“Walt Disney came up with this crazy idea that he wants to build a theme park for kids and families. He had a vision that it will be huge and people will come visit the park and spend lots of money year round forever. He took the idea to his banker to get this financed and the banker looked at him and told him he’s crazy and should see a shrink. Walt did not stop there, he went to another banker and was told the same thing. And another. And another. He went to 301 banks. And if he stopped at that there would be no Disneyland today because it was the three hundred and second banker who gave him the money.”

Remember, you are not the only one calling on these people. The guy you just called gets at least ten calls a day from sales reps. Most likely not bloggers but still that’s a significant time he’s got to spend on the phone each day fending off people who want his money. Selling is a game of trust - I said that before already and all sales coaches will tell you that at the very beginning of their session.

You closed the meeting because you have laid a brick of trust at the very beginning of the phone conversation. Now you have to keep adding to that ‘trust’ wall by adding more bricks. That’s why it’s called relationship building. So, here’s the next brick.
After you finish your warm calling, right before you pack up for the day, write a Thank You card to the people who agreed to meet with you. MAKE SURE YOU HAND WRITE IT - do you remember what that is blogger?
Handwriting is very powerful, especially today when there’s so little of it. It means you care. It means you pay attention to detail. It means you take that extra step. It means “Trust me”.

You can customize your card on the computer with your picture or your blog’s favicon or your logo. I have my cards with my picture on it. (Hint: take a look at real estate agents’ ads in the yellow pages. Or mortgage brokers. or insurance brokers. What do they have in common? They all have their face in the ad. Why? Trust)

Trust me, it works.

The power of the sixty seconds permission question at the beginning of the conversation is amazing because it gives you so much credibility which you can use to climb over all objections. The reason why that is is because objects are simply trust building mechanisms and if you can proof to be trustworthy every time, you’re in.

Now go and make those phone calls.

Answer in the following manner: ” John, I don’t mind sending you information through the mail but I know from personal experience when I get something sent to me I most often give it a few seconds and toss it into the garbage. It’s a waste of time. If you grant me permission to meet with you for only 10 minutes, I will tell you all the information that you need and if you don’t think there is a business opportunity I will never call you again and waste your time. 10 minutes is all I am asking for.” STOP…DON’T SAY ANYTHING…ENJOY THE SILENCE. > There is a ‘yes’ on the other end of the line, you just have to really want it.

There are more objections, so stick around…

Why should he not give you ten minutes?

1. He has to trust you that you mean 10 minutes because you asked him permission to speak for 60 seconds and as far as you’re concerned you spent exactly that amount or less telling him who you are and why you are calling; any seconds over that time are his personal doing, which means he approves.
2. You are not forcing yourself by ending the conversation the old ‘Glengerry Glen Ross’ way (which by the way is a great movie with some of the best actors in the biz), “I’ll be in your neighborhood on Tuesday at 11, I ‘ll drop by for a minute”.
3. You’re putting an image in his head of you taking off your watch and placing it on the desk. Funny, different, curious if you really will do it.

If the objection continues to be that of time, “offer to come-in very early in the morning, 8am for example. and tell him that you will bring coffee.” That usually does the trick.

Time is not the only objection. There can be others. I will go over them in detail in the next post. You must understand, the rule is that it can take 5-9 closes before you get a definite reply. But at least then you know for sure.

Whatever. Remember what I said before… selling is building trust and a relationship. Start with the following Rule - Rule#3: 60seconds… ask for SIXTY seconds of their time but…

Here’s what you do when you get the owner of your local business on the phone:

1. Introduce yourself: Hi, my name is [name]. I live in your neighborhood. How are you? [make sure you say that you live in the neighborhood, he has to listen to you because you are a potential customer, there's a win-win situation here]
2. Say the following exactly: May I take sixty seconds of your time to tell you who I am and why I am calling you?
   9 out of 10 times you will get a “Yes” reply. - go to step 3
   5 out of 10 times you will get a laugh and a “Yes” reply. - go to step 3
   2 out of 10 times you will get a reply “I can’t talk right now can you call me back” - Ask what is a good time to call. This is actually a great response to your sixty seconds because they are giving you permission to call them back. They want you to call them back. So make sure you find out when to call them back.
3. You got permission to speak. Very important. They told you that they will listen to what you have to say. Isn’t that great. Mak sure you say “Thank you” before you say anything else. Don’t you think telemarketers should be this polite and ask for permission?
   Your next mission is to get a 10 minute face-to-face meeting. Here you can be creative in terms of what you say about yourself, you may for example say “I am a local online publisher of a blog magazine. I attract many people to my site everyday. I developed a trusted following with many of them and I have successfully marketed products to them. The reason why I am calling is to secure 10 minutes of your time to come in, introduce myself in person and introduce my publication to you and see if there may be an opportunity to work together.” Stop and say nothing more. Wait. and Wait. Whoever says something next wins the conversation… To be continued.

