From the Desk of Joe Prospect

"In an uncertain world, I need something I can count on."

How do you get your prospects to trust you?

This really is the million dollar question.  When it comes
right down to it, selling is all about getting your prospects
to trust you.

So what makes me trust you more than the next guy who is selling your product or service?

Let’s assume that I have not met you personally and you have
to get me to trust you enough to want to talk to you. The only
way you can do that is through your marketing communication.

Here are the things that make me trust you.

1. Consistency

The most important factor in your marketing that will get me  to trust you is consistency. You have to continue to mail,  email and/or call me on a consistent basis. When you put  your message in front of me consistently I come to view you as believable and stable.

If you believe in your message strongly enough to keep repeating it over and over again, I will come to believe it too. And I will see your company as being around for the long haul in a world where everything comes and goes in a flash.

And it is not enough to just keep sending me some kind of  marketing communication. The main message you are communicating to me must be consistent too. You have to stake out your position as being different from your competitors and whatever marketing message you choose—-you have to stick to it. If you are going to hang your hat on better service then tell me over and over and over again that you have better service. If you believe that you have better technology than your competitors then tell me that over and over again.

Your marketing doesn’t have to be flashy—just plant your flag and  stick to it! In a fleeting world of ever changing values, broken promises and flavor of the month attitudes, I just want to know that somebody truly stands for something and doesn’t waffle around all over the place.

Putting  the same main marketing message in front of me  consistently is critically important, but you also need to think about what I need to see in your message so that I will come to trust you.

Joe Prospect

Next Joe Prospect blog post: Trust factor #2:  Who you know

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increase in appointments for a Fortune 20 client:

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From the Desk of Joe Prospect

Previously I told you that if you want to get an appointment with me you have to tell me what you are going to do for me without telling me how you are going to do it. And then you tell me you only need 5 minutes of my time for the appointment so I feel the process is going to be relatively painless.

"I hope you are listening to me."

What happens after you ask for the appointment?

Well of course I am going to come up with objections.  I wouldn’t be a self-respecting prospect if I didn’t object.

But here’s the thing. I am not very creative or original when it comes to objections. I only have three.  No time, no money and happy with current vendor.

Here’s how to respond to my typical objections.

No time:

Joe, I understand you are very busy and that is why I am specifically only asking for 5 minutes of your time.

No money:

Joe, I understand that you are not in a position right now to purchase anything. I just want to make sure you have the information and I am only asking for 5 minutes.

Happy with current vendor:

Joe, I understand completely that you may not wish to switch vendors  at this time.  I just want to make sure you have the information and I am only asking for 5 minutes.

I am a pretty simple guy.  You just have to understand me and respond to  overcome my appointment objections.

Joe Prospect

Register for a Q&A session to learn  how PPS got a 500%

increase in appointments for a Fortune 20 client:

Register for one of our Question & Answer sessions held every
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We take you
inside an E-Telemarketing campaign and show you how we
get a steady supply of appointments for our clients whether they
are Fortune 20 companies or one person operations.

Call 1 866 445-4369 to register or click on the link below

→Reserve your seat at one of our webinars

From the Desk of Joe Prospect

Here is the picture that comes into my head when I receive a call from  a salesperson trying to book an appointment with me. I see myself sitting at my desk going through the obligatory ‘rapport building.  Then I see myself suffering through a sales pitch that goes on a lot longer than it is supposed to. Then I know I will have to fend off ‘The Close’ and pry the sales rep out  of the chair and push them out the door.

I think you would agree that’s not a very attractive picture if you were the  prospect. Is it any wonder that it is so difficult to book an appointment with me?  I have to be in desperate need of your product or service or you must have something that is really earth shattering for me to risk the possibility of another painful sales presentation.

Here is an approach that worked on me.

“Mr. Prospect, I just want you to have the information.”

“Could I give you the information?”

“Great, I will drop it off to you and I just need 5 minutes to introduce
myself so you can put a face to our company.   Could you give me just 5 minutes?”

That sounded a lot less painful than a full scale, ‘guns a blazing’ sales presentation. It is all in the way you present it.

Says you, “What good is 5 minutes?” Well if you get me to agree to 5 minutes  and you handle that 5 minutes well, then the chances are pretty good that you will catch my interest enough that I forget about the fact that the appointment was only supposed to be 5 minutes.  5 minutes is better than 0 minutes.  But be prepared to give me the best 5 minute sales presentation I ever had.  No dumb personal patter please because you and I both know that you are not my friend–you are trying to sell me something.

