Sales, Building A Business, Working From Home

Sales Presentation
This presentation was written some time ago, to help people who are newly self employed who perform a sales cycle.
It helps you prepare for being self employed, build and maintain a sales pipeline, work internationally and successfully work from home. The sales advice is very basic, but motivational.

Growth Phase of your Business The initial growth phase of a business can be a bit demoralising. There is lots of business development and very little doing the actual job. There sometimes seems to be so many NOs. It seems like an uphill struggle, with no reward. The sales cycle is long. Everyone around you seems to be doing well. Building a business from scratch requires an enormous amount of guts, dedication, tenacity and determination.

Take Heart
You are not alone!!
All the best entrepreneurs started exactly where you are, right now from scratch.
Along the way your pipeline will grow.
Your contacts will grow over the years.
Your knowledge will grow too.
The job becomes easier.
Set your expectations accordingly.
Stick to best practice, the numbers will always come.
Every NO means you are closer to a YES.
Use your network, help is only ever a phone call away.
Search Telecom

Numbers Game Here’s the salesy bit. The numbers are out there. If you speak to enough people you will get results. If you work your leads in the right way success is out there. Out of every 100 prospects researched you might get through to 30. Of the 30 - 20 might actually answer the phone. Of the 20 - 5 might give you a chance to sell. Of the 5 - 3 might ask for more info. Of the 3 - 1 might actually buy. So with persistence there is a sale waiting to happen out there. If you don’t claim it, you competition will. Search Telecom

Activity Levels (growth phase)
It is important to:
Try to stick to core hours.
Ensure your activity levels are high.
Balance various activities to ensure you are maintaining all aspects of your business.
Understand that you are building a business here and that won’t happen on it’s own.
It takes hard work and man hours.
There are very few businesses on the planet that have business come to them initially.
Stay focused on the goal outcome.
Search Telecom

Working Smarter Not Harder If things are not working: Don’t become frustrated, take action. Pick up the phone. Ask some-one. Get another perspective. Go back to best practice. Why isn’t it working? Troubleshoot your business. What’s wrong? Focus on core objectives, go right back to basics. Search Telecom

Stick to Basics.
Don’t think – DO!!
Don’t overanalyse what you do.
Make calls, its better to make the occasional call badly than not to make any at all.
Don’t allow analysis paralysis.
If you are spending lots of time working and not achieving much, you are thinking too much and not doing enough.
Banish analysis paralysis. It eats time.
We sell a product, all sales starts with an initial pitch.
You are only ever as good as your product or service.
Excellent BD is wasted without superb standards of
fulfilment to back it up.

Research Phase Keep research simple. Use more time on actually making calls. Use a simple template for research. Understand that research is simply the first part of the process. You will need lots of prospects to call and convert into leads. Search Telecom

Business Development Call Feel good, stand up straight, sound happy, confident. Project your voice. Make them feel you are offering pure gold. Do not feel you are getting in the way or taking up their time. You are there to save them time and provide a great service. Know exactly what you are going to say. Be ready to make mistakes. Be prepared, rarely some people put the phone down. Search Telecom

Objectives of a Call Don’t just blindly pick up the phone without thinking. Plan your objectives. What do you want out of this call? How will you react to that? Is there a downsell option available if your first outcome is not available? What are your selling points? How will you objection handle? Search Telecom

Working at the right level. It is essential that we work at the right level. Try to work with decision makers. We work with VPs, directors and CEOs. We have worked hard on our reputation to earn us the right to go direct. Every step we get away from this, our hard work is being diluted. We are managing our time poorly and wasting effort. We are taking away from the good stuff, what we do best, what works best.

