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Welcome to another episode of Sales Made Easy! In today's episode titled The Art of Calling we are diving deep into the world of making phone calls and how to navigate them with finesse.
Our guest, Christine Harrington, brings her expertise in transforming objections into opportunities for success. We'll be exploring the importance of acknowledging objections, recognizing when they are just excuses, and learning how to respond with gratitude.
From crafting a concise introduction to rehearsing like a professional comedian, we'll discover the strategies that can turn sales calls into lucrative deals. So sit back, grab your notepad, and get ready for some invaluable sales wisdom!
Christine is found here:
linkedin.com/in/christineharringtonsavvysaleslady
Complimentary Coaching Session https://christineharrington.com/
Thank you for checking out the Sales Made Easy podcast brought to you by Selling With Dignity.
I'm your host Harry Spaight and bring to you some 25+ years of sales and sales leadership experience in the hyper-competitive arena of office technology sales. I will be chatting with business owners and sales leaders that share their insights about growing their businesses and topics that will be of value. I will sprinkle in a little humor where we can fit it in because life is too short not to have a few laughs along the way.
Look for me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/harryspaight/ and you can download a few chapters of Selling With Dignity here: https://sellingwithdignity.com/the-book/
Jump on my calendar if you want to talk about one of your challenges www.harrychat.com
Start out with just one call. But before you
Speaker:pick that phone up to make a call, write out a
Speaker:script. Recorded in your voice memo on your iPhone.
Speaker:Listen back how you sound because that's
Speaker:how the prospect will hear you. I even to this day,
Speaker:Harry, I'll practice 10 to 15 times before I
Speaker:pick that phone up. I'm warming up my voice.
Speaker:Everyone, what is the good word? Today with me, I have Christine
Speaker:Harrington, She does a lot of good things in this world for
Speaker:small businesses, helping them make calls
Speaker:It's one of the things that a lot of people dread and Christine is going
Speaker:to help us to get through that today. So Christine Harrington,
Speaker:welcome to the sales made easy podcast What's the good word?
Speaker:Hey, Harry. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a real
Speaker:honor to be with you, and The good
Speaker:word is you have to practice
Speaker:when you're selling. Oh my goodness. There is
Speaker:so much that you just said right there about
Speaker:practice. I can think of one time
Speaker:to kick this off, I was to make this very
Speaker:important call, and I bumble through it
Speaker:completely stuttering and stammering. And then I
Speaker:just hung up the phone, and I was new on the sales
Speaker:job. My managers looked at in horror, and he says, you should have
Speaker:hit pound. And I'm like, what does pound do? because I didn't know. And he
Speaker:says that will allow you to erase what you just said. I'm like,
Speaker:Well, they're gonna have a fun message. So, yes,
Speaker:practice. So talk to me, Christine. What is it you do? because we're gonna
Speaker:get into that and how great you can help people and stuff. But
Speaker:what is it you do and what yeah. Just let's go with that.
Speaker:Okay. So I have 4 decades in
Speaker:selling, mostly insurance corporate insurance
Speaker:sales. So back in the day, my businesses
Speaker:can is will be ten years old. So back in the day, I
Speaker:would have brokers and producers come to me and say, how are
Speaker:you getting into these large groups,
Speaker:large businesses to sell group benefits. And so I started coaching them on
Speaker:my
Speaker:strategies. So I thought, why am I giving
Speaker:this away for free? And I transitioned into
Speaker:a a business platform
Speaker:of sales coaching and training. The cracks of that,
Speaker:Harry, was at the time I was with principal insurance
Speaker:aid company, the principal insurance company,
Speaker:my dad was in hospice dying, and my boss wouldn't let me
Speaker:off work. to be with my dad when he was dying.
Speaker:I had 4 weeks vacation wasn't allowed to take it,
Speaker:and she said I could see my dad before work or
Speaker:after work, and I said I am not letting my dad die alone.
Speaker:I tied up all my work, my desk, I
Speaker:tried to appeal to HR, to her boss, kept getting the same
Speaker:message. So I tidied everything else, and I left.
Speaker:My dad died 2 weeks later, and I was by his side,
Speaker:I told him I took 2 weeks vacation.
Speaker:So I didn't want him to know anything. So
Speaker:after that, My dad was my buddy, Harry.
Speaker:And he taught me to love football, and I
Speaker:watched football every Sunday with him Bart
Speaker:Star and Vince Lombardi, the Green Bay Packers. So
Speaker:so that puts me way back. Oh, that's
Speaker:great. And so as a result,
Speaker:I decided that I was gonna start my own coaching business
Speaker:because I had producers calling me saying what happened to you? Where are you?