“But I want only well qualified appointments where the prospect is highly motivated to listen to my presentation,” you say.

And in my dreams, I want all my clients to guarantee to pay me on time and never  complain before I accept them as a client.”  But my dream isn’t going to happen any more than yours is.

More appointment setting secrets in the coming weeks.

Joe Prospect


Register for a Q&A session to learn  how PPS got a 500%
increase in appointments for a Fortune 20 client:

Register for one of our Question & Answer sessions held every
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We take you
inside an E-Telemarketing campaign and show you how we
get a steady supply of appointments for our clients whether they
are Fortune 20 companies or one person operations.

Call 1 866 445-4369 to register or click on the link below

Reserve your seat at a PPS Q&A Webinar

From the desk of Joe Prospect

I get hundreds of calls every year from salespeople trying to book an appointment with me.  You have probably been one of them.

It may surprise you to learn this, but some salespeople do actually succeed in booking an appointment with me.

Appointment Setting Secret #1:  Sell me the sizzle not the steak!

Tell me what you are going to do for me in terms of the end result but don’t tell me exactly how you are going to do it.  If I ask you questions about how you are going to do it, don’t answer them, just give me more sizzle. I do not want to waste my time so the reason I ask you questions is so I can avoid the need for the appointment. I am trying to assure myself that I don’t actually need your product or I already have it or something similar.  One of the greatest delusions of salespeople trying  to book an appointment with me is thinking that the more questions they answer or the more they tell me about their product, the more interested I will become.  The more questions you answer the more I am able to satisfy myself that I don’t need the appointment. By teasing me with a great result and not telling me exactly how you are going to achieve that result, you are forcing me to either accept the appointment or live with the nagging doubt that maybe I should have. More of my appointment setting secrets will be be revealed in the coming weeks.

Joe Prospect Register for a Q&A session to learn  how PPS got a 500% increase in appointments for a Fortune 20 client:

Register for one of our Question & Answer sessions held every  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We take you inside an E-Telemarketing campaign and show you how we get a steady supply of appointments for our clients whether they are Fortune 20 companies or one person operations.

Call 1 866 445-4369 to register or click on the link below

→ Reserve Your Seat at the Next PPS Webinar & Q&A Session

From the Desk of Joe Prospect

The Battle for Your Prospect’s Mind

A couple of brilliant advertising guys named Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote a book in 1981 called Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. They explained that all products and services end up occupying a  position in our minds. We put a label on everything. Smart companies  position themselves exactly how they want to be thought of by their  prospects.

Whatever your business is, if you do not create a unique position in
my mind, I will think of you as an accountant, or insurance broker, or

printer or whatever profession you are part of. I will see you as being the same as everyone else in your group. Whatever associations I have already formed about your group, I will attach automatically to you. If you  are an accountant and I think of accountants as expensive, confusing or  interchangeable, that is who you will be to me. Unless you create a unique  position for your company in my mind. If you are a janitorial company and I  think that all janitorial companies do a great job in the beginning then start  to get sloppy, that is what I will think of you. Unless you do something in  your marketing to establish yourself as being different from your competitors.

You have to create the position you want for your company or your prospects will do it for you and you may not like where they choose to slot you. You don’t want to be stuck with the impressions formed on your prospects by the rest of your herd I have fixed ideas about everything. If you were to ask me about any type  of business, I will tell you what I think of them. You must be aware of  the impressions, good and bad, already made on me by your competitors –the other members of your herd. And then you have to rise above them and  set your company apart from your crowd.

Choosing your position is tricky because you have to decide which  segment of your prospects you are creating the position for and how you are going to establish your position in your marketing.

Your position must be short and simple. If it is confusing or complicated  I will not work to get it, I will just forget it.

Another critical thing about a position is that you have to stick to the  same position or you will lose all the marketing points you have scored with your original position.  If you vary your positioning in your marketing messages, you will leave me thinking “Who are these guys anyway?”   Stray from your position and perish.

In order to gain the position you want in the minds of your prospects, you will need to plant that message firmly in all of your marketing communication. Then repeat it, over and over and over again. Never move away from your core position. You can vary the content of your marketing messages but your main positioning must remain absolutely consistent.

Think very carefully about what you want your position to be and how  you are going to express it in your marketing.

Don’t let me just lump you in with the rest of your herd!

Register for a Professional Prospecting Systems Webinar to learn more

Top 3 Excuses to Stop Marketing

1. The Economy is Down

OK so when was the last time the economy was up? Can you even remember when the economy was up? By the way, it is a big myth that advertising in a down economy doesn’t pay.

