How to Prospect by Phone Without ‘Cold’ Calling – in Just 7 Minutes with Art Sobczak

Related Links and Resources:

I am actually going to give free access to a fill-in the blanks, paint by the numbers template where people can actually follow along with those templates. I also have 30 minutes video training that walks them through that entire process. The URL is www.SalesByPhone.com

Summary:

Over the past 30 years Art Sobczak (Sub’-check) has helped salespeople say the right things to get through, get in, and sell, primarily using the phone. The most effective way to sell is still humans SPEAKING with humans, and he helps them do that in a conversational, non-salesy way. His flagship book, “Smart Calling- How to Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling” was just released in its new Third Edition, and again hit #1 in Amazon’s Sales category.

Here are the highlights of this episode:

1:36 Art’s ideal Client: My ideal client is a salesperson or somebody who may not even consider themselves as a salesperson, who needs to reach out to somebody that they don't know and who's not expecting their call. And hope to create interest and engage that in a conversation so that they can then discuss whatever it is that they are offering.

2:06 Problem Art helps solve: The problem that I help salespeople solve is of course finding new prospects and doing it quickly and inexpensively. There's a lot of ways out there that people tell you that you can get new business by doing social media and this and that, but still the quickest way to engage somebody in a conversation is still picking up the phone.

2:44 Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Art: Well, anybody that has started a business or is in business or a new salesperson or probably any new salesperson that has experienced not having enough people to talk to for new business. Therefore, that's their dilemma. And there are a lot of other things associated with actually doing that as far as fear of picking up the phone, not able to say the right things, fear of rejection, so there are a number of problems that are associated with the main problem and that is not having enough business.

3:37 What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Art and his solution: Let's assume that they already decided that we need to reach out for new business and we need to do it by phone. A problem at their end is that they think they can just pick up the phone, smile and dial, and 'puking out' a presentation and hoping that they are going to generate some interest. But really what's happening is that they are just adding to the noise.  We are inundated with thousands of messages every day and we ignore almost every single one of them. They need to not make a mistake of just having a generic pitch that they are giving to everybody and continually doing it time after time.

4:41 Art’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): What I would recommend is that people should follow the smart-calling process if you're going to reach out to a new prospect. And that process is knowing something about the people that you'll call, their organization, and any situation that they're experiencing so that you can then customize, tailor, and personalize your messaging whether it be email, Inmail through LinkedIn, voicemail, and your ultimate opening statement when you get them on the phone. Because that's the only way today that somebody is going to pay attention to your message among the 'sea of sameness' out there.

5:35 Art’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): It ties in to what I have just mentioned. I am actually going to give free access to a fill-in the blanks, paint by the numbers template where people can actually follow along with those templates and take the benefit of what they have and apply it to their audience and come up with their own messaging so that probably within a half hour, they'll have a pretty good script if you will. I also have 30 minutes video training that walks them through that entire process. The URL is SalesByPhone.com.

6:47 How can you get out of that rejection when you're making phone calls and you're going to get NOs? When you get NOs that is just something that happens to us, that's an experience. Rejection is not an experience, it's always the way we define the experience. We just simply need to tell ourselves a better story about what happens to us. So, if we get a NO on a call instead of looking at it as a negative, let's get a win, and say "what did I learn from that call, what will I do differently next time?" and "what question did I ask that I intended to ask on that call?". Now I'm focusing on the positive, and when you do that, you're telling yourself a positive story as opposed to "oh, I got rejected again. Can't wait to do it again".