Have you defined what you want to happen at the conclusion of your 1st appointment? Only then can you actually set up a proficient sales methodology to achieve the defined objective more times than not. And with a pre-defined objective to your 1st appointment you can (1) set a realistic benchmark of success and (2) measure the outcome. It becomes part of your sales performance scorecard.

What is a 1st appointment to proposal ratio? It’s simply how many times you gain commitment with your prospect to take the next step, as outlined by your sales process.
Depending on your solutions-based product or service and your sales methodology, your ‘Next step’ may be one of the following:

An on-site demonstration
A trial period of your “widget”
A tour of your operations or manufacturing facility
A no-obligation survey
An evaluation and side-by-side comparison, apples to apples
A solution-based evaluation, apples to oranges

Whatever your ‘Gateway’ is, be sure to attach a business rule and definition to it, and then most importantly measure it.
For example, let’s look at a telecommunications company that provides voice, data and wireless services to their customer base. The objective of their first appointment is to gain commitment from their Target prospect to perform a diagnostic survey of their current services as it relates to their overall business imperatives and financial success factors for the current year and bring them back a ‘Blueprint’ of ROI based solutions.

With their 1st appointment objective ‘Gateway’ defined, they come to a decision to measure that gateway by having the target prospect sign a release form that enables them to contact their current service provider and request a specification report around line, data and feature connectivity.

The advantage of defining and measuring the first ‘Gateway’ is that it will provide you with a ‘Reality Mirror’ of how competent you are with the initial phase of your sales process. So if you have set a realistic benchmark company-wide of a 60% 1st Appointment to Proposal ratio and you have individuals below it, you can pro-actively provide them with targeted coaching and support tools to help them achieve the standard benchmark. And that drives more revenue.

If I walk into a sales division and diagnose their 1st appointment to proposal ratio is below 60%, I immediately know up to 5 specifics:

1. They are not calling on the Highest appropriate level of contact

2. They are not calling on the right type of company by industry or application

3. They have not defined a 1st appointment objective (A ‘Gain Commitment’ Gateway)

4. They have ‘no message’ or are poor at communicating the message

5. They are selling their services instead of selling the diagnostic steps in the Process and backing it up with 3rd party validations

The first two factors are directly related with whom you decide to call on.
You probably know who uses your product or service, but you might need some business acumen training to better understand the critical financial success indicators of your prospect parallel to their Front Burner business objectives.

More than often not, a low 1st appointment to proposal ratio is related to a process of not calling on the highest appropriate level of contact. By that I mean understanding the level of responsibility within a company that has the most input into a buying decision. Who has the ‘ownership’? Who is at the ‘need to know’ level? It may be more than one level or title, but it is important to resolve to a top-down selling process.
A top-down selling process will raise your 1st appointment to proposal conversion rates because you are in front of the appropriate person from the start. That person has enough clout to sign on to the next step or to legitimately dismiss the process. If you are dealing with a subordinate level, to the degree of which you are will be the degree your conversion rate will expeditiously decrease.

There was a start-up company in a recently de-regulated industry that had accumulated 300 million dollars in investor money to build a business. Their primary sales distribution channel was a direct sales team. They decided to retain a sales training firm to set up all sales strategies, appropriate processes and training to execute to their revenue goals. Interesting enough, they promoted just the opposite of a top down selling process.

They promoted a strategy and process of initiating contact with business receptionists. That’s right, the nice folks who sit in the lobby to answer and direct all the inbound calls. They felt if you promote yourself to these receptionists, flatter then with brand reference gifts, they would eventually lead you to the right person of authority to look at the sales proposition. After all, they know all the names and extensions, and who has what title.
I guess you could call it a bottom up selling process.

At the same time, I was heading up a direct sales team competing directly with their services in the same geographical area. We followed the sales strategies and processes I am outlining.

Our competitor’s sales cycle was longer and their average revenue per sale was smaller. Two years later, we had grown 509% and were acquired by a national company. That was the goal.

Our competitor filed chapter 11, let everyone go, and liquidated all assets. End of story.

The level of responsibility you decide to call on directly effects your 1st appointment to proposal ratio.

Here are (8) diagnostic tips to improve your ‘1st Appointment to Proposal’ ratio.

1. Employ an ROI-based lead generator system that contains data recognition, classification, and custom extraction specific to your business offering.

2. Internally define what the objective of the 1st appointment is; a demo, a site visit, a survey or a proposal, set a benchmark of success and universally measure it.

3. Promote your Product/service offering in a way to provide a measurable soft or hard dollar ROI over time.

4. Call on the ‘Highest appropriate level of contact’ for your offering; one that that has fiscal authority if a proposal make business sense.

5. Use a diagnostic approach in your sales appointment to understand what your Prospect’s business objectives are in the short and long term.

6. Get some ‘Business Acumen’ training to become proficient in understanding how fiscal people measure their business and support your business offering with relevant terms such as ROI, IRR and Payback Period.

7. Don’t sell your product or service on the 1st appointment. Promote ‘the diagnostic steps of your process’ to evaluate the opportunity to increase performance, efficiencies or reduce costs.

8. Utilize a software proposal generator (non-Boiler-plate) that develops custom proposals specific to your Prospect’s required deliverables and how your solutions will facilitate them getting there sooner rather than later. Show examples during your 1st appointment process.

Defining a specific objective for your 1st appointment, setting a realistic benchmark of achievement and measuring the outcome will begin to get you on track to an 80%+ 1st appointment to Proposal ratio.