McGraw-Hill did a research study during the U.S. economic recession in 1981-82, analyzing 600 companies from 16 different SIC industries. The study showed that companies that continued to market, not only continued to grow during the recession, but moved past their competitors and grew 256% two years into the economic recovery.

Don’t forget that every other business out there is just as nervous as you are about spending marketing dollars in a down economy. That means that anyone who does market will have the attention of us prospects virtually to themselves. And remember that the companies I buy from are the ones who market to me consistently over time. Just because I don’t buy from you today doesn’t mean that your marketing is not doing its job, even in a down economy.

2. No Budget

If you don’t have any budget now, and you aren’t marketing, where do you think the new clients are going to come from that will build up your budget again?  Do you think I am going to get up from behind my desk and come to you?

In the words of Henry Ford, “A man who stops advertising to save money, is like a man who stops the clock to save time.”

3. Nothing Works

So you have have tried a lot of different marketing programs that didn’t work and you believe that nothing is going to work.  You have been disappointed in the past so you are just going to take your ball and go home.  You are not going to participate in the game any more.  Does that make sense?

There are two things you need to recognize:

• Your marketing worked better than you thought - Marketing programs you tried in the past probably worked a lot better than you thought.  Just because you didn’t always end up with new clients right away doesn’t mean that your marketing did not have any impact on your prospects.  We saw it. We thought about it.  We filed it away in our brains for future reference.  The only piece that was missing is you probably didn’t continue to market to us consistently over time.  ; So you didn’t get to reap the benefits of your earlier marketing efforts.

• Keep marketing for the long haul and it will always work - It is true that most of the marketing that crosses my desk and most of the phone calls I receive are deadly boring and couldn’t sell water to a dying man in the desert, but there are always some emails, some ads and some phone calls that get my attention. So don’t give up marketing. Look for something a little more creative—something with a proven track record.

Register for a Q&A session to learn more about
the PPS Laser Focused b2b Prospecting System:

Register for one of our Question & Answer sessions which are held every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We will take you right inside an E-Telemarketing campaign and show you how we combine telemarketing with email lead nurturing to get significantly better results on your campaign. This works in a down economy, an up economy—any kind of economy!

Call 1 866 445-4369 to register or click on the link below.

Register for Webinar

1.  You are not updating and growing your prospect list

Your database of prospects represents the present and future value of your business.  If you are not consistently updating your prospect database you are losing sales.  Every wrong contact name, bad email address and company that you do not know is out of business, is costing you sales.   You are wasting time marketing to the wrong companies and the wrong people.  And if you are not consistently adding new prospects to your marketing database, your sales will automatically shrink.

2.  You are not marketing to your prospects consistently

Think of your prospects as being at some point on the scale of readiness to buy your product or service.  Consistent marketing is important for two reasons.  First, marketing moves your prospects up the scale of buying readiness by educating them about your product and your company.  Second and most critical, is the fact that you will not be in front of your prospects when the timing is right for them if you are not marketing to them consistently.

3.  Your marketing is boring

That statement is pretty much self explanatory.  Ask yourself honestly. Would you get excited about your marketing if it wasn’t your company?  Is it interesting, arresting, informative, astonishing, impactful, or creative?    If you can’t answer yes to at least one of those, then you know exactly why your marketing is not working very well.

4.  You don’t have a lead scoring system

The biggest reason that sales people don’t want to cold call is because they are calling prospects that are not ready to buy, or at least not ready to listen.  If you have a system for scoring where your prospects sit on the buying readiness and interest level scale, then your salespeople will actually enjoy making cold calls.  Because they won’t be cold calls they will be warm calls.   If you have a system that tracks when your prospects are opening your emails and how many times they o pen them, that allows you to identify the ones that are ready to talk to you.

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Our Laser Focused Prospecting System will show you exactly what you need to do
to tackle the four reasons your sales have stalled.  It will help you energize your sales team and create a steady, long-term, predictable supply of sales leads.How do you learn more?

Give us a call or register for one of our Question and Answer webinars which we
hold 4 times a week Monday through Thursday. We will show you the complete
system and answer your questions.

Register for a Q&A session to learn more about
the PPS Laser Focused b2b Prospecting System:

Call 1 866 445-4369 to register or click here:

If you are not familiar with “Lead Nurturing” it is the business process of setting up a system to maintain contact with potential customers with information offers to educate prospects about your product or service. This is a very basic definition.

