A discussion about sales, sales tips and advice, and about those who land the deal

OUCH! I can't imagine getting this call instead of a real call when trying to reach someone. Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh today Dan.

I have to disagree with the generalization here, Dan. Like anything else, the quality of the thing comes down to the way it is done.

I run a multi-million dollar sales force and 99%+ of the sales are over the phone. In fact, our products would have never been offered to the market if we weren't able to sell them over the phone. It just wouldn't be a financially viable business if we had to do face-to-face selling.

My salespeople, each of them, averages 50+ personal contacts with prospects per DAY. I'd challenge any belly-to-belly sales force to average that per WEEK. Consequently, they earn much higher incomes than any other saleperson they compete against in the same product category.

Now, I'll give you this, I'm not talking cold calling here. This tactic has to be married with lead generation tactics and work within a process. It's all a matter of strategy.

One thing I have found is that if a saleperson is good belly-to-belly, he will be good over the phone. He will always tell you, "Yeah, but I'm so much better face-to-face." That is really just call reluctance. If you can get him to buy into the idea of making a much greater impact with his skill by talking to more prospects it will only take a month for him to realize what he has been missing by running around attempting face-to-face sales calls. And, greater impact = greater commissions.