Do you find yourself using
the phone less in selling? Regardless of your answer,
many of your competitors are saying yes to that question. Fewer salespeople are actually picking up the phone and
truly calling prospects, and this is your opportunity to stand out. The phone is still one of
the most powerful tools that we salespeople have in our arsenal. Whether you're cold
calling, calling is part of a prospecting campaign,
following up on referrals or calling established clients. The approach really
shouldn't change that much, but what you do in those
calls really, really matters. In fact, the data suggests
that over two-thirds of salespeople are actually doing things in the selling situation that
actively hurts the sales. Don't let this be you. Plus, in a world where more
than half of a salesperson's day is spent not actually selling, the phone becomes more and
more distant for so many. In this video, I'm going to
show you nine really easy phone sales tips to close way more sales. Check it out. Number one, don't wait to get motivated. Just pick up the phone. I remember when I first started
selling and I would have to make around 50 to 100
dials every single day. I'll never forget the
feeling in those first couple of weeks, how heavy
that phone actually felt, and so I would come up with
every single possible excuse that I possibly could to
not pick up that phone. I would go get that extra cup of coffee or I would check that email
or I would have a conversation with someone right nearby,
I would do anything I could to just avoid picking up that phone. What I was really doing was
waiting to get motivated, and I think what most
of us have discovered is that when we wait to get
motivated, it never comes. What we need to do is
just pick up the phone. The most successful people,
regardless of whatever their profession is or
whatever they're great at, the most successful people don't wait for that motivation, they just get going. They don't have to be in the
mood to do it, they just do it. So just pick up the phone. Number two, set a daily dial goal. I cannot tell you how
many salespeople I know who will block out, let's
say, an hour of time to make calls, but within that hour, they really have no specific goal of how many calls that
they actually wanna make. And when I say calls, I
mean literally dials, right? How many phone numbers do you dial? And again, the reason
that we even track dials in the first place as salespeople
is because that's really the only thing that we can
actually control, right? We can control, of course,
how much time we allot to making calls, but the problem is is when we only focus on
how much time we allot, we could end up making
five calls in an hour because we're dilly-dallying,
taking our time, just going really
slowly, but when we track the number of dials that we're making, that's something that
we can truly control. What I find is, of course, it
depends on what you're selling and whom you're selling
to, but most salespeople are capable of making anywhere between 15 and about 30 dials an hour. And that, of course, assumes
that most people don't pick up. Maybe a couple people actually do pick up. But throughout that time, what we're doing is we're really committing
to the number of dials as opposed to the amount of time. So in my schedule, if I'm
to say to block out an hour, what I'd really do is instead, I would say my daily goal is going to
be let's say 20 dials today. Other people, it may be 100 dials, but focus on the number of dials
and not the amount of time, because ultimately, the
number of dials you make is going to connect directly to the number of appointments you set, the
number of sales you make, and thus, what you actually
make at the end of the year. Number three, make it a game. You know, so often, salespeople think of the rejection that exists in our space, and as a result, they
get really discouraged. But the reality is is that
when we pick up the phone and we call someone and they're
not excited to hear from us, in fact, they are annoyed
by us, and they curse at us or they say something really mean or they just hang up the phone, or they politely get off but we know that they're just trying to get rid of us, most people unfortunately
are taking that rejection very seriously, but it's not serious. They don't know you. They
don't know who you are. They don't know your family. They don't know anything
about you. Sales is a game. Imagine if every time a
little kid plays soccer, you know, community league
soccer, and every time they lose, they're crying and they're pouting. The reason that that's
happened, of course, is because they're taking it more
seriously than it should be, and that exact same thing
happens to us as salespeople. We can't take this stuff that seriously. I remember when I was first
learning to make dials and I was having good mentorship and what I would do is if
someone was getting rude or snippy with me on the
phone, I'd get playful. I would really make it a game. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it would necessarily
turn that specific call or interaction into
something more positive, maybe it did, maybe it
didn't, but what it did is it made it so that way, every rejection just rolled right off my back. It doesn't matter. Make it a game. Number four, call really
early and really late. This is such a simple, simple tip, but it is so incredibly effective. Let me ask you a question. When do you think the