Rule#2 - Always call the top executives between 7:30am and 8:30am or 5:30pm and 6:30pm

Bloggers live high-life. They get to wake up whenever they want to and go to sleep whenever they want to. But these corprorate/busienss types especially at the very top, they’re trained and disciplined to come in early and leave late. There are a few reasons why calling before work hours and after work hours will get them on the phone:

Early:

1. The gatekeeper is not in the office yet. She usually arrives at around 8:40am, by then you are done talking
2. Early morning is the time when there are no hard pressed issues that need to get resolved and their mind is fresh, ready to hear out new ideas.
3. The gatekeeper is not in the office yet.

Late:

1. The gatekeeper is gone for the day. She usually leaves at 4:30pm or 5pm
2. The only people who may be calling after 5:30pm their direct line would be family members ie wife to find out when he’s coming home for dinner, therefore he will pickup the phone.
3. The gatekeeper is gone for the day.

Rule #2.1 Always call with a clear purpose. And the purpose of a warm call is to schedule a 10 minute face-to-face meeting.

Rule #2.2 Always use *67 when making the call

Rule #2.3 Never, ever, ever, leave VOICE MAIL

When was the last time you called back someone other than your friend or family member who left you a voice mail? That’s right. They won’t call you back either. There are sales coaches who say VM is a selling opportunity… well, don’t listen to that advice. It is not.

Did you ever hear yourself or others on a voice mail recording? First of all VMs are not your studio quality recorders so your voice sounds distorted. Second, most people have, through time, adopted a voice mail/telephone personality which is different from your regular self. And thirdly, rule #2.1 states that you are calling with a clear purpose to schedule a meeting, how are you planning to do that with a voice mail? Are you just going to say that you will be coming to their office on Tuesday morning at 9:30 so be pen-me-in into the calendar. I don’t think so. Don’t leave a voice mail. Call until you get through. I once called a guy everyday for two months straight. But when he picked up the phone I made sure that I got a 10 minute meeting with him and I’ll tell you how in the next post.

Every relationship had to start with a first approach at some point in time. The right first approach is crucial to a good start of a relationship. In sales this first approach often takes the form of a cold call. [Wikipedia entry: Cold calling is the process of approaching prospective customers or clients, typically via telephone, who were not expecting such an interaction. The word "cold" is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting a call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by a sales person.] Cold calling is probably the toughest aspect of selling and the biggest deterrent for most people. Read on and I’ll teach you how to turn every call into a warm call, meaning the person you talk to will want to talk to you.

The number two spot on Yaro’s top monetization list is Direct Advertisers. For me personally, this takes the number one spot for a few reasons:

1. You control your own revenue
2. You get recurring income
3. You get out and meet people
4. Soon you get advertisers knocking on your door

The reason why Yaro did not make this the number one spot is because you create labor for yourself having to attract sponsors. That is true. There is labor involved. But if you work smart, you won’t have to work hard. I mentioned in an earlier post that there is a change happening at the local community level where businesses are beginning to turn away from traditional yellowpages advertising to online advertising. I will teach the average blogger, who has very little direct-sales experience how to sell.

You don’t want to miss my next series of posts. What I will provide in my posts are knowledge and experience I have gained through: working with and being mentored by the best sales people in the printing industry (one of the toughest sales), attending the best sales courses, and knocking on peoples doors and cold calling for ten years.

Let me give you and example of one of my mentors: started selling at the age of 20 back in mid sixties. He was making $30000 to $50000 a week by selling business forms. If a buyer made excuses to not see him because of lack of time, he would sit in front of the receptionist for an entire day, sometimes for days waiting to get an opportunity when the buyer would show that he has time to meet. I learned a lot from this man. A lot.

Another one, not my direct mentor because he was in his prime when I was just a junior, was a hunter. In his office the main poster on the wall was Scarface. He did not care whom he will walk over as long as it gets him the money. To his customers he was an angel, to his support staff he was nice as long as they produced results, if he could not get what his clients wanted all hell broke lose. I observed him a lot when I was a junior and later on filtered out the stuff that I thought worked well from those which conflicted with my morals. He alone managed over 5 million dollars of revenue.

These are just two examples. I have many more of great salesman with whom I worked and from whom I learned the skills.

A seminar like this would cost thousands. I am going to go step-by-step to reveal how to sell directly to a customer. Everyone will benefit from this seminar:

• If you are a blogger - you will learn how to get out of your house and sell ad space for your blog
• If you are a salesperson - you will get some training (Michael Jordan trained every day, Tiger Woods trains every day) if you want to be good you have to train all the time.
• If you are in retail - you will learn how to increase your commission
• If you are looking for a job - you will learn how to sell yourself and land the job you always wanted
• If you have never sold in your life and you think sales people are born, you will change your mind

My suggestion to you is that you RSS to this blog because if you are serious about any of the above points then you want to know this stuff.