This is the second article from a series about trading (the first one is here – it describes the dark side of trading). This article is about the bright side of the trade: how to become a salesman. You find out about trading methods. The whole process from selecting a prospective customer to the actual sale is written about. The article hands over know-how, which I acquired at the position of a salesman.
There were two people who helped me with learning to trade. They were: a person from the management and a colleague. The next part describes how to evade an unsolicited business call in an elegant way. Types of customers you can come across during business meetings are described and how to deal with them so that you don’t end up at a psychiatric hospital. How to create a call script and its practical and verified example. There is a list of recommended books to read to help you with trading.
There is the most pivotal advice, which you must abide by at the end. It is recommended to use the advice when you start picking the right job for you.
The bright side
Choosing customers
Ask yourself the questions below before you start searching:
- What do I sell?
- Which companies buy it?
- Which products of competitors do prospective customers use?
- How good are my products in comparison with the rival ones?
- Does my company sell to customers of this size?
A good list of prospective customers in the Czech republic can be found here. Companies are sorted by an industry and branches on the website. Each industry may have their own company catalogues. Czech Internet providers use this website.
You can find prospective customers to approach there.
Before approaching a customer, It is important to find out if what you sell corresponds to what the customer wants to buy. If your company sells network switches and the customer is an Internet provider, there is a match.
If you find out that there is a company which doesn’t buy what you sell (no match), cross it out of your list of potential customers.
Information gathering before call
After you have answered the questions from the previous paragraph, you can proceed to the next step. The next step is an analysis of a prospective customer’s website and the company itself.
We will use a Slovakian company, Ideatech.sk s. r. o., as an example to show how to carry on. You are a company selling network infrastructure products (routers, switches, firewalls and Wireless systems).
While checking the website, you find out that the company offers internet services to a middle number of locations. The speed of the internet connection is up to 50 Mbps per second. There isn’t more information on the website. In this case it is necessary to have knowledge of the market and deduce which types of devices the customer may use. Based on the speed of the Internet, the customer operates a Wi-Fi network and may try to expand to a realm with a fibre internet access.
Competitive products may be: Mikrotik, UBNT, Cambium and so on.
Let’s say that your company sells Ubiquiti devices and serves small to medium-sized customers. There is a match between your company and the prospective customer. It is a good candidate to approach it.
It is also recommended to check the company in a company index and their accounting book if they make profit or lose money. You can also take a look at Google reviews. The Google reviews reflect how the company treat their customers.
Use this company index or this one in the Czech republic. Unfortunately they are both in Czech language only.
You have gathered myriad of information about the customer which will help you to be up to speed about an upcoming communication with the customer.
If you find out the customer is not suitable for you at this phase, don’t concern yourself with it further.
Call script and arranging meeting
The call script below is effective and gives an average success rate. It leads to a meeting arrangement. The average success rate is 2 : 8. It means you arrange two meetings per 10 calls.
| General steps | Example |
|---|---|
| Introduction. | Hello, my name is Bretislav Sobek. I am from a company Wi-Fi for ISP s. r. o. |
| Say what the customer that you are calling to concerns itself with. | I have checked your website and I can see your business is about providing internet access. |
| Say what your company concerns yourself with. | The company I work for offers Wi-Fi systems and fibre optics for small and medium companies. |
| A reason for the call. | I am calling to you because I would like to cooperate with you. |
| Ask the customer and find out their opinion. | What do think about it? |
| After the five steps above, either a dialogue between you and the customer or a monologue of the customer follows. They may ask you additional questions. | |
| Follow-up in communication: Arranging a meeting, Gathering more information. | I can visit you next week on Tuesday at 10 o’clock. Does it suit your schedule? What problems are you trying to solve in your computer network? Are you planning to expand? |
| A summary what you have agreed on. | We’ve had a chat about… and agreed on a meeting on 16. 3. 2022 at your company’s premises… at 10 o’clock. Do you use Outlook so that I can send you an invitation? Thank you. See you next week. |
| Send information or an invitation to the customer’s email. | Send an email or an invitation with an outline what you’re going to talk about at the meeting. It gives the customer an opportunity to prepare for the meeting as well. |
It is advisable to intersperse the conversation with silence (speech gaps). The silence gives the customer an opportunity to process what you have told them. It also gives them an opportunity to make their point (if what you are saying is either true of false). After you have made between 50 and 100 calls, you also create such call script with the average success rate.