Speaker:Tell me how you got such and such deal. And so I started my
Speaker:own sales coaching and training business, and it's now
Speaker:a decade long. And, of course, I
Speaker:do coaching, I do training,
Speaker:and I also do cold calling
Speaker:for small businesses because Harry,
Speaker:as you know, everybody hates cold calling,
Speaker:and I happen to love it. But
Speaker:during COVID, when all my workshops were shut
Speaker:down, because they were all live in front of people, I had to do
Speaker:something to make up that revenue So I started
Speaker:reaching out to small businesses and co calling for them. Oh
Speaker:my goodness. So you live what you preach
Speaker:Yes. Yes. Which is really cool. So where do we
Speaker:start with this? What's the big challenge or what are some of the
Speaker:challenges that people have with making phone calls?
Speaker:Well, the biggest one is call reluctance. So
Speaker:they they it's like this phone or their
Speaker:desk phone weighs a £1000.
Speaker:And they they will give them every excuse
Speaker:under the sun not to make those calls. Yep. And, of
Speaker:course, you have heard that cold calling is
Speaker:dead. Now it's not dead. Oh,
Speaker:yeah. Cold calling is dead. -- times. Yes. Right.
Speaker:Right. And, really, what the people that say
Speaker:that, what they're saying is they're lousy at co calling. So it is dead to
Speaker:them. Yeah. and I used to be, Harry, I
Speaker:was the worst co caller ever. I was embarrassingly
Speaker:bad. And I decided that if I was
Speaker:gonna survive, I was gonna have to learn how to
Speaker:cold call. It took me about a year,
Speaker:about 2 decades ago to really understand well, actually
Speaker:longer than 3 decades ago to really understand how to
Speaker:co call and how to be effective when co calling.
Speaker:Yep. Yeah. The call reluctance
Speaker:is is definitely a a thing. And people of
Speaker:course, they're hearing all of this negativity that cold calling is dead, but I
Speaker:think people even struggle on making very warm
Speaker:calls. Oh, yes. Yes. They just don't wanna
Speaker:interrupt people, and they don't wanna appear pushy. So it sounds like you
Speaker:agree with that. So What's what can people do? Let's
Speaker:just start there. Let's start with how can we
Speaker:help people just make some calls that
Speaker:are actually pretty warm and that might
Speaker:generate some business quicker sooner rather than later. What's your thought with
Speaker:that? I always tell people, I coach people. If you
Speaker:have call reluctance, just make one call today.
Speaker:That's it. Just make one call.
Speaker:And depending on how that call makes, if you feel like
Speaker:making another call, make 2 calls.
Speaker:Tomorrow make one call. So, start
Speaker:out with just one call. But before
Speaker:you pick that phone up to make a call, write
Speaker:out a script. You're not going to sit and
Speaker:read the script. You're gonna write that script out, and
Speaker:you're gonna practice at 10 to 15 recorded in
Speaker:your voice memo on your iPhone.
Speaker:Listen back how you sound because that's
Speaker:how the prospect will hear you. Mhmm. And that's so important
Speaker:for you to know how that prospect is gonna hear you.
Speaker:I even to this date, Harry, I'll practice 10
Speaker:to 15 times before I pick that phone up. I'm
Speaker:warming up my voice. Mhmm. I'm getting in the mind
Speaker:set. I'm getting in the rhythm, and so then I
Speaker:engaged the phone. So it's just like
Speaker:a football player would never go cold and on the
Speaker:field to play a game. They always have their
Speaker:warm up first. we as salespeople
Speaker:need to put ourselves in that elite position
Speaker:because that's what we are. We're elite salespeople.
Speaker:So even the best salespeople
Speaker:practice. It's beautiful. And I
Speaker:and for those who don't agree with you, I'll tell you
Speaker:that I used to joke around on the first
Speaker:calls I'd make in the morning. Because I would call somebody, I
Speaker:would butcher the call And then after doing this a number of
Speaker:times, I said, you know what? I should start a list of the
Speaker:people who are unfortunate enough to get my first call of
Speaker:the day and start all over those people because I
Speaker:bet there's opportunity there if I was halfway decent
Speaker:instead of butcheering the the pitch or
Speaker:whatever I was trying to do on the call. So, yeah, that makes
Speaker:perfect sense. Well, even last week, Harry, when I was
Speaker:cold calling, I made a call. I had
Speaker:a call coming in on my phone at the same time. I
Speaker:got distracted. And when when the decision
Speaker:maker picked up, I totally fumbled the whole
Speaker:thing. And I started laughing.
Speaker:He started laughing. He goes, well, shall we do this again?
