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MEETING MINUTES
 Friday, July 23, 2010
Volume 17; Issue 24

Leads & Introductions
Members introduced themselves and announced leads and thank you's. 

Member Spotlight
This week's spotlight is Joe Burr.  Please keep this member top of mind this week for referrals. 

Membership
We have two insurance agents interested in filling the Insurance category.  Our second candidate visited the group today.  Greg Okonowski (aka The Doctor of Insurance) of The Arizona Group.  Has a finance degree and many years of industry experience.  His father, former member Roman Okonowski, was his mentor.  He has gone from working in a small agency to a large agency.  It has been a great transition.  They have more companies available and a competent backup staff.  The larger staff allows him more time to spend visiting his clients and evaluating their needs.

Meeting Schedule
July 30 - Member Spotlights

Today's Program:  "SALES IS NOT A DIRTY WORD" (Allan Himmelstein, Sales Coach AZ)
Dave Lathrop introduced Allan Himmelstein to the group.  Allen is a sales coach.  He is here to talk about the finer points of selling to help members grow their businesses.

Characteristics needed to be a salesperson

  • Commitment to yourself, your company, your service, your customer to do it better

  • Courage to ask purposeful questions

  • Intent on being a great listener and not a great talker

  • Have Relentless follow-up to customer requests

  • Understanding that al sales is a process

LISTENING

  • Hearing, asking questions, waiting to talk, thinking about how to respond, or finding fault with sender's message

         What can be gained in Better Listening?

  • Clarity, trust, better relations, fewer errors, reduced problem solving time, better service, and increased engagement by buyer

WHAT BUYERS DISLIKE

  • Buyers dislike salespeople that are not prepared

  • Buyers dislike salespeople that are not passionate about their product and company

  • Buyer dislike "I got the greatest thing since slice bread approach"

  • Buyers dislike salespeople that do not follow up and who are not professionally persistent

TRADITIONAL SALES PROCESS 
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QUALITY SALES PROCESS

Level of Trust Neutral or Distrustful Complete trust based on established relations
Goal/Call Objective  To open door to se what's going on To continue upgrading and increasing share of business
Approach and Involvement  Minimal or non-existent Less formal and more comfortable because of trust an behavior
Pre-Call Preparations   Memorize a canned pitch or "wing it"  Thorough preparation something with proprietary information
Presentation Product literate spec sheets  RIO proof and profit improvement strategies
Point of Contact Buyer or purchasing agent  "Networked" through the company

GETTING IN THE DOOR WITHOUT COLD CALLING

  • Targeting companies and industries

  • Understanding your soft dollar value versus your hard dollar value

  • Understanding the different benefits by position of the recommender, influencers, and decision makers

THE BASICS

  • It is always better to approach a company from the top down

  • The higher up someone is in the organization the more others care what they do say and think

  • Have at lest 3-4 names to contact within one company

  • Employees are more concerned about their relationships then your benefits and calue statement

INITIAL CONTACT

Letter, or email format

  1. Tell everyone who you are trying to contact in the organization and who is receiving

  2. Names of other targeted companies who you are approaching

  3. A  request for the recipient's assistance for identifying the most appropriate person or group to contact

  4. What do you want to get out of the call

  5. Exact day that you will be following up

BE CREATIVE AND GET ATTENTION

  • Write a few blog entries mention the COMPANY or contact name

  • Look for articles in trade jour with prospect name, or and send comments

  • Set Google Alert for key name sin organization or the company

  • The Big Cheese Method-send a copy of a book with a post-it note attached to a particular page, with a note

  • LinkedIn

INITIAL PHONE CONTACT

  1. A very brief, to the point description of YOUR VALUE STATEMENT/ELEVATOR SPEECH

  2. A request of a short face-to-face meeting and suggested times

  3. MAGIC PHRASE this is a non-decision making fact finding meeting/call

  4. Your stated intent to follow-up on a specific date not only with the recipient but everyone else that is on the list

AT THE FIRST APPOINTMENT

  1. Think of yourself as the Doctor of Sales by having a prep list of questions to ask

  2. Have a set of magic phrases
    * This is the way I work
    * In preparation for this meeting 

  3. After finding the basis of business come back to the hard dollar values

FORMING NETWORKING TEAMS TO GET LEADS

  • Stop diarrhea networking and form referral partner teams

  • Must have the same customer base, and same mentality of doing business

  • Must understand each other enough so you can sell one another

ABOUT SALES COACH

  • Focused on the sales process, sales strategy, and culture of a company and organization

  • Want to be part of the implementation and help with the success

  • Added Value with Synergy Sales and Marketing can be a "Results-Based Outsource Sales and Marketing Company"