The target of the call is to find out if you have something in common you can build your relationship on. It is about finding what the customer needs and how you, the salesman, can help them. The following meeting has the same target.
Each reaction depends on who you talk to and if they are open for a cooperation. You react to it and choose an appropriate answer. If you find out that you don’t have a common interest with the customer during the call, it is advisable to say goodbye to the customer and thank them for their time. After the call, send an email summarizing what you have talked about and your contact.
If the customer states explicitly (in an open way) they are not interested, don’t carry on with further communication.
Objections during call and their solutions
Objections during calls are a standard occurrence. Some hardened old hands among customers may take the business seduction process as a sport, test you or they can’t say no.
| Objections | Solutions |
|---|---|
| Customer: “I don’t have time at the moment.” | You: “I see, what time suits you better for the call?” |
| Customer: “Send me an offer via email.“ | You: “Our portfolio is quite wide. I would like to ask you to give me more information about what you do. Then I can create an offer which is tailored to your needs.” |
| Customer: “I remember buying a product from your company. It sucked.“ | You: “Tell me more about it please. We may find a solution for it.“ You: “What do you mean?“ |
| Customer: „I am aware of your products. They’re too expensive.“ | You:“Which products do you compare them with?“ |
| Anything you don’t understand. A customer gives hints but don’t want to say it explicitly. | You: “I don’t know what you mean. Can you explain it to me please?“ |
Consistency is very important during calling and dealing with objections. If a customer tells you to call tomorrow, it is necessary to call them tomorrow. If they have made up an excuse, they will give you the same answer tomorrow. If not, the cooperation will continue.
It is advisable to keep a rule 3 times is enough. If one gives you the same answer three times in a row (the same excuse), it doesn’t make sense to concern yourself with that customer further. They either lie or make up excuses. 3-times-is-enough rule is also good for staying sane.
Warning: The worst case is to make assumptions based on what a customer has told you. If you don’t understand something or the customer doesn’t tell it in an explicit way, it is important to ask them again. You will find the substance of the issue at the customer’s side this way.
If you receive an explicit refusal: “No, I am not interested,” it is advisable to respect the fact. It is not an objection but will of the customer.
How to end unsolicited call gracefully
I am sure it happens to you that you receive calls with offers of services and products. They don’t interest you. You feel uneasy when you think about getting rid of them. Sometimes anger builds up in you. You start shouting at the salesman. After hanging the phone call, a person sitting next to asks you: “Who was it?” and you answer: “A person bothering me with some useless products.” Your blood pressure raises up even more.
The situation results in the salesman’s self-confidence being lowered and your disgust towards these over-the-phone salesmen.
How to avoid such situation? By giving a firm statement without arguments why you don’t want to buy the offered products of services. Arguments give an opportunity to react and keep you in the call.
| Unsolicited phone call | Possible answers |
|---|---|
| Salesman: “Hello, blah blah blah…“ | You: “It sounds interesting, but I don’t occupy myself with such products, services. Thank for your offer. Good bye.“ Then hang up the call at once. |
| The salesman wants to get more information about you and your needs. | You: “I see, I don’t want to share this with you, Good bye.“ Then hang up the call at once. |
| You: “How did you say the name of your company? I’ll check it on the Internet…” – “It looks good, but I’m not interested. Good bye.” Then hang up the call at once. It may happen to you that the salesman hangs up quicker if they offer some shady stuff. | |
| 2nd round | |
| Salesman: “Why aren’t you interested?“ | You: “I would rather not to talk about it with you. Good bye.“ Then hang up the call at once. |
| Salesman: “You don’t want to save up some money, do you?“ | You: “No, I don’t. Good bye.“ |
| Seller: “You’ll save up money.“, “You get some interesting stuff.“, “No need to pay.“ | You: “That is possible. Good bye.“ |
During communication with salesmen, it is important to realize that a need for a product or a service which doesn’t originate in your head is not your need. Thus you don’t need to buy the stuff.
If salesmen keep asking the same questions, it is necessary to do the same. It means to keep giving the same answer for each question and stick to it. If you repeat your answer 10 times (as a character test of salesmen), I believe the salesmen must hang up on their own.