Speaker:Oh my goodness. So gay. So, yeah, when
Speaker:you screw up, just own it and make fun of it,
Speaker:make fun of yourself, and I gave him a good
Speaker:laugh. I had a good laugh. It's so like,
Speaker:people are just regular people. When they sense
Speaker:that you're a regular person, they give you the chance. That's
Speaker:exactly right. I love it. I remember coaching a young
Speaker:sales rep one time. And he says, I'm really
Speaker:struggling in making calls. And so I I had the little sarcastic wit
Speaker:from the northeast who I grew up with. So he makes a call, and it
Speaker:was terrible. It was indeed terrible. And I said, how feel about that call? And
Speaker:he says it was terrible. I said, yeah, it was terrible. We're laughing about it.
Speaker:because here's one. How about we call the person back and say that the last
Speaker:call was terrible, can I get another chance? And he did.
Speaker:And sure enough, it went perfectly. Right? Because the person was
Speaker:laughing on the other end. They probably never had that happen
Speaker:before, and it's just like, hey. Life is short. Let's have some
Speaker:fun along the way. And this we're not saving babies. And when you
Speaker:have an attitude like that, I think you can be fairly successful.
Speaker:What's your thought with just this whole thing like what we're talking about?
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm I am coaching right now.
Speaker:4 teams of pea of ladies for the Teleberty Foundation,
Speaker:and they have never done fun work at all. Mhmm. So
Speaker:I'm teaching them how to cold call. And, of course,
Speaker:they are all over the place. They oh, this is so
Speaker:hard. I don't know what to say. And so so I would
Speaker:throw them off. They'd have to role play with me, and I throw them
Speaker:off with real world
Speaker:examples. And so I said the script is a
Speaker:guide, but you have to be able
Speaker:to come up, and this is another thing I do. Harry, when I take
Speaker:on a small business to do the cold calling for them, I wanna
Speaker:know every objection you've ever gotten.
Speaker:Then I write out a response to manage that
Speaker:objection. See, I don't believe in overcoming
Speaker:objections. I believe in managing the objection.
Speaker:So when you manage the objections, you manage the conversation.
Speaker:Oh my goodness. That's so good. So let's dive deeper
Speaker:into that when you say managed versus overcoming.
Speaker:So what's what's an example? Like, someone will
Speaker:say, for instance, we're all set. That's a pretty common one.
Speaker:Right? Or I'm busy. What's what is
Speaker:one that really jumps out at you as really common? Well, let's
Speaker:just use. We're all set. Okay. Or I mean, we're all
Speaker:set. We don't know. We don't need that.
Speaker:We're not interested. Right away, you come back
Speaker:with, or or here's a common one. Hey. I'm
Speaker:headed into a meeting. I can't talk right now. For all of those,
Speaker:you're gonna say one thing. Thank you for
Speaker:letting me know with a question.
Speaker:Thank you for letting me know. Tell me, are there
Speaker:any gaps in the vendors you're currently using?
Speaker:I mean, whatever it is the product that you're saying. So you're
Speaker:acknowledging that we're all set. Thank you
Speaker:for letting me know. it's a perfect response for
Speaker:every objection you get. You're being
Speaker:respectful, and you're also
Speaker:Oh, how can I say this? You're being respectful. You're also
Speaker:acknowledging that they think that they're set.
Speaker:We both know that's an excuse. Sure.
Speaker:Right? It's just an excuse. You've interrupted
Speaker:their day, So they're giving you an excuse
Speaker:right off the bat. Another common
Speaker:mistake is Sales people's intros
Speaker:are all over the place. Your intro has to be very
Speaker:tight and concise 4 sentences at the most, and that's
Speaker:it. Yeah. So let's just just the
Speaker:thank you for letting me know is is beautiful.
Speaker:What sometimes people feel is when a
Speaker:person says they're all set, and I've heard people say, well, I make calls. People
Speaker:say they're not interested. I got zero appointments and all of this
Speaker:stuff. Right? It's because they haven't really developed the
Speaker:skills. Yes. It's like you you when people
Speaker:view sales as a numbers game, and I get the whole thing
Speaker:that you have to have numbers. Right? You have to have activity.
Speaker:But if you treat everything like a number,
Speaker:you get through the number and you're not dealing with the person
Speaker:in front of you. Right? So if someone says, my goal
Speaker:today is to make whatever the number of calls. I gotta make 10
Speaker:calls. I need to make a 100 calls. So pick a
Speaker:number. If you're thinking that you have to make
Speaker:x number of calls, you sometimes lose sight of the
Speaker:person that is alive and speaking to
Speaker:you. And if we develop some skills where we
Speaker:can say things comfortably, thank you for letting
Speaker:me know. Let's say that 50 times or 20 times till we
Speaker:get very comfortable with thank you for letting me know, and
Speaker:then you ask a question. Right? because now people are
Speaker:just completely thrown off by the fact that you
Speaker:stayed, thank them, and now you're
Speaker:asking a question. It's like they don't know where to turn, which is which
Speaker:is a good thing because you're there to serve them. That's right. What's your
Speaker:thought? Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right, Harry,
Speaker:because the last thing you wanna do is
Speaker:As you said, see that person as just another phone call number
Speaker:you have to make to make your boss happy. Right?