Then support the sales objective by developing or outsourcing quality tools tied to technology and best practices to allow more of your sales employees to achieve superior benchmark results.

Jeff Hardesty is president of JDH Group Inc., a sales performance training company based in Powell, Ohio. He can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com

Calculate your sales team’s ‘Sales Performance Competencies’ here =>http://convertmoresales.com/marketing_blitz.php

Submit your numbers for a complimentary 30-minute performance consultation with Jeff Hardesty =>http://convertmoresales.com/roi_survey.php

Prospecting is the engine that propels anyone in sales. Without consistently initiating contact with prospective customers to talk with, your sales will plummet and everybody loses. Studies confirm that 80% of all salespeople fail in their first year because of the fears associated with prospecting. 40% of veteran producers with more than five years — experience severe sales slumps due to fears associated with prospecting.

Fears are productivity busters that drain our energies and makes sales prospecting emotionally difficult. Fears most commonly recognized in the sales world are fear of rejection, fear of loss, fear using the telephone, fear of not be prepared, group selling and a host of others. All of which jeopardize existing relationships with customers and stand in the way of acquiring new customers — resulting in loss revenue for companies and loss income for salespeople.

Eliminating those fears is something that is easy to overcome. But sales managers and trainers who tell sales rookies and seasoned professionals to do the things you fear most and it will go away — haven’t a clue of what harm is being done. The person who is motivated, has sales goals and is reluctant to cold calls, self-promotion, selling to groups or any other forms of call reluctant is legitimately fearful. Forcing that person to make cold calls on the telephone is only imbedding the fear deeper. It is like pounding a nail into a person’s leg and at the same time telling them to think positive and it won’t hurt.

Fears are feeling establish when we allow ourselves to, mindlessly, recite self-limiting thoughts. To overcome distressful gut wrenching feelings we must replace fear producing self-talk with non-fear-producing statements.

Sales, is a stressful business causing negative mind chatter in a person to conjure up all kinds of unpleasant thoughts. When prospecting, it is not at all uncommon for the salesperson to check out momentarily by going into a state of self-hypnosis reciting counterproductive, contorted and self-defeating talk. When that occurs, you need to replace it with self-enhancing self-talk, which will result in constructive emotional responses.

When complacency and stress sets in — beware. Check what is going on with your self-talk. It just may be that you are slowly being contaminated. When you are having feelings of distress and despair over any form of prospecting, listen carefully to yourself. Are you hearing highly charge and emotional words like — couldn’t, terrible, awful, can’t, hate — that automatically invoke self-talk statements that are inhibiting your career.

Here is a simplified but useful way of reversing self-diminishing self-talk:

1. Close you eyes and take three deep breaths.

2. While you are exhaling, slow your self-talk down to the point that you are reciting, your words, in slow motion. Listen for your self-defeating talk.

3. Disconnect your self-defeating talk with goal-supporting non-fear producing statements.

4. Continue the reinforcement by visualizing a positive outcome along with your non-fear producing statements.

Your focus in this simplified exercise is to realign your emotional energy. Fear takes on many different forms and drains us of energy, while robbing us of many valuable hours we could be using more productively for prospecting and growing our business.

Don L. Price – Coaching Minds To Succeed, Sales/Marketing & High Performance Success Coach, International Speaker, Consultant and Author of Secrets of Personal Marketing Power-Strategies for Achieving Greater Personal & Business Success —
http://www.donlprice.com

http://www.donlprice.com/files/htisubmit.htm

Every sales manager or director knows that they have to spend some time training and working with their staff so they continue to improve, however frequently managers get so caught up in their own schedules that they neglect coaching for other duties. When you’ve got new staff, that isn’t a good idea. Whether experienced or not, all reps need polishing from time and time depending on their level of skill. It takes time and energy, but the results in the long run, are worth the time put in. Below are some tips to become a better coach for a new team:

Be sure to make time for coaching. Set up a weekly meeting with each rep to see how things are going and ensure that they are continuing to improve. Be specific in the meetings, discuss customer problems/challenges, and what the rep needs to do to make the best use of their time. By having defined goals the rep will be on track as they increase their skills and understanding of good selling practices. Ensure that reps are informed of what is expected of them. More experienced reps also need feedback, it helps build confidence which is important in keeping reps fueled.

Secondly, be sure to observe your reps in the field. It is difficult to determine where your reps need additional help, especially new reps if you aren’t observing them on a live call. Watch how they interact with clients, use time management, and take care of their other job duties. It is a good practice to go on at least one sales call per quarter with your staff, and more often if you see a particular rep that is struggling. You may also want to consider having seasoned reps make calls with new reps, however ensure that you understand the potential expense of taking a top performer out of the field. It may make sense if the senior rep may lead into a management role, however if not, time away from selling will impact the bottom line.

Finally, be one step ahead of the game. Don’t wait until reps have a problem, because at that point it may have left them feeling unconfident and demotivated. Seek out each rep monthly and ask how things are going, in a controlled atmosphere such as a meeting etc. Managers should make a dedicated effort to keep in touch with new sales staff whether face to face or with a phone call. Part of the manager’s efforts in the beginning will determine the rep’s willingness to go the distance.

Tim Hagen owns Sales Progress LLC a sales development and consulting firm located in Mequon, Wisconsin. Tim has worked in a variety of industries and has typically increased sales between 15-35%. Feel free to contact him directly at salebuilder@aol.com or visit the website at http://www.SalesProgress.com.