Your colleagues are extremely interested in cold calling company presidents—like you, everybody with business savvy wants to reach the executives, quickly, to close top dollar sales.
In this business environment with collapsed organizational structures, the elimination of middle management, and the increased workload for executive assistants—it's even more challenging to break through to the inner circle of decision-makers.
So consider this--stop making the cold-calling process more complicated (and considerably more painful) than it needs to be. Quit agonizing over the writing of pre-approach letters and searching out friends who can provide warm introductions that'll break you through, and get you into the hallowed halls of the executive suites.
Sure, pre-approach letters and warm introductions are a good mix to add to any sales strategy—but even big time local and long distance phone companies are finally catching on to the fact that the product they market, the telephone, is the most direct, effective tool for increasing sales by leaps and bounds. Now, you don't wanna miss out on use of a proven, effective sales tool, do you?
Of course not!
Here's What Sales Pros Attempt
Now, this is interesting … a recent client survey revealed that most sales professionals feel pressed to accomplish a lot during a prospecting call. With each executive-level cold call, most professionals take a big breath and in one, great big, run on sentence try to 1)establish rapport by being friendly, 2)gain credibility by giving company history, 3)learn about the prospect with probing questions, and 4)introduce and sell products/services, all within the parameters of one brief make-it-or-break-it telephone call to the executive suite.
You'll Never See It Coming, Here's Why
Here's a news flash … it can't be done! Even bigger news … this kind of approach actually signals executive assistants that you don't belong in the president's office. The assistant will simply smile, refer you down to a lower level—and you'll never know why or how you got booted down the ladder so quickly.
So, let's go to the heart of the matter and take a close look at the structure of the phone call itself. In the 35 to 90 seconds that you'll have to spend on the telephone at the president's level, you've gotta be prepared to take the call down the straight and very narrow path in which you want it to go. And there is one absolute, positive, no doubt about it, purpose of your call. Any hint of a deviation from this purpose will result in fewer executive-level appointments.
So here's the secret ... cherish it and know it's extremely valuable.
THE amazingly simple secret to successful cold calls to the offices of presidents is to be certain that every single one of your prospecting calls has one crystal clear purpose and one purpose only. Each word you speak during your prospecting phone calls directs and redirects the conversation toward that one goal, scheduling an executive-level sales call. It doesn't matter whether you schedule a meeting in person, or schedule a phone meeting—every word of the initial phone call must direct the conversation toward getting that meeting booked on the calendar. Period.
Write Down the Words of a Successful Call
A technique that'll catapult you forward is to write down the words exchanged during your cold call. Identify what words, statements, and questions keep the conversation on track toward an appointment and what words cause you to lose the appointment.
You'll become consciously aware of the words that flow between you and your prospect—and their impact. Won't be long 'til you realize that your words either get you what you want or take your cold calls way off the path down some obscure rabbit trail.
I guarantee your competition doesn't have a single-minded focus on high level calls and is, unwittingly, forfeiting a whole lot of potentially lucrative business. Yet they hold onto their ill-advised, accomplish-a-lot-in-a-little bit-of-time approach to prospecting at the top. You, on the other hand, will find that keeping your prospecting calls on one laser-like focus will bring in more executive- level sales calls than you ever imagined possible. Now, go get 'em.
Forward this article to friends—they'll thank you for it!
For your FREE mini-course "Jealously Guarded Secrets to Cold Calling Company Presidents" visit http://www.ColdCallingExecutives.com! Or call Your Sales Coach for Extreme Profitability, author/speaker Leslie Buterin (like butterin' bread) at (816) 554-3674 9-3 CST (that's Kansas City/Chicago Time).
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