Speaker:So instead, when you say thank you for
Speaker:letting me know, that almost
Speaker:is a a compassionate response.
Speaker:Right? So now they see you as a human being.
Speaker:And and I have had so much success with that
Speaker:one line. And instead
Speaker:of pushing like I hear so many times,
Speaker:I've heard salespeople say, no. We're all set.
Speaker:Well, wait. Before before you say that, listen
Speaker:to what we have to offer or something aggressive like that.
Speaker:And the other mistake is they start
Speaker:selling instead of asking questions.
Speaker:And why do you ask questions? Okay? You ask
Speaker:questions to warm the the the
Speaker:prospect up to talk to you. You ask questions
Speaker:to uncover. Is this prospect a fit or not?
Speaker:But your only goal your only
Speaker:goal in cold calling is to set an appointment. That's
Speaker:it. Yep. And if someone starts asking
Speaker:you questions, you can say
Speaker:that's ver those are very good questions. when
Speaker:we meet, I would be happy
Speaker:to give you in-depth discussions on all of those
Speaker:questions and get them answered for you. Beautiful.
Speaker:Don't start selling right then and there because they don't know
Speaker:you and they don't care. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker:Exactly. And so this this thought that's
Speaker:coming to me right now is about the pace
Speaker:of your conversation. So
Speaker:when people who are nervous and are making calls, They just
Speaker:wanna get as much out, it seems like, especially newer
Speaker:ones, wanna get as much out as possible before
Speaker:the person says no. or before the person says I'm I'm
Speaker:all set. So they've got this really fast pace. It's
Speaker:uncomfortable the person who's listening
Speaker:is, like, I'm just gonna wait until there's a pause so I could say I'm
Speaker:not interested. What's your feeling about pace
Speaker:and conversational quality when you're making
Speaker:your when you're introducing yourself speaking to somebody?
Speaker:Well, pace is important. You don't wanna sound like you're
Speaker:off to the races, and a lot of people when
Speaker:they're nervous, They start talking faster. So I
Speaker:always coach salespeople
Speaker:to pretend you're picking up that phone and you're
Speaker:calling a good friend. Mhmm. Your tone should be
Speaker:casual and friendly, your words professional. But
Speaker:pretend you're talking to a good friend. Hello hello,
Speaker:Harry. This is Christine with the savvy sales lady.
Speaker:excuse me, my voice. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. So,
Speaker:like, even that where you're when you're
Speaker:thinking about calling a good friend that
Speaker:puts you in the mindset of this is
Speaker:not a life or death situation. Right? We put
Speaker:too much pressure on ourselves, and that
Speaker:comes across. So thinking about the positive potential
Speaker:outcomes I used to think along the lines that this
Speaker:person could become a good friend of mine. And
Speaker:so I'm gonna go in with that thinking and a lot of
Speaker:not a lot of times, but a number of times that comes across with a
Speaker:very pleasant conversation. So continue with where you are going about
Speaker:calling a friend. Yeah. So it would
Speaker:sound something like, hi, Harry. This is Christine
Speaker:Harrington with widget WABC. We
Speaker:sell widgets to help businesses grow. Harry, are
Speaker:you still the sales manager for your
Speaker:team? I am. But, Christine, I'm we're
Speaker:really all set with the widgets that we currently have. Well,
Speaker:thank you for letting me know, Harry. I get that.
Speaker:What would be the gap in your widget portfolio?
Speaker:Well, we really don't have anything in the mid
Speaker:range. We're very good on the low end and really great on the
Speaker:high end, but yeah, a little little gap in the mid range.
Speaker:Well, can you tell me more about what you're missing in that mid range?
Speaker:Yeah, we really don't have a newer product,
Speaker:and it's been a while, so we're a little behind the eight ball on
Speaker:that. I know that they're in development and looking at
Speaker:things, but, yeah, it's been a while in coming, so we're we're
Speaker:making do. I see. So
Speaker:if I hear you correctly, you do have a gap,
Speaker:but you haven't fully explored it yet. So would there be another
Speaker:person that might be vital for us to talk to
Speaker:and bring into the conversation? Yeah. That's a really Bill
Speaker:Smith's area. I mean, if you want, I could
Speaker:pass you over to him. Okay, that would be great.