Referrals It is not every call we make that achieves our objectives 100% every time. How do we maximise these wasted calls and boost our productivity? Ensure we are asking for referrals at every step of the process. Prompt them,for upsells, downsells and cross sells. Lets squeeze every single drop of revenue out of every call. Always be focused on the business objectives for making the call. Search Telecom

Buy in For Ts & Cs Try not to get too hung up on Ts & Cs. They are a necessary part of our business. Don’t ever feel like you should not ask. Clients understand that this is how all businesses work and to engage your services, they must sign. Perhaps suggest that they put you in touch with an admin contact or secretary to handle this. It is perfectly normal and acceptable. If the client drags their heels, they will likely do the same about paying our bill, that means they are not the sort of client we want to work with. Ultimately if the client will not sign them, walk away, you will never get paid. Search Telecom

Negotiating Retainers. Point out: The cost benefits. They get guaranteed results. They get exclusivity of our time and service. . Search Telecom

The value of being present at a trade show.
Effective research + preparation work = meetings set up in advance + productive time management.
Every call before the show is a warm lead. “I will be at xxx show, can we meet?”
Every call following the show is a warm lead. = Less need for unsuccessful cold calling. “We met at the ITU show”
The opportunity to meet with target companies face to face.
Opportunity to meet with key decision makers at the right level. CXO, CEO, CFO,
Meeting our target clients on their turf = respect.
Just our presence at an industry specific exhibition gives us high level exposure and ensures we are respected in our chosen arena of expertise.
High calibre, credible point of reference for our business marketing – “we are present at all major telecoms shows globally”
We use exhibitor lists from shows to get an idea of new companies to target. It gives us an accurate picture of the direction technology is going in.
Search Telecom

How to Research Upcoming Trade Shows Search Telecom This link covers all the major global shows for research and planning purposes. http://www.biztradeshows.com/ To research and plan a show you need to monitor projected footfall. (delegates/attendees/trade visitors) It’s also important to judge how many exhibitors will be there compared to how many conference attendees. There will not be much show traffic if everyone is stuck in a conference. If these figures are not projected on the web site, study last years show figures, as a guide.

Show Lists.
Use show lists to research prospects to call.
Work methodically through the show list.
Avoid companies that look like a one man band or too huge to use your services.
Avoid resellers or simple distributors, they don’t tend to need many services.
If the show is coming up soon use calls as an opportunity to convert meetings.
Always use a show list as a foundation for building contacts.
Try calling into the marketing person for the company, they are usually more open to a conversation.
Search Telecom

Show Preparation- getting the most from your investment. Be sure you have an exhibitor list. Have all your targeted companies researched prior to calling. Make introductory calls into the companies, try calling marketing guys, they will normally talk more freely. Ask who will be attending the show and if you could book a meeting. When you arrive at the show be sure to have all your notes with you. If one is available obtain a physical floor plan or map, this is invaluable as the shows are huge and it is easy to get lost or forget where you have already been to. Subscribe to the show newsletter, this will make you aware of what will be going on. Search Telecom

Travel Arrangements for Shows. Search Telecom It is very important that travel arrangements are made in advance. Try to keep up to date with arrangements and keep costs to a minimum. Costs for accommodation can sky rocket closer to a show as all the hotels put their prices up. It is down to you to make all suitable preparations for travel. All essential items packed, up to date passports, vaccinations, visas, travel insurance, travel tickets, show ticket/pass. It is recommended that you keep a photocopy of your passport along with all travel docs in a very safe place. Make yourself aware of travel requirements and prevented luggage items. Security into the US is tight now. Have all correct forms filled in before clearing immigration and customs. Large shows are normally held in business capitals or safe places, so it is unlikely you would need visas or travel vaccs. But always check this.

Travelling to and from the Show. It is essential that you check where your hotel accommodation actually is in relation to the expo centre, booking over the internet can sometimes make things look close together. Travel is exceptionally slow during the time of a show due to volume of traffic. This can add to your journey each day and give you a mammoth commute. Working a show is already extremely tiring, in the evenings you will want to rest up and be refreshed for the next day. Don’t forget to factor in travel costs each day too, it can add up in the major cities. Search Telecom

Cost of Attending a Show Cost of Airfare Cost of Hotel accommodation Cost of ticket to get in Cost of Expenses while at the show. Each show is variable but the average cost is about £1000 per show. Search Telecom

