Improving on "blah, blah, blah" (Continued).

• Author: WIESNER, PAT
• Position: Brief Article

REPLACING IT WITH SOMETHING COMPELLING IN SALES PRESENTATIONS

A recent e-mail said, "I am a 15-year A financial sales veteran ... making cold calls ... saying, 'like to stop by for a few minutes to introduce myself, blah, blah'... and it doesn't work very well."

How does a salesperson become superior instead of average? The question, as we asked last month, becomes, "How can I be consistent with my personality, be truly different from my competition, perform a real consultant-quality service for my customer and get all the business I deserve?"

I used to think that if I could only get an appointment I would do all right, but when I called saying, "Mr. Big, blah, blah, blah ... I'd like to set a convenient time to come and see you," I was not getting enough appointments. And it didn't take much time or analysis for me to figure out why

My blah, blah, blah was self serving, dull and unconvincing. What I was saying never amounted to a good reason for Mr. Big to give me an appointment.

For example, I was saying things like:

* "We have this special issue I'd like to tell you about ..."

* "I'd like to get acquainted and ask a few questions about ..."

* "We have this wonderful new program..."

* "I will only bother you when we have a new idea ..."

I...I...I, we, we, we.

Let's put ourselves in the place of our prospects.

Realize that he/she has 15 or 20 people just like us calling and saying the same things! That some of us get appointments is testimony that buyers are doing their job and must talk to some of us sometime. An average salesperson can make a living by working hard. But what can we do to stand out from the other 19? What kind of salesman always gets an appointment, is welcome and even sought out for his/her counsel?

The answer is in the blah, blah, blah. We have to challenge ourselves to make it different, unusual, specific to our prospect. We must improve it until we are sure that it is totally different from the blah, blah, blah of any other of the salespeople calling on our customer. Here are some suggestions from some great salespeople:

Know you customer -- a really good sales manager I once worked for told me to replace the...