Speaker:What is Bill's phone number and email? Yeah, and I'll
Speaker:give you that. Right? Okay. And so
Speaker:one more thing, Harry. Would you make an
Speaker:introduction for me to bill so he won't be blindsided
Speaker:like I blindsided you on this call. Yeah. You seem to
Speaker:be a nice enough person. I'll be happy to do that for you. Okay.
Speaker:Thank you, Harry. Nice approach. Ta
Speaker:da. Yes. That that ladies and gentlemen is a
Speaker:woman with some experience and skills in calling.
Speaker:So much good there. Right? So you
Speaker:you're asking the question. You're getting a second level
Speaker:question. in there, right, which tells me
Speaker:something that you're an educated caller, which
Speaker:there's value. And if you're not an educated caller,
Speaker:then I'm probably not gonna want to help help you help
Speaker:me. Right. Then right? And so then
Speaker:the asking that and then
Speaker:recognizing that I don't have the answer. Now you've
Speaker:got a live person, and instead of saying, this guy
Speaker:obviously doesn't know, I can ask if he can get
Speaker:me somebody, and I can use and move myself further
Speaker:inside the business and provide some help
Speaker:that way. And then the third thing, is
Speaker:asking, what, getting a phone number and email, which is perfect.
Speaker:Right? So that's the 3rd thing because now you've got 2 ways to
Speaker:communicate. And then the 4th thing
Speaker:is, I think they're 4, but whatever the last thing is getting that warm
Speaker:introduction. So I'm gonna look at this call
Speaker:and say, if you're one of my sales reps, you
Speaker:didn't get the appointment, but we got a lot of great
Speaker:info. That's right. Right? And that great info has
Speaker:gotta go somewhere. because if you're making a
Speaker:lot of calls, you're not going to remember this. So what is it
Speaker:you suggest to do next? Okay. What and what
Speaker:step to do? So after after the phone
Speaker:after the hang up, you call the other person, they're not
Speaker:there. we won't go into that. But now you have all this stuff in
Speaker:your mind, what do you do with it? Okay. So
Speaker:before I call the other person, I'll prepare
Speaker:a voice mail script in case I get a voice
Speaker:mail. Mhmm. Nice. Alright. Yep. So I always
Speaker:keep my voice mails very
Speaker:short. So I I I'm just talking off my top of my
Speaker:head now. Yep. But gravity is good because -- Yeah. -- after
Speaker:a certain period of time, people are gonna say this too long.
Speaker:So when you think of Brevity, what comes to mind for you?
Speaker:20 seconds at the max. Beautiful. Yeah. I was gonna say max 30
Speaker:seconds. So, yeah, so even better. 20 seconds. Okay?
Speaker:So now what I do that's use that's unusual
Speaker:is At least to the people I coach, it seems
Speaker:unusual. I will leave the voice
Speaker:mail message then immediately turn around,
Speaker:put the same message in an email. Mhmm. And
Speaker:I'll say something like A Bill. Hello,
Speaker:Bill. I just left you a short voice message for your convenience.
Speaker:I thought I'd drop you the same message. in an email,
Speaker:hairy ass that I give you a call, and then I just
Speaker:very short, very short. about your
Speaker:gaps in widgets. Very short.
Speaker:Then I this is the most important thing when you're
Speaker:doing email. And everybody does this, and that makes
Speaker:me crissy on my day. I can't
Speaker:wait. They say, let me know if you
Speaker:have any questions. Oh my god. You're
Speaker:right. The let me know is just yeah. Okay. Beautiful.
Speaker:So you always -- What's better? What's better? Yeah. You
Speaker:always end your emails by
Speaker:saying I'll give you a call
Speaker:on such and such day to see if
Speaker:any questions surface. And then
Speaker:that day, I will send them a reminder
Speaker:email that I'm calling, and I'll say,
Speaker:Just just a courtesy reminder that I'll be calling at such and
Speaker:such time to answer any questions that may have surfaced.
Speaker:I'll say, hopefully, you'll be available to take my call.
Speaker:And then I call. And if I get voice
Speaker:mail again, then I'll do the whole routine
Speaker:all over again. Yep. because if you don't
Speaker:leave a voice mail on that one, What's the
Speaker:danger? Well, here's a true story.
Speaker:Okay? An office that I worked in
Speaker:the sales rep would never leave voice
Speaker:mails. Never. And so the person
Speaker:could see from the caller ID where they were calling, and they
Speaker:would never leave a voice mail. And he would call two or three times a
Speaker:week if he got voice mail, hang up. Well, this went on for about
Speaker:a month. Call the op our office was just
Speaker:infuriated and said, tell them to either
Speaker:leave me a message or quit stalking
Speaker:me. Yeah. That's great. True story.