In a sense, Lead Nurturing is not new. If you were a sales rep in decades past, you may  have had a sales manager that insisted that you setup a “tickler file” and stay in contact with your sales prospects over time.

Today’s “Lead Nurturing” programs are essentially the same thing, except the “tickler file” is a marketing database and companies no longer rely on sales reps to maintain contact with prospects; a Lead Nurturing application is likely being used and these systems can also track the prospects level of interest by monitoring email open rates, click-thrus, and registrations.

So why is Lead Nurturing so important? Here are three good reasons:

1.    Timing: You have little or no control over your prospects buying cycle and interest level. Maintaining a Lead Nurturing program simply addresses the timing issue by making sure you are consistently in contact and will more likely to be remember you when they are ready to buy.

2.    Trust: By providing more information and educational content over time and being consistent, your prospects audience will begin to take you more seriously and that is the beginning of trust and will enable a dialogue to begin when the time is right.

3.    Proven to be Effective: Lead Nurturing is not new and it’s very measurable, the data is in, and Lead Nurturing is proven to work. We’ve done marketing programs with and without lead nurturing and there is no question that programs that have lead nurturing are more likely to succeed.

While telemarketing and cold calling continue to be the foundation of the service we provide to our clients, we are now reluctant to even do a campaign that does not include Lead Nurturing.

Are you doing a Lead Nurturing? Is your Marketing Database sitting there doing nothing?

Register for a Professional Prospecting Systems Webinar to see how we setup a Lead Nurturing Campaign

Joe Prospect is a composite of how a typical prospect looks at the world and how they react to our marketing efforts.  Even though every prospect is unique in some ways—all of our prospects regardless of what business we are in, share many common characteristics.  Dear Joe is an advice column written by your prospect to help you better understand them.

Dear Joe

What can we learn from the theory of classical conditioning that will help our marketing?

Rather an unusual question from a vendor.  I didn’t know your thinking was that deep. But good for you.

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist about a kizzillion years ago, did a series of experiments showing that if you pair the sound of a bell with food several times, a dog will learn to salivate when it hears the bell.  This became known as the Theory of Classical Conditioning which is still thought to form the basis for all human learning and motivation.

So what does that mean to us normal prospects?

It means that the way we learn is to associate things with our base emotions like hunger and fear and joy.  We are all pretty basic organisms at the core of our being.

Previously, we talked about the importance of putting a compelling emotional message into your marketing.  That’s why.  All of us prospects are all like Pavlov’s dog.  We only learn and get moved to do things by our base emotions.

That is why your marketing message must make your prospect feel strong emotions. It is only when we feel a powerful emotion, that we can learn something about your product.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Your friend
Joe Prospect

To learn more about Professional Prospecting Systems and how we help diverse companies, large and small, to craft effective outbound marketing programs, you can attend one of our regular webinars. To register, click here

Joe Prospect is a composite of how a typical prospect looks at the world and how they react to our marketing efforts.  Even though every prospect is unique in some ways—all of our prospects regardless of what business we are in, share many common characteristics.  Dear Joe is an advice column written by your prospect to help you better understand them.

Prospects Do Buy on Emotion: and what that means to your marketing strategy

Dear Joe

Is it true that prospects buy on emotion?

Yes prospects do buy on emotion.  You have probably heard that we prospects decide what we want to buy based on emotion, then we look for supporting evidence to justify our buying decision. That is completely true.   Who would want to buy something they don’t feel strongly about?

The emotional Joe decides what we are going to buy and the rational Joe takes over and says hang on here just a darn minute–are we getting ahead of ourself here.  Does this make sense?

What does that mean for your marketing?  Well the obvious answer is that you have to find a way to put emotion into your marketing and your value proposition must appeal to your prospect’s base emotions. You have to make them laugh, or feel good about themselves, or remind them of something they are afraid of, or sometimes all of the above.  Your marketing has to jab your prospect in the heart, get right into their head and shake them up.

Then you calmly and clearly explain why it is a good decision to buy your product or service.

Sounds simple enough but obviously not that simple.

Read your marketing message and ask yourself—Is that message going to make my prospect really feel something?

Your friend
Joe Prospect

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Are you pushing emotional buttons with your marketing? It really goes back to traditional direct marketing…no one is going to be moved to respond if you don’t push an emotional button like fear or curiosity.

To learn more about Professional Prospecting Systems and how we help diverse companies, large and small, to craft effective outbound marketing programs, you can attend one of our regular webinars. To register, click here