SMOOTH-TALKER

PROSPECTING; A GAME OF CAT & MOUSE.

PROSPECTING; A GAME OF CAT & MOUSE. Prospecting sales scripts. Prospecting and getting new business is a game of "cat & mouse."  The problem is that you've got to be “more cat …. and less mouse” to get ahead.  

 

How does the current generation of salespeople view the selling methods and tactics of today's business world? Some people refuse to give up their ideals thinking that the methods they learned a long time ago are still is valid.

 

A typical refrain is “I know everything there is to know about my business.” Most people can't remember “all they use to know” anyway.

 

Some salespeople don’t prospect at all and think that other forms of marketing will be sufficient to capture new prospects.

 

WHAT BUSINESS ARE YOU IN?   Business sales people and professionals have to know what business they're really in. Salespeople are not in the “widget” business, they're in the “selling” business.  Salespeople are usually a walking encyclopedia of product facts but they only have a limited knowledge about selling techniques.

 

THE REAL REASON WHY. What are the real reasons that a salesperson gets a new prospect? Are they better at making contact with potential prospects or is it because they have a better product? Who is calling on your next potential customer? If you're not, someone else will and there's a good chance you'll never know how proficient your competitors is.

 

THE BUYER WHO HAS NOT BEEN CONTACTED.  It's difficult to find buyers who have not been called or contacted. It’s hard to find a business prospect that has never received  salesperson’s telephone call for the purpose of selling them something.

 

HIGH PRESSURE TACTICS. There are no more suckers and there are few gullible people out there. They have been conditioned by years of high pressure attempts. There's a small but limited amount of prospects who still respond to slick salesmanship and high pressure tactics.

 

INFORMED SPECULATION.  Some sales managers and sales trainers would interpret advertising and marketing media channels as “informed speculation.” Which methods of getting new business is most effective in 2008. Most companies and professionals market their products and services the same way as they did 20 or 30 years ago.

 

 

NEW SALES & MARKETING TECHNIQUES.  There has been several new methods added to a professional marketers arsenal. The Internet, Blogs, and advertising on websites are just a few examples.  They treat new ways of getting business as insignificant instead of a bona fide way of getting new prospects.

 

BUSINESS PRINCIPLES OF SELLING. How many business sales people, CEO's, business trainers, and sales managers base their entire philosophy on these popular but untrue beliefs? They cite strategy and tactics that are no longer relevant to today's business world.

 

THE 80/20 RULE.  You’ve heard of the 80 / 20 rule that states that 80% of your business is generated by 20% of your clients. Let’s challenge that assumption. What business, industry, or profession could exist based on that presumption. It's been disproved so often that it amazes me that modern business professionals still believe it.

 

TELEPHONE SALES CALLS. Top management still believes that everyone gets a dozen pesky irritating sales calls several times a day. This results when someone gets two calls in a row and to them it seems like a dozen. Because the boss gets called by a few salespeople, he thinks that every businessperson does.

 

So it goes, management has preconditioned the salespeople to think that they are making irritating calls also. It’s time to put obsolete thinking to rest. Maybe it’s time to read a good book.

 

Exerpts from my book:  “Smooth-talker, How To Write Your Own Business Script”  by Richard Bliznik.

Smooth-talker Business Scripts publishes scripts for business sales people and Real Estate Agents.

 

GETTING NEW BUSINESS? IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!

IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE. The business world is and always has been a super competitive environment. There are simply more business's today then ever before competing for business.

 

 

With the financial meltdown and the desperate state of the economy, it is difficult to increase sales and build business. It’s hard enough to maintain the business you now have. Woe to the company who doesn't have a trained staff capable of prospecting for business.

 

 

AN ENDLESS SEARCH. Companies, sales managers and professionals are searching every option to get new business and it has become a competitive battleground for reaching potential customers. You wouldn’t be in business today if you were really satisfied with your sales and marketing activity.

 

 

WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, ARE YOU READY. The window of opportunity opens for those who consider new ideas and are willing to look at anything that will get them new business. The trick is to find the tools that work before anyone else does, before it's too late to do anything about it.

 

 

SOLUTION AND CHANGE. “You don’t know what you need until you find it.” Small companies want the ability to complete with large companies. Large companies would like to match the personal service of the small companies. They both want efficient, consistent, and affordable sales tools to reach their goals.  Something must change.

 

 

Heraclites said; “In changing we find purpose.” When a change occurs problems will inevitably arise. Almost every change is going to be perceived as negative. A new selling tool is perceived as a change.  Today, it is not an option.

 

 

THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX? Management and business “gurus”  say to think outside the box. They can't even say what thinking “in” the box means.