Speaker:Mhmm. Yeah. Well, right, we don't know how people are going to respond. But,
Speaker:yes, what I was thinking too is that if you say you're going to do
Speaker:something, and you do it at the time you say you're going to
Speaker:do it, that's a check-in the plus column.
Speaker:Yes. Because How many how many
Speaker:surveys have we looked at that says
Speaker:the sales rep only follows up one time? Mhmm.
Speaker:Yep. Exactly. Yep. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker:Yep. One one of my specialties other than
Speaker:cold calling is crafting email messages to get
Speaker:the prospect's attention. Ever room that for that for some
Speaker:reason? I don't know why. But Because you're a
Speaker:personable person. Right? You already show empathy and compassion,
Speaker:so I'm out of a feeling that's part of the reason. I'm
Speaker:I'm I can easily put myself in other people's shoes -- Mhmm.
Speaker:-- and try to figure out how they will react to
Speaker:a message In the 10 years I've been coaching,
Speaker:Harry, I have seen absolute
Speaker:patterns of behavior. And I heard
Speaker:Tony Robbins talk about this for years. He always talks about look for
Speaker:the patterns of behavior. Mhmm. And when I started coaching, I'm
Speaker:going, oh my gosh. He's right. There are
Speaker:patterns of behavior. And and so
Speaker:if people will become more self aware of their patterns of
Speaker:behavior, they can absolutely stop
Speaker:some of their sabotaging behavior. On the same token,
Speaker:it also increases your
Speaker:your awareness of how someone else is
Speaker:gonna respond as well. Bro.
Speaker:Yeah. I think they call that emotional intelligence now. I think so.
Speaker:I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. This this whole thing,
Speaker:first of all, when you talk about awareness and self awareness. So
Speaker:if you're which is, again, part of the the EQ thing.
Speaker:Right? So if you're not feeling up for it, I'm gonna
Speaker:go to that thought, right, where you're feeling like the phone weighs
Speaker:a £1000 that nobody's interested. that it's
Speaker:drudgery. This is the one I just I was creating a video on
Speaker:that sales is a grind Right?
Speaker:So when you have all this negative stuff going through your
Speaker:head, is that when you wanna make phone calls
Speaker:or should you be doing something between that and
Speaker:actually dialing? Yeah, you should be practicing.
Speaker:Okay? And what else might you do? What do you what do you do to,
Speaker:like, for attitude and so forth? So
Speaker:When call reluctance, when that phone feels a
Speaker:£1000 heavy, What it what you're
Speaker:dreading is not the phone call. You're dreading you'll screw
Speaker:up. You're dreading you're gonna screw the call up. You're
Speaker:dreading that you won't sound professional
Speaker:enough and that now they got your
Speaker:name, And and this is the cold
Speaker:caller that can't make cold calls. So
Speaker:the cure to that is you practice until you
Speaker:feel confident. See, people always go in
Speaker:thinking they're gonna puff themselves up and be confident and
Speaker:and kinda bulldoze their way through the phone call. Yep.
Speaker:If you're competent, the confidence will
Speaker:automatically be there. Work on
Speaker:being competent. And the only way
Speaker:you can be competent is practice
Speaker:and make the phone calls. So
Speaker:in the beginning, when I got serious about
Speaker:cold calling, It's awful. Alright. I
Speaker:can't wait. Who what a setup this is? You you're you're
Speaker:laughing before I get the punch line. Alright. Come on. Yeah.
Speaker:So I would take the prospects, and I didn't
Speaker:care about it all. And I would practice on them.
Speaker:Yeah. That's not so bad. Right. I would practice
Speaker:on the ones that I felt like weren't a fit for me.
Speaker:Whatever I was selling at the time. Oh my goodness. Yep. And
Speaker:that's I honed my skills on them. It's
Speaker:beautiful. Yeah. It's it's like Chris Rock or
Speaker:some comedian going to a open mic night to test out
Speaker:the audience. Right? It's not like they really care, but it's like they're laughing.
Speaker:I could use this on my performance. So, yeah, that
Speaker:makes that makes perfect sense, actually. Anyway, that's
Speaker:a good point. The professionals do it.
Speaker:Yeah. The professional comedians do it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Exactly. And speakers are not showing up without rehearsing a speech.
Speaker:a whole bunch of times. And this is our livelihood.
Speaker:Right? When you're making like, especially, I think and and the big one
Speaker:is making a follow-up
Speaker:phone call. Right? You've had conversations with somebody. They
Speaker:have a proposal And I know that you really focus on the cold
Speaker:calling, but you have to you have to do what we have to do.