Walking onto a Stand Takes a bit of courage. Be armed with business cards. Ensure you are smart, well dressed. Stand up straight and confident. Know exactly what your first sentence will be. First be prepared to ask them about what they do. Listen to what they say and ask questions. Try not to look like a seller, hawking around stands one after the next if possible. Try to obtain business cards, these are priceless with direct contact details for clients. Try to get referrals from people. They may not be the buying manager, but they will know who is. Be direct ask for an introduction. Try to get information from them about the company. This is useful later. Try to strike up a personal conversation, so they will remember you in your follow up. Search Telecom

Working Internationally - requirements & benefits.
We are able to ride out economy blips and recessions in various different parts of the world.
Right now the UK market is suffering, but China & Indian markets are booming. We go where the work is.
We must work across different time zones. Sometimes we must arrange virtual meetings between 3 or more different time zones.
This means working strange hours. Asia early, US late. The working day is not straightforward.
We must respect time zones, it’s bad manners to call really late or really early, just because it’s working hours where we work.
We must be culturally aware.
We must be able to negotiate in different currencies be aware of major exchange rates and do conversions quickly.
We must know international contract laws and business culture for different areas.
Due to modern technology and communications, International searches are no more of a challenge than one on our doorstep.
Search Telecom

Language Differences. From time to time you might encounter a language barrier. If you cant understand some-one speaking English with a strong accent, ask them to slow down and speak slower. If you get info, e-mail or information in another language use google translate to put it into English. Generally English is the international language of business but it is always good to learn the basics of other languages so you can greet people in their own tongue. Search Telecom

Cultural Differences
People in Germany or Eastern block countries can be very frank and straight to the point.
Southern Europeans (Spain, Italy, France) can be very laid back and do things on their own timescale. (capuccino culture)
Americans tend to be very open for business.
Canadians can be very fluffy.
Asian people tend to prefer loyalty and longevity in business dealing. They tend not to trust each other.
Why is this information useful to us?
It helps us know what to expect.
It also helps us to deal with our clients.
Search Telecom

National Holidays. When you are working with a client, it is always good to respect national holidays in their part of the world. These can be found on http://www.jours-feries.com/statique/index_pays2.html Big ones to look out for are new year in Asia and US thanksgiving and 4 th July. Search Telecom

Currencies
Having a global presence, we deal in various different currencies.
It is a good idea to be familiar with the major currencies.
Major currencies are Dollars, Euros and GBP.
Not knowing roughly where these currencies are at can cost you thousands if you are negotiating a fee.
We use http://www.xe.com/ to quickly and simply work out the worlds currency conversions.
You can also try asking to be paid in your preferred currency. Will not always work, but worth a try!
Search Telecom

Time Zones We use http://www.worldtimeserver.com/ This has all major time zones. It also has a meeting planner function to use when you are arranging interviews around the globe. It also tells you if you are calling during their working day or not using a clear colour coded system. Use this at all times, never, ever guess it is very embarrassing when you are an hour out on the times and everyone misses their meeting slot. We deal with very busy people, the chance may not come again. Be extra careful about the US. One country 4 time zones, it’s confusing, clarify which part they live/work in and be sure to use the time zone calculator for that time zone. We normally work Asia mornings, Europe in the day and US in the evening. Search Telecom

Your Business The most important thing you understand about all of this is that it is your business. You can reach out for help at any time, but ultimately, the book stops with you. Now you are self employed you are expected to wear several different hats, troubleshoot your own business, motivate yourself, regulate your income and much more. You can go from owner to accountant to cleaner to IT guy to recruiter all in one day. With the right planning, organization and enthusiasm you can achieve all this and actually enjoy being your own boss. Search Telecom

Pipeline It is important that we understand that the recruitment sales process is all about the pipeline. If we do not monitor this our income will be “feast and famine” We must always maintain a certain amount of marketing activity to ensure that we are earning what we want from our business. Once we are up and running and our business is profitable we can afford to take time off. But we must always be aware that any time we have off will not be paid for straight away, but in 6 months time. The reason the pipeline is so long is that it takes time to convert leads from cold to warm. So until then nothing is guaranteed for us. It is a very long process. Search Telecom