 

It’s an overused saying that has very little meaning. They throw words at the problem while no one does anything about it. Management dodges the bullet and waits to see what happens rather then face difficult situations.

 

A savvy businessman knows that some salesperson, somewhere, is probably talking to your potential customer. At this stage of the process, knowing how and why they got there is of great importance.

 

 

Getting salespeople to prospect is a constant battle, but it can be done. Perhaps it is because they don’t know or forgot what to say to a prospect. Could business scripts help?

 

Exerpts from my book:  “Smooth-talker, How To Write Your Own Business Script”  by Richard Bliznik.

 

Smooth-talker Business Scripts publishes scripts for business sales people and Real Estate Agents.

 

SELLING AND BUSINESS HAS CHANGED WITH THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN.

BUSINESS HAS BEEN GOOD…. UNTIL NOW. The mortgage mess and the melt down of the financial world has caused a recession, (some would say it’s a depression) and the economy is in a nosedive. Market share has become impossible to predict let alone maintain.

"It’s harder to stay at number one than it is to try and become number one."  Business can’t depend on existing customers for their survival, therefore business prospecting for new potential customers has become far more important.

EVERYONE NEEDS AND WANTS NEW BUSINESS.  Business productivity gurus are all preaching that “every business sales person and professional must prospect.” The underlying problem is that people they really don't know or can’t remember what to say. Perhaps they forgot what to say because business has been on a roll for the last 6 or 7  years. It’s like starting all over again.

THERE’S NO EASY SOLUTION ……. BUSINESS SCRIPTS CAN HELP.

1. Sales trainers and business people are always looking for a magic potion, the miracle way to get new business effortlessly without prospecting.

2. Business development people and sales people have become novice’s when it comes to actually getting new business prospects.

3. Business scripts and Real Estate scripts are hard to come by. As much as they would like a solution to their problems, there is no quick fix.

BUSINESS CONDITIONS REQUIRE YOU TO PROSPECT.  Generating new business is critical and has changed life in the business world. A whole new kind of savvy business person with prospecting skills to ferret out new prospects has evolved. Business prospecting has resulted because of fierce competition . Life out on the streets is no different then it always has been although prospects are more resistant then ever.

BACK TO BASICS. If advertising isn’t working to build business, maybe it’s time to go back to basics. That means telephone prospecting calls to new potential prospects even though it is the hardest thing to do in the business world.

SALES MANAGERS AND TRAINERS HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY. Sales managers, sales trainers, and business sales people have the responsibility to know about the latest technology systems and tools that involve business development.

Top management should know what the key elements of making a sale are. They should know but do they really? Knowledge is power when it comes to business survival. We can’t afford to make mistakes. That’s what we've heard and since the turn of the century, …. the year 2000 that is. All business is in the process of change. Embracing change is a constant.

DEPENDENT ON ADVERTISING FOR BUSINESS.  Today's business person knows that you never change a winning strategy; you always change a losing one. It sounds like "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but it's a lot more complicated than that. Business development that settles for merely being adequate goes against today's thinking. There's no room for mediocrity.

Exerpts from my book:  “Smooth-talker, How To Write Your Own Business Script”  by Richard Bliznik. 

Smooth-talker is a publisher of business scripts for sales people and Real Estate agents.

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT TRAINING SALESPEOPLE

THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT TRAINING SALESPEOPLE AND REAL ESTATE AGENTS.

I learned a lot about training salespeople over 25 years as a sales trainer.  I was a Real Estate broker and owner of a Century 21 real estate franchise in Farmington Michigan.

Our training program was designed to take individuals from all walks of life through pre-license training to be a competant professional real estate agent.  They were trained in "all" aspects of real estate.  That included not only the technical things they were expected to know but how to be a real estate salesperson.

There were certainly a lot to learn in a relatively short period of time. The average real estate agent receives their training (after a pre-license class and they get their real estate license) during one-to-three months of intense training. They must learn the intricacies of listing a house, marketing a house, legal, financial, building codes, and all of the things relevant to the purchase and sale of a home.

On top of that they must learn how to be a "salesperson."  They must learn appraisal techniques and how to search for homes using the multiple listing service.  They must also become experts on the neighborhoods that they service. Then comes the part of the daily activities that a real estate agent must do.  

1. There is "soooo" much to learn. Maybe too much. 

2. They can't help but forget most of what they learned.  Unfortunately, no one single thing is repeated often enough to become permanently remembered.

3. A new salesperson is given nothing in the way of prospects. The broker doesn't always trust them with a first rate buyer or give them a listing / seller.  They must generate their own prospects.