Speaker:Right? because you write business You have to do all the steps of the
Speaker:sales process. And I imagine you think through them all.
Speaker:So you have an important phone call to make, person said
Speaker:that they were going to review the proposal. You reviewed it with them. They had
Speaker:to get someone else's input or whatever, and now you
Speaker:need to make the call. Do you make that call
Speaker:with any intentionality, or could you be, like, just
Speaker:sitting down in your office to start the day and say, oh, I gotta make
Speaker:this call. I'm gonna go call and see what they're thinking about and not do
Speaker:any rehearsal. not review the proposal or I
Speaker:I know you do, but tell me, what are what is the step? What are
Speaker:the steps you go through? Well, this
Speaker:goes back to my group benefit days and beyond.
Speaker:I used to be the rep that sent out the proposals, sent out
Speaker:the quotes, and I would and 1
Speaker:night, my son had been in went to bed was in bed It was
Speaker:like 10 o'clock at night. I'm going through all my emails, and I
Speaker:and I was like a a a boatload. A boatload of
Speaker:emails that never got a response to my quote or
Speaker:proposal. I mean, it I'm thinking it was,
Speaker:like, 60 or 70. It was a lot. and I'm going,
Speaker:what in the world is going on? Why isn't anybody
Speaker:responding? And that what we all say, why aren't they
Speaker:responding? It's not their job.
Speaker:Bob is ours to follow-up.
Speaker:So that's one light bulb moment I had.
Speaker:That is so good. We we blame
Speaker:the person for our bad email. or
Speaker:our bad voice message. We're blaming them. What's
Speaker:wrong with people today? I heard that one a million times. I
Speaker:might have said it myself Okay. Continue.
Speaker:So I started doing this
Speaker:instead. I I would tell
Speaker:them the quote is ready. When is a
Speaker:good time for you either Monday or Tuesday that we
Speaker:can have a phone conversation and go over the
Speaker:quote. and or the
Speaker:proposal. So I stopped giving the
Speaker:quotes and proposals out and either I talked
Speaker:them through it over the phone, or I met with
Speaker:them face to face. So what I would do is when
Speaker:the call when I was on the phone with them, I would
Speaker:say, okay. I'm gonna send a quote now, and let me
Speaker:know when you get it. Okay. I got it. And I said, I
Speaker:I wanna make sure you can open the attachment.
Speaker:That was the other reason why I would say that
Speaker:I wanted to do this over the phone or in person to make sure they
Speaker:could open the quote because I did have some problems with
Speaker:that. However, Not only did they not
Speaker:read my email, they never opened the attachments as well. So
Speaker:I'm like, why am I wasting my time doing this? When I should be the
Speaker:one leading So so then I would have
Speaker:them open up the quote or the proposal, and then
Speaker:I would say, I'd like to bring your attention to
Speaker:line such and such, and then line such and such, and then we would have
Speaker:a conversation. Sold the deal,
Speaker:got the implementation team together, to implement
Speaker:it, and won down. Yes. So you are well
Speaker:prepared. Yeah. Right. The key thing here is
Speaker:to be extremely prepared, and I I'm willing to bet
Speaker:you've heard once or twice where people just say, just send me the
Speaker:proposal, and you might say something along the lines as
Speaker:well. I really would like to
Speaker:review the proposal so that you understand exactly what we're
Speaker:proposing here or whatever you say, And they say, I'll just send it. I'll
Speaker:figure it out or whatever. What do you do in that case? Maybe it's, like,
Speaker:the second time that they said, just send it.
Speaker:I I wouldn't do it. Yeah. I would say I would just say if
Speaker:it's easier for me to drop by your office and review it,
Speaker:let's do that. But my process is that we review it together. Yeah. Yeah. And,
Speaker:you know, if they -- -- the
Speaker:tell You have to tell them your
Speaker:process because they don't know your process. And and and, Harry, to
Speaker:go one step further, I eliminated
Speaker:that objection because I told them my
Speaker:process. I would do the quote I give you a call or
Speaker:email. Let you know when it's ready, and then we'd set up an
Speaker:appointment for the to review the quote.
Speaker:And I would say at the end, this is for your benefit. That's why I
Speaker:don't
Speaker:just send out quotes. Beautiful. Magic. You you you over or do you manage it
Speaker:in in the front end, letting them know your process because they don't know your
Speaker:process. Right. And -- That's how -- Okay.
Speaker:That's how I separated myself from other vendors, because all they
Speaker:did was just quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote,
Speaker:quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote,
Speaker:quote, quote, quote, Yes. And they have in
Speaker:their mind x number proposal leads into x number results. And,
Speaker:again, it's a numbers game for them instead of a skills game.