Maintaining a Healthy Pipeline This requires hard work, thought, planning, maintenance dedication. It is essential. If we ever neglect to think about our pipeline 6 months in advance our business will fall flat on its face in 6 months time. If our activity levels drop now, we will earn less, maybe nothing in the future. It is much easier to maintain a pipeline and keep a healthy business than it is to get a business going from scratch all over again. Starting from a standing start all over again is extremely painful and demoralising, it is much better to maintain our activity. Search Telecom

Spinning plates. Once you have a good client on board and are in the throws of organizing interviews, balancing candidates etc, you will get very busy. The temptation is to drop everything and focus on one thing. We cannot afford to do this. We must multi task. If we do not maintain our business development activities or our pipeline will suffer and our income will dip signifigantly down the line. We must always be conscious of this. Search Telecom

Hurry Up and Wait
Half your life will be spent waiting for things to happen.
No matter how much you wish, will, long or try, things will take their own course.
The Client will always take their time.
Their speed will always be much slower than yours.
This goes for every step of the process.
Search Telecom

Ensuring we Get Paid
The easiest way to ensure we get paid is to stick to best practice.
Ensure we never work with a client without Ts & Cs.
Keep all documents filed together on your CRM.
Keep a solid audit trail all along the way.
Do not delete any e-mails that we will later need.
Keep good client relationships.
Search Telecom

Income Management (Quiet Times) Once you have clients on board and first placements made, what then? It is essential that you manage your income stream. If you make a huge fee and then go on holiday, you will run out of money in 6 months. If you take holidays now, you will pay in 6 months. If you stop maintaining your pipeline, now you will pay in 6 months. Always anticipate quiet times and factor this into your calculations. Our quiet times are Christmas, 2-3 weeks and Summer (July and August) for at least 6 weeks. Quiet times represent a significant income void, you need pennies in the bank to ride this out. Very little work goes on. Search Telecom

Feast or Famine The ideal strategy to ride out quiet times is: Keep money aside for this. Make sure that going into Summer and Xmas you have plenty of good, paying loyal clients built up. Maintain your pipe line accordingly. Use quiet times to take your own holidays. Avoid taking long holidays in late Spring or late Autumn. You will need a good run up. When you get a lump sum, settle any bills immediately, and store the rest. Search Telecom

Budgeting Accordingly.
Like any business, self employed or otherwise, we can be hit by a number of economic factors.
We are not immune.
We can prepare for these by using our income wisely.
Whenever we are paid resist the temptation to spend wildly or reward ourselves.
Sit down and set out a budget for a minimum of the next 6 months.
This should include all realistic living expenses, all bills, all business costs, franchise fee, linked in access etc.
The sales cycle can be long, don’t get caught out.
Keep a minimum of 6 months living expenses at any given time.
Take into account our quiet times and plan holidays and spending around these.
Search Telecom

Beware the golden goose.
So you have worked hard.
You have a loyal faithful client, who pays well.
Why spend time building up more business when you are busy enough.
As with any business, nothing is guaranteed. At any given time company strategies change, people pull out, budget freezes come out of nowhere, new management rocks the boat. The new VP won’t use your service. The share price drops.The new MD is the devil incarnate.
Always keep a varied portfolio of clients.
Always keep on doing business development.
Try to keep a minimum of 4 active clients at any given time.
Search Telecom

Highs & Lows Sales is a complex process. Things can go wrong for a variety of different reasons as mentioned before. If it was easy everyone would be rich!! The lows of sales can literally rob you of enthusiasm. It is important to have a strong, positive state of mind. It is important to possess tenacity, or bouncebackability. Pick yourself back up and get right back to work. If you maintain a strong pipeline you will always have too much work on to worry overly about one deal blowing out for whatever reason. Search Telecom

