| Green Phones |
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You know, every week, rain or shine, minor or major holiday, I write this weekly newsletter for my subscribers. Yep, 52 of these guys per year. And I've been writing the weekly for the past 5 years. Prior to that, I was writing bi-weekly for 7 years. That's a bunch of writing! Sometimes I'm really hot. I can tell. The keyboard practically burns under my fingernails--changing my nail polish a strange mix of colors! Other times, I sit. I ponder. I look at my notes and recent articles for inspiration. I search the web for new ideas. And nothing. I'm all dried up. So, I do what all writers do. I attempt to create something from nothing. After the articles are written and I check to see what percentage of readers have opened them, that's when I really know if the article was well-received or not. Sometimes, due to the Internet tracking angels, I get over 100% viewership. (That's when the Sally Field line of "You like me. You REALLY, REALLY like me", comes to mind. Last week wasn't one of those moments. So, let's just say, I hope that you enjoy this content more. Then share it. Read it again. And share it with someone else. 'Nuf said... So the tips this week have to do with selling green. There isn't a greener tool than the telephone. You don't need to put gas in it. You don't need to go through security with your liquids in a baggie. It's green. You can make a call from virtually anywhere for just about pennies. McGraw-Hill's research department ran a study to see how much it costs to sell over the phone vs. in person. Currently, for a medium sized company, it costs approximately $13 to make a decent sales call using the phone. If traveling to the client's site, the cost is well over $600 per customer. So, doing the math, if you are investing $600 in each call, you can make approximately 46 phone calls for the cost of traveling to see just one customer! That's a GREEN bargain! Your C02 reduction is substantial, as well. So if you are calling customers, instead of traveling, just think--you are now "near-sourcing". What does that mean to your clients? Since most businesses these days are concerned about reducing their carbon footprint by saving money, reducing waste, and doing what's right for the environment, here is an opportunity for you to toot your own horn by sharing with your customers how you are contributing to their green-well being by NOT being there in person! At SalesPEAK, we refer to this as "Green Phone". In fact, we are so committed to it, we are including dozens of new concepts about "green phoning" in our newest book. Conference calls, WebX's, tele-conferences, video-conferencing and just phone calls--what a super way to help save our planet in an eco-friendly way. After explaining all this, here are my tips for today: 1. Get to the office EARLY and make most of your calls before noon. 2. Schedule at least THREE times the number of calls you can realistically make for that day. Then, make 'em. 3. Always leave a message in each call--regardless of how many times you've called in the past. 4. Provide the customer a REASON to return your call by making your message interesting. 5. Keep your head up and your voice friendly with every call and every message by keeping your head UP. 6. Every time you want to take a break--make 2 more calls before getting out of your chair. 7. Engage every customer over the phone by listening 80% of the time. Need more tips? Go to: www.salespeak.com and click onto "Sales Help", "Articles". Thanks for reading (AND for passing this email onto your network!) |
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