Meeting
The next step after the call is a meeting. It is good to prepare for it. It is reasonable to bring a plastic bag with promotional items to the customer. Bring a notepad with a pen to write down notes as well.
Plan the journey with help of Google Maps or en.mapy.cz. Add half an hour to the total time of the journey. Arriving to the meeting late must never happen.
The target of the meeting is to get acquainted with the customer. Get to know them as a human being and then find out more about their business, problems and needs.
Parts of the meeting are: introductory getting to know each other, lower a social tension and then get to the point of the meeting. If you attend a meeting where business isn’t discussed it is wasting your time more than making something out of it.
It is recommended to ask the customer for a permission to write down notes. It is polite.
Asking questions and being quiet are important means of communication during meetings. If you keep quiet on purpose, the other person doesn’t withstand it and starts talking and tell you more. It leads to the target which is to find out if you, as a salesman, have a common interest with the customer.
It is important to agree on the next step at the end of the meeting. Do it if you have a feeling there is something what you can actually offer to the customer. The next steps can be: sending a business proposal, another meeting, detailing customer’s requirements and so on.
If you find out there is nothing in common between you and the customer, thank the customer for their time and end the cooperation.
Keeping records about customers
It is crucial to keep a record about what you have talked with a customer. Notes are about business stuff as well as about personal stuff. When you communicate with the customer again, you will be in the picture and the customer appreciates it.
Think of the time when you tried dealing with a corporation. You speak with a different person each time. You have to keep explaining the same matter again and again. Sometimes you have a feeling that employees of the corporation suffer from a hearing loss. If you send them an email with what you want, they keep asking you again and again. It is uncomfortable and tiring.
Records (the notes) are crucial because they give you a chance never forget what you have promised to the customer. It is necessary you keep your word and promises. If not possible, explain the customer reason for not keeping you word.
1-year journey from 500 calls to 3 to 5 paying customers
What is the success rate of arranging a meeting and how long does it take to acquire regularly paying customers?
Imagine a one-year timeline. You created a list of 500 potential customers at the beginning of the year. The 500-customer-list turned into 100 meetings. You attended the meetings and found out what they need.
60 out of 100 meetings were unsuccessful because there wasn’t a demand for what you sell or you didn’t find yourselves likeable.
The rest of them (40) sends you a demand for a few items once in a while but you don’t make much profit. You get from 3 to 5 regularly paying customers out of the 40 at the end of the year. You visit these customers regularly and ask them what they need.
The success rate in a percentage is 0,6 % to 1 %.
This is the reason why you shouldn’t give up and carry on making efforts. If your boss claims you don’t sell enough and they don’t need you, show them this article. If it is not enough for them, try to find out why you are the 6th person in a row at this job position. If it is still not enough and they keep pushing, share your findings with them about why the previous colleagues were unsuccessful. If they still insist on your problems not being real and that you lie, you have two options:
- Give them a phone number for either an ear doctor or a psychiatrist.
- Wait until you get a redundancy payment, because if you can’t sell even in the way as I described, there is a problem on the side of the company you are employed at.
Types of customers
You get to know various personalities at the business meetings. Some of them are more bizarre and some of them are less. Let’s talk about a few of them. The personality typologies below are inspired by real living people who I met at business meetings.
Mr Pleaser
You come over at the meeting. You walk through the door and they praise you for how elegantly you have opened the door. During the meeting he keeps telling that he has not met such a great salesman who can – fill in based on your own experience – yet. After half an hour of talking he gives you a promotional T-shirt and a baseball cap. He sees you off to the door so that he can experience pleasure from you opening and closing the door again.
Business verdict: Useless unless you feel pleasure when someone else feels pleasure while you open and close the door.
Mr Motormouth (Prophet)
Wordly-wise guy who you are hand in glove with. Your chat begins with a discussion about a quality of coffee and which espresso machine is the best for the most effective workload. Then you discuss your families and how current system, which we have here, is useless. How the system and schools are factories for children indoctrination. In the end you finish with politics and conspiracy theories like from Zeitgeist: The movie. After three hours you leave with an invitation to a following meeting where you will see an empty table without a cup of coffee again. While leaving you are not sure if the guy was just a motormouth or a prophet who brought the future with illuminati to the Earth surface.