Working From Home Avoid working from the room you sleep in. Avoid working in bed (from a lap top) Keep office space clean, clear and organized. Try to keep pets and kids out of the office. Close the door to keep noise down to a minimum. Try to insist that others respect your work hours. Be firm with the neighbour who insists on popping round. Make sure that partners understand you work from home and are not just there to be left with all the chores, get buy in on this right from the outset as you may be working long hours initially. Get your office space prepared before you commence working from home. As soon as you are self employed you will want to be focused on making money, you will be amazed how much time is swallowed cleaning out the office and setting up comms. Keep set business hours, and stick to them. Have a distinct barrier between work and leisure time or you will go mad. In the first few months, you will most likely be working in the evenings, try to have easy to prepare healthy meals on hand, so you are not eating badly or too tired to prepare anything. Search Telecom

Preparing your office. The things you will need to get started are quite simple. Computer, desk, phone, headset (optional) pens, paper. You may also find it handy to use white boards. We use them to keep track of leads and all clients we work with currently. Search Telecom

Technical Help These are absolute basics. If you know anyone who is good with comms, ask them to come round and help set up your home office. You will be amazed how long this takes. When things are up and running you may run into the occasional problem, we do not have an IT support desk, so the book stops with us to fix everything. Do not panic, as soon as comms go down there is a temptation to panic as we can’t make money. Don’t panic keep a level head, think logically and work through things. Use preventative care, have an up to date virus checker run regular scans. Buy a decent computer in the first place, use reviews to gague how good it will be. This will save you man hours of time that could be spent making money. Search Telecom

Troubleshooting Comms.
Use help files within programmes.
Use troubleshooters.
Make use of any help lines that are available.
Try the basics, update drivers etc.
If your internet works use it to google the answer, stick your problem in google, technical posts will pop up. Use these to help figure out the problem.
Before you do anything, turn everything off, power down, walk away, come back to it.
Quite often this fixes minor problems.
Check all connections for loose wires.
Try a substitute device if you have it.
Go to control panel on your computer, check if the item has any obvious errors.
Try to keep a little money in reserve in case you do need to nip out and buy a new mouse, head set, keyboard, more memory, etc.
Sometimes things just pack in with no great explanation. Be prepared.
Search Telecom

Backing up Your Work
It is a good idea to regularly back up your work.
Most of your work will in the form of communications.
Use an online service to automate the process. I recommend MOZY.
It costs a little, but think how much it would cost your business if your PC packed in and you lost all your data.
Its a very good idea to have an up to date virus checker and run this regularly.
All information on Linked in is backed up onto thier server.
Think hard before hitting the delete button on e-mails.
It is essential that we back up, if a case ever goes to court, we only have evidence to prove our work.
Assume that clients will always try to get out of paying.
Search Telecom

Benefits of using Skype See www.skype.com for all benefits and packages. The best package for us is skype world unlimited. For £16 a quarter we get unlimited calls to landlines in most countries in the world. This option gives you a free land line number too (London available) Free calls to mobiles in US, Canada Singapore, Hong Kong and others. Calls to mobiles abroad are also cheaper than any other option. As low as 10p a minute. You can conference up to 10 people. Free video chat Quality is much better than it used to be. Can be used off a stable mobile internet dongle. Can be used anywhere with a wi-fi hotspot. You can take your number with you when you travel. Free customisable voicemail service, low cost diverts. If you are working with some-one else as a team you can literally stay on the phone all day for free. You can see when people are available to chat. Search Telecom

Admin Tasks We all hate them. Updating the CRM Doing research. Scheduling calls. Filling in lead spreadsheets. Yes as with any job there are tedious admin parts that go with it. We think it’s beneath us or a waste of our valuable skills. But until we can all afford PAs this is a necessary evil. We make more work for ourselves through sloppy admin. Its counterproductive and ultimately will cost us money. Be disciplined, crack on and do it. Search Telecom

Being Organized. We have all done it. Forgotten to do something. Stay organized. Making money in this job requires being supremely organized, at every step of the way. Don’t allow anything to slip through the net, or you lose money. Whatever it is, outlook task manager, list on paper, daily spreadsheet, use it every day. Diarise activities and stick closely to your diary. Write a list of tasks to do every day, add to it as you go along and ensure that when you finish each day, its all done. Search Telecom