Therefore they must learn how to prospect.  Learning how to prospect can take months if not years to get it right. 

This is what I learned .....

"A salesperson can't remember what to say when making a prospecting telephone call."

And that's why I wrote the book; ... "SMOOTH-TALKER, HOW TO WRITE YOUR OWN BUSINESS SCRIPTS FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS"

and I alse wrote prospecting scripts for; 1. EXPIRED LISTINGS  2. FORECLOSURE/NOTICE OF DEFAULT  3. FOR SALE BY OWNER.    There is also a version for; "BUSINESS TO BUSINESS, SALES"    

How to write a business prospecting script.

SCRIPTWRITING PLANS & OBJECTIVES.

Writing a business script is complicated task. The complexity of planning and writing it is mind boggling.  It is uncharted water for most people. A lot is said about the need for scripting in the business world but very little is actually done about it.

Thousands of books have been published about selling, marketing and business development. They contain some terrific dialogue about selling. Reading them gives one a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the subject that the author is writing about.

Unfortunately, specific dialogue and all the good stuff is buried among the pages. Very often a valuable piece of dialogue is hidden in a story about business development.

If we had a photographic memory and the ability of instant recall we would be invincible. In a perfect world we too would be perfect but unfortunately we are just frail human beings doing the best we can.

WE HAVE A LOT TO SAY.

We already have a lot to say, we just need something to rely on when our conversation needs a few guiding words.  Everyone has learned the generalized dialogue to be used in a business conversation but rarely refine every sentence they intend to say.

You’re not alone, everyone is in the same boat because there is no formal education available and there are no real experts to learn from. It overcomes the natural human feelings of always avoiding rejection.

PLAN WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO SAY TO A PROSPECT.

“If you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't matter which direction you're going.” If you don't have a plan, your efforts will not be channeled in any one direction. Not having a plan for what you want to say may result in an eloquent speech, but won't get you to your objective. You must determine the results that you expect.

Ask these questions:

1. Who do you call upon to prospect and sell to?

2. What is the main objective when calling? 

3. Do you want an appointment or to sell over the phone?

4. Will you close the sale over the phone or establish awareness?

5. Is it necessary to build a relationship based on thrust?

6. Is the purpose to provide the prospect with favorable information about the company, product, or the salesperson?

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES   

Your objective is a very clear statement of where your business comes from. From there you determine your target market and who will buy your product. The total amount of information is endless but your ultimate goal is to end up with it condensed into 48 pages of scripts.

KNOW YOUR TARGET MARKET. 

The target market consists of people and companies who are likely to buy your product. A company may be a classified as target and the person in charge of a buying decision is the contact.

"CALLING COLD TURKEY" ... ALWAYS PLAN EVERYTHING.

Don’t call a prospecting call (cold turkey) without a plan or without knowing what to say. A prospecting call is really a sales presentation planned and organized from beginning to end. A salesperson who that makes a mistake then offers an excuse for it has made two mistakes; one they know of the mistake and the other is trying to justify it.

IT HAS TO BE YOUR PLAN.

It has to be your plan. The overall goal of your individual sales effort should be planned according to your needs and circumstances. There's a huge difference between words written to get a new prospect and those that are used in a business plan. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and to a marketing plan, everything looks like potential prospect. There's a lot to consider before you pick up the phone. Think before you speak.

Excerpted from Richard Bliznik's book; SMOOTH-TALKER, How To Write Your Own Business Script.

 

WHY PROSPECTING IS AVOIDED.

HUMAN NATURE WILL NEVER CHANGE

You can't change human nature. Human nature hasn’t changed in thousands of years and never will. People will react the way human nature dictates. They respond automatically and instinctively instead of logically.

It is essential that you understand the elements of human nature that drive people.  We live in a business world of combativeness, hostility, and a take no prisoner’s mentality. Prospecting and meeting new people is fraught with anxiety.

THINKING POSITIVE IS NOT THE ANSWER.

Positive thinking exercises have great value but are no substitute for the real reason that people don't prospect.  Positive thinking will not alleviate the fact that fear is caused by what others say to us. It’s become a brutal arena for doing business. There is stress on both prospects and salespeople.

Salespeople all want to “pick the low hanging fruit” and the easy prospect, but no amount of positive thinking will make that happen. Fortunately, when someone does get a call from a polished professional, they’re appreciated because of the comparison alone.

YOU MUST DEAL WITH ANGRY PEOPLE.

“Once burned & twice shy” is a prevailing attitude when it comes to prospecting by phone. When we’re new in sales, we don’t have any fears, “bring it on, I can handle anything & anybody.