Business verdict: Ideal if you plan to set up an underground society which tries to establish the New world order.
Mr Quality inspector
After sitting down in a dark corridor which doesn’t resemble to a neat office at all, he will be looking at your suitcase for 10 minutes trying to find flaws. The meeting seems promising at beginning. He tells you to write down what he needs. Time passes and he keeps adding requirements which don’t fit in together whatsoever. It is your first deal so you write down everything. After the return to the office you spend 10 hours looking for a product which doesn’t exist. You were fresh as an orange picked up from a tree at the beginning. At the end you are like a slice of dried orange which is used to decorate a wreath. You will turn into dust soon.
Next morning you peek in the product catalogue again. Finally you find the matching product. You call up Mr Quality inspector. Dollars signs are flicking through your eyes as in the cartoon of Uncle Scrooge. You tell him proudly that you have found THE PRODUCT. He replies: “I am not interested in it anymore. However there is something else I am interested in. Write down my requirements.” The cooperation continues in cycles this way. You try to materialize something what’s not possible to see in the physical world. You are not a salesman anymore, you are a wizard.
Business verdict: If you’re patient enough and like explaining and giving reasons why some of the functionalities are not needed, you may see a few products sold per year.
Mr Lunatic
After you have pulled over, you try to get inside. You’re looking for an entrance to his castle. You are knocking at the door, nothing happens. You find out he’s forgotten about you. He arrives. When he is walking past you, there is something weird about him. His movement and gestures remind you of Trainspotting movie. He laugh incessantly because he has unlimited amount of cash.
While you talk to him, he keeps losing to you. He has transported himself to another dimension. After he’s returned from the faraway land he start to talk to you like a redneck. When you bring it to the attention he returns back to the real world. He calls his friends. They arrive and sit down on his right and left side. They serve as advisors to him while you talk. They nod and agree with everything what Mr Lunatic says.
He has lost his consciousness again. While he resides in a different space-time continuum he imagines a while line.
The white line which he will have to pull over with his Corvette which is in front of his castle.
At the end of the meeting, you find out the company wasn’t established by him but by his brother. It was handed down to him.
Business verdict: He will only be a good business partner if you can fly with him to the other dimension and return with a neck malfunction. The neck malfunction which causes you to nod and agree on everything what he says.
Mr Untrustworthy
He claims to fulfil all his promises but does nothing. When you remind him of his promises he starts to behave in a childish way and getting emotional. It insults him. When you call him in one month’s time again he adds more promises. You remind him of his promises and he turns into a baby having lost his dummy. When you try it for the third time he may burst as a too inflated balloon. You leave the meeting thirsty, he has even forgotten the promised cup of coffee.
Business verdict: Waste of time and sanity if you carry on communicating with him.
A person who you wouldn’t think it about
Communication with him starts in a friendly way. You have a small talk at the beginning. It helps you to proceed to the next phase. You flow into the business phase smoothly. You talk about what his needs and business problems are. You shake hands at the end of the meeting and agree on sending a business proposal.
He asks you if would like to drink something (and brings it). He owns a standard car. His hands don’t shake and he doesn’t leave our dimension. It is pleasure to talk to him.
Business verdict: This is the right partner to do business with. You can have a lasting relationship with him.
Two types of customers
You may meet two types of customers. One of them wants to receive more than one business proposal. He wants pick one on his own.
On the other hand there are customers who like to receive one business proposal. They take it as one solution for their problems. It simplifies their situation and ease the stress of choice. You don’t have to draft up multiple proposals but just one. It also means less work for you.
Two tips at the end
- Never say anything what you can’t come to terms with yourself.
- Make up something interesting which will identify you as different at the meetings:
Examples (related to the Czech republic):
- Taking an old suitcase to meetings with you. It is rare nowadays.
- A joke with a plastic bag. The customer probably gets loads of promotional stuff. So at the end say something like: “And now the most important present. A plastic bag for free.” (Minimum payment for a plastic bag in the Czech rep. is 1 CZK. It is mandatory.)
Reasons to become salesman
I think that good reasons to become a salesman is to try to help customers with their problems and forge good relationships with them.
Most important advice of all
Never sell goods which you think is garbage (even though it is), because it hard to sell garbage.
