okay then, examples of how to provide value, be prepared with useful news, ideas and information and how some of your customers are making the most of it. Take advantage of all the things it has to offer. I gave a perfect example.

Yesterday I was talking to one of my clients and I thought of you. It's a big transition. One of my new clients was very excited about our client portal and I wasn't. I don't think we covered that in our last call. Did you know that you integrate some of the benefits? You can integrate that into vacancies. It's okay, in particular, to have a follow-up call. Obviously, it's not necessarily an introductory call. Okay, be proactive. you know, even if you sent the literature, the price, don't ask if they received it, just assume they received it and read it, if they didn't they will tell you and what you have to be ready to do is you have to be ready what I always did was this because I always knew they turned out well I didn't have time to review the information or I didn't get the email I had everything ready to forward it right there because I know they're in front of their computer, oh great, I'll send it to you right now and sooner , even before, as soon as they said it, even before they said, oh, it was playing on their computer and Sometimes I could even hear the Outlook message that pops up, there it is, so it was right in front of them, so now There are no excuses why we can't spend five minutes reviewing it.

Now it's short anyway, just give me five minutes because I want him, I mean, I want to talk to him about it. I don't want to take the risk of waiting another three days or five days or weeks or months before we have a chance to talk about it. Okay, so be proactive. I'll tell you if they don't have time, don't worry, they'll tell you, but if you add value, if you lead with value, you're more likely to get time if you don't lead with value, I guarantee that. You're going to have very little time and you're going to be on the clock, you have 60 seconds, time is up, okay, so you know things like I'd like to review the rate proposal that I emailed you.

Use words like discuss or analyze. or check if they don't have it on hand, no problem, be prepared to send them some more tips. This isan interesting idea. I understand I read another article recently and they used the term weasel words. and I thought I wasn't quite sure how to take that right, but let me put it in context and the context was: have you ever had a salesperson? Has the salesperson ever called one of your prospects and said I can? show you how to do this and that guaranteed that anyone has ever received or taken a call like that yeah, what's the first thing you think of when that guy or girl how soon you get a chance to pause?

I don't want to talk to this guy, he's a liar. No, I just did the first thing that comes out of my mouth I say, I don't need it, I don't need this right now, because they're overreacting, they're selling themselves too thin, they think that's what I want to hear, that's not what I want to hear. I want to listen I don't want to listen guaranteed you don't even know me how you don't know my problems you don't know my business you don't know my budget you don't know my no I don't know if I'm the one making the decisions, for God's sake, okay, so you know the people who lead.

So. I don't believe in that much and I am and am a guy who leads with the chin when he sells, I hang up. It's out there, sometimes they hit me. I just have a tendency to win more than I lose, so what he found was what then, in weasel language, were things like I could do it or there's a chance or depending on what you're doing now. you know, so you go, you're giving them an honest evaluation, you know I can really help you, there are no guarantees, I even said there are no guarantees, but it doesn't hurt to find out more information about this.

It definitely won't hurt you so you can make a smart decision. Well, one of the last tips we're going to talk about here is to tease them with the results. Well, people pay for results, they don't pay for features and benefits. I hate to break the news to you, but if you spend all your time talking about the features and benefits of LDI and they tell you this and you know I can, I can guarantee you that you will lead a very frustrating and maybe not as profitable existence as it could be if you start focus more on results, so ultimately the only reason people will consider listening to you is if they feel like you might have something that will help them get something they want or help them avoid. something they don't want now that's a very powerful statement, you have to think about that, okay, the only reason people are going to consider listening to you, listen to you, not buy from you, remember we're not even in the buying stage, OK?

We're not even there, yes, this is a path in the future. I'll make them listen first. That's okay, the only way they'll be willing to listen to you is if they think you might have something that will give them something. They want what's in it for me, right, that's the most important thing for whoever you're talking to or helping them avoid something. They don't want a call from an angry customer or their boss or HR with their pink slip, okay, so answer this. Ask yourself what your potential customer wants most and what they most want to avoid when it comes to logistics and transportation services.

So what do you want most? Well, this is a different twist. So, what do you want most? He wants to look good. to their boss they want to look good to their colleagues they want to look good to the people who sit in front of them they want to look good for the next review the next promotion the next promotion right, maybe they just want to look good because they want to get a little bit of you You know, feedback from people in your organizations a little bit of recognition, right, it's huge, you want to know the secret to winning someone's heart, winning a customer's heart, making yourself look good, discovering a way to at all costs and make them look good to their boss eat very powerful why most want their job to be easier less stressful absolutely without a doubt yes, they want someone trustworthy, we talk about that a little yes, they want you to be responsive, TRUE?

They want to know that you are accessible, that's important, they want to avoid wasting time, yes, you're right, they are busy, yes, they want to avoid change for the sake of change, right, they want to avoid change for the sake of change, change. It's a might be a four letter word in some people's vocabulary and lastly, it has a significant benefit behind it, right, it's easier to maintain the status quo than to take a risk and change once you figure out those pieces and we've talked about it. about them. I hope you can take some notes or you'll be able to see it on the replay of this video.

Once you have those desires and the ones you want to avoid, those are the things you need to integrate into your openness. things there are the things that you want to integrate and weave into your opening, whether that opening is the first call, the third call or the tenth call, you want to integrate those pieces into your opening because, just like you know that someone's name It's the sweetest music to their ears, what they win is the most important thing they want to talk about, okay, so you really want to incorporate that into your opening, so the next section is titled how to create to create interest, interesting interest, how to create.