” Were we ever surprised? Little did we understand how many angry people we would encounter? When we make a sales call we often run into people who get upset easily. After a steady diet of rejection a dark pall of vivid memories descends on our subconscious.

When it’s time to make calls, the pain starts. Oh no! Here it comes again, dry mouth, white knuckles, stage fright, mental block, shakes, perspiration, and on and on. The inevitable reaction is to retreat, avoidance behavior, and flight from fright.

HOW TO TREAT CRAZY AND NEUROTIC PROSPECTS.

Psychiatric studies have shown that up to 20% of adults are, to some degree, neurotic. On any given day you're probably dealing with at least one out of five prospects that you contact, who live their own neurotic world.

The problem is not that they have a mental disorder; the problem is how do you "handle" this type of person. The answer is; "very delicately." Just as you can't argue with a fool, trying to make sense of a neurotic persons reasoning is a "fool’s journey."

Like everyone else who has to deal with them, they will baffle and confound you unintentionally. The neurotic person defies logic and will get a well-meaning person to "buy into" their irrational thinking. Don't get suckered in when engaged in a conversation.  Usually they don't mean to be that way, but, are controlled by "neurosis" that neither they nor anyone else can explain.

IT’S THE “WORDS” YOU USE.

The question then becomes is how do you handle an angry neurotic prospect and still do business with them.  Great care should be taken with the things that you say to them. It’s the words you use that will determine if you can effectively communicate with them.

Exerpted from “Smooth-talker, How To Write Your Own Business Scripts” by: Richard Bliznik Copyright© 1996-2007.

ATTITUDE TOWARD PROSPECTING.

ATTITUDE TOWARD PROSPECTING MUST CHANGE.

“Only the strong will survive” in a competitive business environment. True enough, but just what constitutes “strong.”  Knowledge, skill, and preparation are the attributes required for strength in business. Even athletes need more then physical strength to be competitive.

THE MORE THEY PROSPECT, THE MORE THEY HATE IT.

When prospecting for new business, the longer a salesperson has been doing it, the more cumulative bad experiences have occurred. The irony is that instead of getting better at coping with people's bad behavior, they seem to let  negative human emotions pile up.

SALESPEOPLE AVOID CALLING AND BURN OUT MAY RESULT.

A lot of things start to happen when this occurs that may result in burnout, coasting, and disenchantment. They run the risk of avoiding calling, the very things that generates their income. They are constantly asking whether their prospecting skills good enough.

YOU SEE "GOOD EXAMPLES OF BAD ATTITUDES."

You see good examples of salespeople with bad attitudes all of the time. If you want to know how your salespeople approach a prospect, you could plant a “ringer” among the prospects to be called and you can record them. You'll find out whether they make the call in her first place as well as the methodology used in speaking to the prospect.

SALESPEOPLE HAVE ATTITUDE PROBLEMS AND NOT JUST SKILL PROBLEMS.

Just fix the problem with people’s ability to say the right thing and the problem will be solved. Of course this sounds like the obvious thing to do. The simple fact is that it is “easier said then done.” If it were easy, everyone could do it. We wouldn’t have this problem if there were a simple fix. If sales training could teach it, we could solve many of the problems. 

THEY “WING IT” RATHER THEN PLAN EVERY WORD.

The fact is that most everyone has a general idea of what they intend to say in any situation, but spend little or no time thinking and writing out every word in advance. When it comes to prospecting, it’s an unforgiving world.

IT'S HARD TO CHANGE SALESPEOPLE 

Salespeople resist change. It’s not a matter of going back to basics, they didn’t master the basics to begin with. Some people think they know everything they need to know. “I’ve come this far with what I know, so why should I change.” Prospects don’t care about your old-fashioned ideas or where you learned them.

Sadly, they don’t know what they don’t know. Ignorance is bliss. If salespeople would only learn the principles of writing a sales script.

SALESPEOPLE LET EMOTION OVERCOME LOGIC.

SALESPEOPLE LET EMOTION OVERCOME LOGIC.

Sales people cannot let a few antagonistic individuals ruin their most valuable source of business. Salespeople get upset and overreact when treated rudely. Logic reminds us that we tend to dwell on the few bad people that give us a hard time and forget about the many good people we meet.

HURT FEELINGS AND HOSTILE TREATMENT.

Salespeople avoid controversy and hostility. They can't stand conflict. The subconscious is more powerful than we realize. Often a salesperson unconsciously feels they’re not prepared with the right things to say to a prospect.

SALESPEOPLE TAKE IT PERSONALLY.