majority of salespeople are making their dials
during the course of a day? If you said something
like between 10 and 11:30 and/or 1 and 3:00, then you're right. The majority of calls from salespeople are made in those times. It's often, in a lot of
organizations, that is call time. That 10:00 or so to 11:30,
or in the early afternoon. The problem is is that this
is when most salespeople are making calls, and as a result, not only are prospects
receiving more sales calls during that time, but it
also just happens to be the time when they're really, really busy. And so what I challenge
you to think about is, when can you be making calls
when prospects are both not being bombarded by other salespeople and when they're not really busy? And the reality is is
that if you're calling really early in the morning or really late in the afternoon or even
evening, your prospects, who are typically
higher-level folks who are true decision makers, they're
gonna be in the office. A typical CEO gets in the office at around 6:30 in the morning. They don't typically
leave til 8:00 at night. And yet when is the gatekeeper there? The gatekeeper is there from 8:30 to 5:30. So call outside of those hours and you're going to get
through the gatekeeper, you're going to be associated
with a lot less clutter, and of course, you're
more likely to catch them when they're not bombarded by people walking into their office and overwhelmed. Call early and call late. Number five, avoid the sales voice. Now, this is so pervasive in our industry, where you ask a salesperson, "Do you use "an overly enthusiastic
voice when you make calls?" And they typically say, "No,
no, no, I sound normal." And then I listen to them make a call and they sound something like this. "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak
calling, how are you today?" If you were the prospect
receiving that call, what do you immediately assume about the person making that call? That they're a salesperson. What I have discovered
is that salespeople, when we go into making calls, they're very typically going to increase the cadence or the pace of their speech, so they're gonna speak more quickly, and they're going to go
up a couple of octaves. And what we want to do
is avoid that completely because we don't want people,
when they pick up the phone, to assume that we're a salesperson. We want them to think, you know, this just sounds like a
normal, genuine person. Avoid that sales voice. Lower the tempo, lower the pace. And by the way, one of the
best things that we can do to really make sure that we're
not using the sales voice is to just record your
own voice during calls. This is really simple, so
you don't have to record the whole call, so there's
no disclosure issues because what you're gonna
do is you're just gonna use your iPhone or your Android,
and I just want you to use the audio recorder to record just the sound of your voice so you don't actually have
to hear what's going on in the call, you're just
hearing your own voice. I guarantee you're going to
find is that you are using a pace and a cadence that
is not entirely natural. Instead, what I want
you to sound more like is just low-key and genuine. "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling. "Did I catch you in the
middle of something there?" That's the kind of pace and volume that I want to hear from you. Avoid the sales voice. Number six, pattern interrupt. This is one of, I would argue,
the most powerful concepts in selling, and it's something
that people just don't spend enough time to think about. And so my question to you is,
what do the first six or so seconds of your typical
sales interaction sound like? Let's say it's a phone call, cause that's what we're
talking about right now. What do the first six or seven seconds of your phone calls typically sound like? Most salespeople can't
exactly answer that, right? We typically go more off
the cuff and the opening and then we may structure
out what happens later on, but we're not really thinking about, how are we starting that call? The data suggests that
prospects are deciding whether they want to
continue a call with us in the first seven seconds, and so we need to fully map out what that sounds like, and that's where this
idea of pattern interrupt comes in because what we wanna do (snaps)
is break the pattern. We want them, when they're
picking up the phone, to suddenly wake up to
something different. If you're starting your
call with a typical, "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak
calling, how are you today?" You're typically going
to turn that person off and they're gonna go right
into their typical pattern, which is to treat you like a salesperson and try to get you off the phone. So, in fact, the role play that I just did a minute or two ago in the
previous point is really pattern interrupt because it's
breaking what they expect. So what I challenge you to think about is, how can you script your
first seven seconds in a way that they're not expecting? My approach would be something like this. "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling. "Did I get you in the
middle of something there?" Now, time out for a second. I'm not gonna completely analyze that because we don't have
the time in this video, but what you'll notice is that it was a different approach from
what they would've expected. I'm breaking the pattern. They expected me to be
