Sales Protocol Interviews Sales Leader
Recently, a successful sales maven spoke with Sales Protocol International about cold calling, moxie, rejection, and fear of failure.
Q: What is your secret to successful cold calling?
A: My success to cold calling is attitude. Your tone when speaking to a potential client is extremely important. Whether you believe it or not, individuals can tell what type of day you’re having by your voice. Believe in yourself and what you are trying to provide to the client. If you do not have both, find a new line of work, place of employment or both. These are necessities.
Ask any sales professional - you also have to have a certain "moxie". Find your "sales personality", everyone’s is different. Listen to your peers and take bits and pieces of what best fits your personality. Again, if you are uncomfortable or unsure of what you are conveying to the client, they will sense it.
Q: How do you deal with rejection?
A: Rejection is part of life. The perfect job you didn't get, the girlfriend that dumped you (not me personally ;). A good company will be very service oriented in the age we live in now. No one company provides a product or service that you can not get from someone else. This is part of your success; it is also a part of a sales person’s demise.
Emotionally we are in a taxing environment. In order not to "burn out" you will need a balance between you personal and profession life. Find something that will make you forget about the bad day, week, month (you will have them no matter how good you become) you have had. Recreation, sports, family, find a way to "relax". It is clique but, it has merit “Work Hard, Play Hard.”
Q: What is your sales and business background? (Were you trained in sales, or did you learn on the job?)
A: I grew up work for a family business as an auto mechanic. After I graduated from college I took a short drive to C.A. where I fell flat on my face after just a couple of months.
I came back to New England and found a job at a small telecommunications company providing business telephone headset and audio conferencing phones to those great telemarketers that call you during dinner. It was an inside sales position in a cube with a headset on dialing away. I was provided informal sales training from the owner who was self-made.
I still value his opinion to this day 10 years later. Extremely savvy individual with "street smarts" and a great sense for business. He taught me that people buy from people they like and trust. Pssst...write that down.
Communications to communications technology. Business Telephone Headsets and Conference phones to Video & Web Conferencing and Audio Visual Integration. I usually met with "C" level executive decision makers. One of my "claim to fame" clients was Compaq (now HP). I provided videoconferencing, solution to then a fortune 500 company worldwide. Interested to know how I was able to win the account from AT&T? Tenacious cold calling and extra attention...
Q: What make you successful in sales overall?
A: Responsible, Resolutions, Solutions, Assistance, Availability and Attitude.
FOF-Fear of Failure.
AA- Above and Beyond: Separate yourself from your competition. Always show that you and your company can better serve the clients needs. Key to this success....you need to follow through!!!!
Have a story to tell? Contact us at salespro@salesprotocol.com