The reality is that potential prospects don’t harbor any more ill will toward local professionals and business people then they did before the proliferation of phone prospecting. That would be true unless you sound like a telemarketer and say the same things they say.

LOW THRESHOLD FOR PAIN.

Fear makes us a coward. It is a fear of conflict and disapproval to which it is easier to retreat to a comfort zone protected from hostilities where we are safe. We rationalize and have thousands of excuses to avoid the possibility of appearing to have a weakness. Instead we just don't prospect. For those who can't take conflict, the answer is to blame the prospect for being unreasonable We take the path of least resistance by not picking up the phone and making a prospecting call.

NO PAIN EQUALS NO GAIN.

All salespeople want to hit home runs but how often is that possible. The old saying “no pain equals no gain” applies to prospecting because there’s a certain amount of discomfort involved prospecting. There’s simply no way to expect to score every time you go up to bat. Sometimes you’ll hit a homerun, but more often than not, you get a base hit. It’s the base hits that bring in the runs; it just takes a little longer.

If I Knew Then, What I Know Now.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now..... I Would have done it. It may be a cliche, but it's the truth.  Although you can’t  change history you can at least learn from it.

If I were in do it over again, there’s a lot of things I would do differently. If only I had:

              Studied harder.

              Worked harder.

              Worked smarter.

I would be much further ahead in life.

I would have to give the nod to working smarter if I were pressed to choose one of the above. Working smarter means you are forced to learn those things that will enhance your career and profession.

DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW.

From my early  twenties, it was the things I did that set the pattern for my life. The foundation I laid was basically sound. Not much different than anyone else. I went to college (the seven-year plan) got a job at General Motors, and then decided to go into business for myself.

BUSINESS PEOPLE MUST KNOW EVERYTHING.

That’s when a person is really put to the test. It seems you have to know a little about everything: the principles of your business or profession, managing people, accounting, finance, marketing, sales, and a whole lot of business practices.

YOU GET OLD TOO SOON AND SMART TOO LATE.

It seems like you had to learn quickly or else. Everything was a learning experience. It took 15 or 20 years to have the wisdom to know what you don’t know. Therein lies the key to success.  Work smarter!

I WOULD LEARN TO SPEAK BETTER

I would learn how to be able to speak in public and I would learn how to prospect to get more new business. By being a better speaker, you can talk your way into or out of anything. At least you can fake it.

NEW BUSINESS

Being good at generating business guarantees that you’ll be successful at whatever business or profession you choose. In order to get new business, you must be able prospect. You have know what to say and that can be learned. You just need a little help.  I’ll help you with what to say. Stay tuned.

HOW TO PROSPECT FORECLOSURES

PROSPECTING FORECLOSURES.

IT STARTS WITH THE NOTICE OF DEFAULT.

The prospecting process starts as a result of the homeowner receiving a Notice of Default. It is a legal notice filed with the county of records declaring that (usually) three payments have not been made and that the lender intends to force the homeowner to forfeit the property. Obviously making a prospecting call to the homeowner is the next step.

Even though making contact is difficult because the homeowners are embarrassed and do not want to talk to anyone about the problem, a sales script would help you. Quite some time before a the sellers received a Notice of Default, there are telltale signs that the sellers are in trouble. The lawn shows signs of neglect and maintainance if often deferred.

3 MONTHS TO SELL THE HOME.

You only have the opportunity to sell the property for 3 months (6 months in some states) from the time the owner receives a notice of default. The clock begins to run. The advantages of having the listing is that you have the inside track with the bank or lender because you should have had contact with them during the time that the mortgage was in default. 

HOW DO I KNOW WHO TO CALL.

There are many sources of getting a list of the Notice of Default for a given area. Title companies have been a mainstay for receiving information about them. Try to get them as they are published because it becomes a foot race to see who gets there first.

A LIST OF FORECLOSURED PROPERTIES.

When a home goes from it’s owner to a foreclosed property owned by the bank, a list of foreclosure is the next go around for the real estate agent.

DIFFERENT KIND OF PROSPECTING

There is an entirely different set of procedures for prospecting the lenders and banks. It is closer to a “Business to Business” script in that you will be dealing with different departments, managers, assigned personnel and the secretaries of each.

A PROFESSIONAL SCRIPT.

Does there exist a professional script that I can buy that will help? We just happen to have a company that provides them.

There is a script for real estate agents called “Smooth-talker for Notice of Default / Foreclosure.” There is also a script called “Smooth-talker for Business to Business” which will work until we can produce a specialized script, “Prospecting Lenders and Banks.” 

CHECK US OUT.

Our web site is:  www.smooth-talker.com    There is a dash, “-”  between smooth and talker. More to follow.