smooth and polished, I was actually slow and almost
a little bit hesitant, right? And so they're thinking to
themselves, "Is this a salesguy? "Is it just someone else? I don't know." Pattern interrupt. Number seven, have a contingency. Contingencies are one of my favorite and most fun things in
sales, and what I find is that it's actually pretty ninja. Most salespeople, when I
teach them contingencies, they get really uncomfortable,
and so let me explain what a contingency is and
then I'll give you some ideas. A contingency is when
you call up a prospect and they're really busy
and they're actually trying to get you off the phone in the first couple of seconds of that call. What is your contingency? It's almost what you do,
it's what your plan B when plan A doesn't work. So you call someone and you say, "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling. "Did I catch you in the
middle of something there?" And the prospect returns with, "Actually, yeah, you did. I
don't have time right now. "Can you call me back in a week?" Now, what do you do at that point? Contingencies are that plan
B and these take some guts. They really take the ability
to be bold and step out there. Typical salesperson is just gonna say, "Oh, of course, yeah,
thank you so much," right? Get off the phone. But the ninjas, the sales ninjas are gonna have that contingency in place. My contingency in that
particular situation might be something like, "You know what, George, "I really appreciate you saying that. "Would it be okay if I
just took 30 seconds, "told you why I was calling,
and then we can decide "if it makes sense to hang up? "Does that sound okay?" Boom. Contingency. Now, is that gonna work all the time? No. But I have a couple of
contingencies in a row that I would put together in a call to make sure that I'm ultimately at least getting the first 30 seconds of the call. And those work most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. Have a contingency. Number eight, get them talking. Now, we don't have time in this video to lay out the entire script of a call. In fact, there are other
videos that I've put together laying out really what that
script should look like, but getting them talking is
so important to a sales call because I want you to imagine
what the typical prospect is experiencing during the
receiving end of a sales call. They answer the phone and the
salesperson on the other end is saying, "Hey, how are you doing? "I want to tell you about my company, ABC, "and we've got this incredible product." What do you think that prospect is doing while they're on the phone? Let's say they have their
phone to their shoulder and they're on the phone. They're going back because
they've just determined that this is a sales
call, they're going back into typing that email
or reading that report that they were just
looking at a second ago. And so they're letting
the salesperson talk because of just being polite,
but they're not engaged with what the salesperson is saying. So a truly effective salesperson
is going to have something in their sales call that's
going to engage the prospect in a conversation to get them talking, because once me as the
buyer or as the prospect is actually talking and
engaged in the conversation, now, it's really difficult for me to continue reading that
report or writing that email. You need to engage them
in the conversation, suck them in so you get them talking. So you want to have
questions in your calls that sound something like, "Does that make any sense
based on what I'm saying?" Or, "Does that ring true to you?" Right? We're sucking them
into the conversation. Get them talking. Number nine, always
closing for the next step. Always closing for the next step. Now, research from one of
my favorite organizations, Gong.io, who uses artificial intelligence to analyze sales conversations and compares to the conversations that really work versus those that don't, and what they found is that
effective sales conversations, the salespeople are spending significantly more time discussing next steps. Now, I think we always
knew this instinctually, but it's the first time that we actually from a specific data perspective, that next steps are so important. And what next steps means
is that we never are in the business of saying, "Oh, you know, "how about I call you back in a week?" Instead, it's, "George, do
you have your calendar out? "Let's schedule a next step to make sure "that we avoid that back and forth "and that we get each
other on the next call "where we can review
what we discussed today." Always close in for that next step. So in an initial prospecting call, what you're closing for is typically that next scheduled meeting, right? Whether it's face to face
or WebEx or by phone, whatever it is, what we want to do is always be closing for the next step so there's never a point
in the sales process where we have that wishy washy, I'm not really sure what's coming up next. Always close in for that next step. So there are nine really
easy phone sales tips. I want to hear from you. Which of these ideas did
you find most useful? Be sure to share below
in the comments section to get involved in the conversation, and if you enjoyed this video, then I have an awesome free e-book on 25 tips to crush your sales goals. Just click right here to get it instantly. Seriously, just click right here. Also, if you got some value,
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