Create interest every time with your opening. Sorry, I wrote this and I don't remember what it says, so here are some ingredients or some strategies and tactics on how to create a compelling opening. Well, the opening is by far the most critical part. from your call, your vacancy needs to meet several objectives, it needs to be number one, identify it, number two, let them know what's in it for them, we talked about number three, you need to engage them, okay, the same way I'm trying to involve you. involved in this

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right, you need to get your cell phone, you need to engage your prospects in the conversation, if you're talking and they're just listening, you're in big trouble, you're not going anywhere fast because number one is they don't listen, okay, they're half listening, you'll probably hear them typing on the keyboard or talking to someone else, or you know if their phone clicks, you'll hear them texting, whatever they're doing, they're not listening to you, so you have to involve them, okay, you have to involve them in the process, okay, and remember that your goal is not to sell or ask for a decision on this vacancy, you are not trying to sell them or ask for a decision, your goal is to put them in a state positive mood, moving them to question, sell or ask for a decision at this stage is a sure way to discourage them, okay?

So this is a process, you play baseball, you get up to bat, you hit the ball, you can't run to the second first, you can't run to third, you have to touch first and you have a touch on second and you have a touch on third and hopefully you can make it home somewhere along the way, you might get kicked out, that's the sales. how it works, but first you have to knock first and this is the process, so you have to treat sales like it's a process. Okay, and that's what I'm trying to share with you here.

This is a process. Three key components are discussed below. Identify yourself Secondly, let them know what's in it for them. This is by far the most important part, so answer these questions. There are three questions you want to answer. What your prospects want most in life. We've talked a little bit about that. what they want most in life, what their prospects want, nothing now, they must think about it from two perspectives, the company and the person, secondly, what they want to avoid and how they are with respect to the other third question, how they are evaluated.

At his job, Kerry mentioned that he wanted to look good to his boss. How are they evaluated at his job? Has he ever asked any of his clients how most salespeople are evaluated? Isn't there a process and there are probably some metrics? some kind of how you measure a transportation or shipping manager sure new opportunities new business for the company sure it would be a great idea if a transportation manager came up with that they would probably get a big pat on the back for it, so reduce the complaints so that the percentage of complaints is correct.

They want to talk about what their percentage of claims is and the dollar value of those claims. What else? Pick up on time. Give on time. What are some other metrics? Customer satisfaction probably measured by repeated complaints about business returns. short payments on your bill employee turnover safe employee turnover if they have a group of people working with them employee turnover as a direct reflection of your department so I urge you to ask that question to all your clients now that you should bring it into the conversation, okay, you can't just come out and say you know you have to do it, you have to be a little soft adding it in there, but you know, ask him, say, hey, when was the last thing you knew about a good way to do it?

When was the last time you had a review? Oh, I haven't had a review and God knows how long you've been doing this. Is there a way for you to know that the company measures your performance well? Yes, the only thing they care about is money. How do they measure that? You could tell me better what they do is look at what we spent in this quarter last year or what we spent per mile on this or some metrics that they will have to measure the spend per pound. or some kind of cost per unit, okay, ask that question and then find a way to make them look good, if you can do that huge, huge, huge, huge, answer those three questions and people will listen, your answers should be results-oriented, so don't do it. do the feature benefit lead shit okay there's a time and place for that it's not very often hopefully you'll get here in the next part a way to sell that's better than selling feature benefit people by results, so that should be in your opening well below here are some examples of opening well, hello sir.

Jones, I'm Joe Smith, with dynamic logistics. I'm calling you today because we specialize in working with food and beverage companies and have been able to reduce their late pickups and deliveries to customers by up to 20%. Well now you are speaking my language what is the alternative what most brokers say which is the good one come on everyone has worked with different brokers what is the worst opening they have ever heard. I'll tell you mine. I can save you money. Okay, that's not the worst. It is not. Very good, but not the worst. What frayed. I can move it.

That's right at the bottom of the barrel. What else are you working on today? Yeah, that's pretty weak. Yes, you know what it is. It's lazy. That is what it is. It's just lazy. people don't want to strain their brains they don't want to think they don't want to be strategic they just want it they just want it to be easy they want it to be easy it's not easy to be successful in sales I'm not It doesn't matter what industry you're in, it's just not easy for the industry automotive, you know, if you're in the financial services industry, if you're in the software industry, you know that a lot of our different backgrounds are not easy, so don't try to make it easy, you can make it easier by being smarter, but It won't be easy, but the key is not to be lazy.

Another thing is that I'm calling you today because we specialize in LTL truckloads and LTL consolidation and we've been able to save our customers over 25%. Okay, you're speaking my language. Alright. There is a reason. There's a weasel language there. It doesn't say warranty. He says up. You know, that means up. I could say five. It could mean three, it could mean 15, but some of them have saved up to twenty-five. I have it here. There is a very simple one, it is better that if you turn to something else other than what you are afraid of, I can move or what you are working on.

Well, today I have some ideas that I would like to share with you on how we could do that. It is easy. Use something like that because if you're going to provide some insights, it means you're going to provide value. right, you have to provide value, you have to provide the added value, okay, these are some examples of some openings that