Speaker:And so, like, this this this great idea, which I love. And I'm just what
Speaker:the heck was I gonna say? It was brilliant.
Speaker:But, yes, even the brilliant ones lose their thoughts periodically. Now let me let me
Speaker:-- Okay. You take over from here. -- your thought
Speaker:I did. I had 2 of them. 1 was this opportunity of people
Speaker:who had proposals that never did anything.
Speaker:So, if you're listening to this podcast, there's
Speaker:money in those hills. On people
Speaker:that have proposals They've never even opened
Speaker:some of them, and they've a lot of them have never done
Speaker:anything. And so calling back those
Speaker:people is an opportunity. What's your thought? I I I agree. And you call them
Speaker:up and you apologize.
Speaker:You apologize for not getting back to them
Speaker:and following up and going through the proposal.
Speaker:You do it that way. Let me say this, Harry.
Speaker:Back in the day, I was doing almost 300
Speaker:proposals a month So it wasn't
Speaker:possible for me to do all the phone calls --
Speaker:Right. -- follow-up and all of the face to face proposals.
Speaker:So you have to be smart about the
Speaker:number of proposals you can do that with, and
Speaker:who you wanna do that with. Right. Yep. Okay. So let me
Speaker:back up and say that. Now those of you that have let
Speaker:your proposals on being neglected
Speaker:from this day forward, you are the
Speaker:one responsible for delivering
Speaker:that proposal either over the phone or face to face
Speaker:or over Zoom, it's your responsibility to go
Speaker:through every part of that proposal with them to
Speaker:close the deal. For the ones that have been neglected, you
Speaker:call them up, you apologize, and you ask to book
Speaker:a time with them, an appointment with them to
Speaker:review that proposal. Hopefully, they haven't already
Speaker:gone to another vendor, and you can save it. But if you
Speaker:didn't say if they've already went to another vendor,
Speaker:then ask them for the opportunity to quote it at
Speaker:renewal time or a year from now
Speaker:or whatever it works in your industry.
Speaker:Ask them for the opportunity down the road. Yeah. And
Speaker:they'll appreciate the fact that you're following up. Again, very few people
Speaker:do. So when you do it, it's just you stand
Speaker:out. Christine, this is remarkable. I cannot believe
Speaker:I said we're gonna do this for an hour, like, 45 minutes into this. So
Speaker:time flies when you're having fun. How can people
Speaker:find more of your super stardom and work with you and all of
Speaker:that would be very helpful for many, I'm sure.
Speaker:So I go by the savvy sales lady,
Speaker:And I have a my website is pretty
Speaker:robust www.christineharrington.com.
Speaker:on I have over 300 YouTube videos to
Speaker:help you sell. They're free. That's at the
Speaker:savvy sales lady or goop or just search for Christine
Speaker:Harrington, and I have a cold calling
Speaker:course coming out that will be sold
Speaker:on my website, and it will go deeper
Speaker:into The words that matter
Speaker:how to the words you should be using, when
Speaker:you're cold calling, words you should eliminate,
Speaker:and it'll it'll be co calling from start to
Speaker:finish. Is that available now or
Speaker:when will that be available? I'm hoping to wrap it up in
Speaker:2 months. I -- Okay. -- had it all on a platform,
Speaker:and then I switched it to another platform because it couldn't do
Speaker:what I wanted it to do. So that has been a real headache.
Speaker:Okay. We'll save that for another time, but some like by the time this is
Speaker:being launched, that that may be available. So so we'll
Speaker:put whatever we have in the show notes so that you folks can find it
Speaker:or at least find Christine and ask about this program.
Speaker:So sounds exciting. Yeah. And Find
Speaker:me on LinkedIn. Send me a direct message if you've got questions.
Speaker:If you have questions, I'd be happy to answer your questions.
Speaker:I love it. Christine Harrington, ladies gen gentlemen, the
Speaker:Sav what's the what's the name of the business? The savvy sales lady. Alright.
Speaker:The savvy sales lady. That's a tongue twister. But this has been
Speaker:a blast. Thank you for dropping the value bombs today,
Speaker:Christine. Thanks, Harry. I appreciate you having me
Speaker:on.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to sales made easy. If you've found
Speaker:value in our conversations, please subscribe and leave a review.
Speaker:Our goal is to provide practical strategies for growing your business
Speaker:while staying true to your values. Remember, success
Speaker:in sales is about serving your clients. Serve first,
Speaker:and the selling will follow. We'll be back soon with more insights
Speaker:and inspiration Until then, keep serving and providing
