Category: Cold Calling

Sales Skills for Reluctant Salespeople — A Portland Networking Event

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be speaking at the Katie Kelley Networks Fall Soiree in Portland, Oregon on Tuesday, October 7. My topic:

Sales Skills for Reluctant Salespeople

Date: Tuesday, October 7

Time: 6:00-8:30pm

Place: Opal 28, 510 NE 28th Ave, Portland, OR 97232

Register here

Questions: contact Katie Kelley at Katie@KatieKelleyNetworks.com or call (503) 616-6112

Sales Skills for Reluctant Salespeople
Photo by Nanagyei, Creative Commons

Whether you’re a rookie seller paid on a formal commission plan, an entrepreneur struggling to find customers, or you’re  just trying to get your small business to the next level, knowing how to sell can be the difference between hitting your goals and shutting your doors. I’ll give you some techniques to battle call reluctance, strategies to handle rejection, and some ways to make sure you’re fully prepared for that crucial first meeting.

Doors open at 6 pm for networking and mingling. Light food is provided as well as a cash bar. The formal presentation as well as audience announcements takes place from 7:00-8:00 pm. You then have until 8:30 to introduce yourself to anyone whom you haven’t yet met and the event comes to an end at 8:30. Street parking is available.

Tickets can be purchased in advance here.

If you have any further questions about this event, contact Katie Kelley at Katie@KatieKelleyNetworks.com or call (503) 616-6112.

The Katie Kelley Networks Fall Soiree

Katie Kelley Networks brings together a premier group of Portland’s male and female business leaders from the corporate, civic and entrepreneurial realms to collectively raise the bar for networking done right. The only prerequisites for attendance are a love for business and community building. At these events, you will enjoy a jovial cocktail party atmosphere, expand your local network and learn fresh business skills. What’s not to love about that?

Girl Scout Cookies Online — Good Entrepreneurship, or Sign of the Apocalypse?

My son Tyler won his Cub Scout Pack wreath-selling championship three years in a row. He did it the old-fashioned way — by personally calling his relatives and parents’ friends, and personally touring his dad’s office every year asking for the order. His younger brother Ryan followed that up by winning the Pack wreath sale trophy twice more.

The most innovative technology they had available to them was the telephone.

So it was with great interest that I read Newsweek’s article on 8-year-old Wild Freeborn, a Girl Scout in North Carolina. With her father’s help, Wild set up an online cookie sales operation, complete with YouTube video.

In a short time, she received 700 online orders for cookies. And, of course, other parents complained to the authorities. It turns out that the Girl Scouts prohibit online cookie sales.

There are several conflicting interests at work here: There is a great deal of value in teaching kids how to sell face-to-face or on the phone. That’s a skill that, if learned properly, will serve them all their lives. And some issues of fairness exist as well, since some families don’t have access to the technology that would allow online sales.

The other side of the argument was offered in the article:

“First of all, selling things online is no less safe,” says Peter Fader, a director of the Interactive Media Initiative at Wharton, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania. “And if we want to teach our kids to be able to operate in society as responsible adults, online savviness is going to be part of the overall portfolio.”

In addition to losing a teaching moment, Fader says the Girl Scouts are missing out on a sales opportunity. “It wouldn’t even be a transition—it’d be an expansion,” he says, noting that the program could allow cookie sales online through personal Web pages hosted by area councils. With some troops reporting sales down by as much as 19 percent this year, getting online would be a simple step that could invigorate the locally minded fundraising goals of the program.

My kids are long past their wreath-selling years, so I don’t have a personal rooting interest in this. But I’m interested in your thoughts.

Should the Girl Scouts, and other fundraising organizations, allow online sales? Why or why not?

Please leave your thoughts in the comment field below.

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2008 SalesGenie Ads — I Think They’ll Work

Time to follow up last year’s post on the SalesGenie Super Bowl ads.

To start with, a note so that you don’t think I’m a complete boob: I hated them. Poor animation. Ethnically insulting, bordering on racist. Not even remotely clever.

And yet…

I think they’ll work. And by “work”, I mean bring in enough business to the company that the seven-figure ad buy turns a profit for them.

The first-quarter ad actually told a story that could resonate with salespeople — a failing seller is threatened with loss of employment, signs up with SalesGenie, and wins Salesman of the Year honors. It answers a question that many sellers are asking — “How can I double my sales?”, cleverly typed by the seller into Google. The answer? SalesGenie.com.

It’s got a clear call to action, with a reward that will appeal to salespeople and managers — go to SalesGenie.com and get 100 free leads for every rep in your company.

The second ad — the one with the pandas — told a story that seemed less clear, but the call to action was there with the same reward.

Neither ad was an artistic success. But as the economy goes south, there is an increasing demand among salespeople for anything that might give them an edge. Even if the tone offends them (and I suspect there’s a segment that won’t be bothered at all), they are likely to hold their noses and give the company a shot. I’m thinking SalesGenie may win the only award that counts.

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Free Book Alert

If your business involves sales of any kind, the Internet is your best friend. You can now walk into an initial call armed with a remarkable amount of information on your prospect — industry trends, personnel moves, product lines, and more.

The Internet can be an even better friend if you know some tricks and shortcuts to get to the data you need. Sam Richter, President of the James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul, MN, makes his living helping people find this information. He’s working on a book called Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling — Web Search Secrets for The Inside Scoop on Companies, Industries and People.

Near as I can tell, the book hasn’t been published yet (Chris Lytle’s newsletter tipped me off to its existence without mentioning how to get it, and a search of Amazon, Powell’s and Barnes & Noble came up empty), but a little digging got me to a web site where you can download a working draft.

The site says that the draft contains about 50% of the tips that will be in the final version, so you’ll still have to reach into your wallet to get the whole thing when it’s done. But there’s a lot of really useful information in the draft.

For example, I’d never heard of Yahoo’s Site Explorer feature, which breaks up your target’s site into subdomains and lists any sites that link to it. Go to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com, plug in a URL you want to research, and watch it go to work.

Free is a very good price for the draft version, and I’ll be shelling out for the real thing when it’s ready.

One note before you hit the “Print” button, though — it’s 127 pages. Go easy.

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