Goals and Objectives Where are you going? How quickly will you get there? How will you achieve that? Sit down and consciously decide your goals. Visualise your plan to achieve this. Without a plan to target yourself where is your direction? Have a firm plan, feel free to share it. Search Telecom

Low Information Diet. The longer you are in the business, the more your online presence. This brings lots of mail, spam, unwanted news, etc. Keep this to a minimum by unsubscribing to unsolicited mail. Have a spam filter on your mail box. Spend 10 minutes each morning deleting rubbish, just delete it, it is designed to suck you in and keep you reading until you buy/subscribe/succumb. All these things swallow time. Be time conscious. Your time is precious, ultimately it makes you money. Limit the amount of things you sign up to. Search Telecom

Time Management Always be aware of time thieves. If you are not working, not feeling good don’t bang your head against a brick wall, get up, go out, leave the computer. Don’t spend fruitless hours scouring the internet. Stay focused on your task. Always have your business objective clear in your mind. Is what I’m doing making me money here. When will I get paid? Search Telecom

The Time Perks of being self employed. This sounds pretty obvious, but you don’t have a commute. You don’t have to work when you feel terrible. You don’t have to show up just for the sake of it. You don’t have to pretend to work when you are actually just scouring the internet. So logically, every time you choose to sit in your chair in your office, it is because you want to, you are focused prepared and ready. No more dodging, if you don’t feel 100% - get up, go out do something else. In theory you should be able to achieve in 6 hours what some-one in employment takes 8-10 hours to do. Why would you want to waste time when you can power work? BUT all this depends on you being superefficient when you are working. You are now working on your own time. You want to finish early? Get all your work done and go go go!! Search Telecom

Work Time Balance Spare me the grim workaholic. I would rather hire his more balanced, rested counterpart. There is nothing more counterproductive than not taking breaks. Nothing makes you ill quicker than grinding yourself into the ground. Nothing stops you sleeping more than heaping piles of pressure onto yourself when there is no need. Try to get out each day, walk round the block, stretch the legs, remember what people look like. During week ends and holidays, enjoy life, take time off. Resist the temptation to put the computer on, on a Sunday morning. If you must have a blackberry be disciplined, don’t check e-mails right before bed time. Remember this takes hard work but the whole point of working from home is that you are not constantly working and pressured. Search Telecom

Employment Issues If you are self employed you are responsible for doing your own tax return and of course paying your own tax out of what you bill. It is a good idea to put aside money 25-30% minimum of what you earn. If you do not feel confident to do your own taxes you will need to find an accountant. This can be done reasonably. It is a very good idea to have an accountant, as a clever accountant will actually save you money and their fee is also tax deductable. You will need to set some time aside (during January usually) to do your tax return. Yes it can take up to a week and it is not paid holiday, so allow time for this. When you buy any equipment for your business keep hold of all receipts as these are tax deductable. All travel receipts- anything pertaining to business. Keep separate organized files for this set purpose, you will be so glad you have when tax return time comes. Search Telecom

Stresses and Pressures. The best way to deal with pressures is not to allow them in the first place. Take preventative action. Start out with enough funding. Work hard initially to develop a strong pipeline. Firmly maintain your pipeline. Budget well to avoid financial worries. Keep work and social life separate. Take time off to rest properly and get away from work. Eat well and rest enough. Pick up the phone and share your problem. Write down all your worries, try and figure out solutions and if you cannot promise not to worry about it any longer, there is no point. If things get stressful, banish thoughts of work other than when you are working. Listen to calm music, light a candle, take a bath. Take some valerian to help you sleep, a natural, sedative without side effects. Search Telecom

Written by Michelle Findlay
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle1
Founder of www.fillyourdiary.com
Copywrite March 2010

Sales, Building A Business, Working From Home

by Michelle Findlay on Feb 28, 2010

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Sales, Building A Business, Working From Home — Presentation Transcript