Raintoday's Sales Tips & Techniques Podcast

You've been promoted to the head of your department. Congratulations—now stop what you were doing that got you the position. Your get-things-done way of thinking needs to shift to how to get your team to do things. It's a whole different mindset, says Kevin Eikenbery, co-author of From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership. Listen as Eikenberry explains the leader's mindset and steps you can take now to become an effective leader.

If you have a meeting with a CEO and think you're going to win him over with your PowerPoint presentation, think again.  C-level executives want you to come to them with ideas and new perspectives on the issues they're dealing with, not a presentation of your services. Approach the meeting as a consultant and give them an opportunity to discuss issues important to them, and you'll start to develop the trust necessary to turn that prospect into a client.

All effective voice mail messages have one thing in common: they focus on a potential problem that the prospect might have. Stay away from talking about you, your company, or your services, stresses Kelley Robertson in this excerpt from his webinar Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals. Listen as Robertson describes what goes into a good voice mail message and offers advice on how to conduct effective sales phone conversations.

A lot of people say marketing gets you clients, but Michael Port, author of Book Yourself Solid, disagrees. Marketing creates awareness of who you are and the products and services you offer, but that isn't enough. You must have a system that builds on that awareness and helps you develop trust. Listen as Port explains how to implement a system that will help you sell more and grow your business.

When you look at successful sales organizations you'll see they all have one thing in common: strong sales management. As Ken Thoreson, author of the Sales Management Guru book series, explains, strong sales management ensures that the right staff is hired, that staff receive the right training, and that there's a strong culture that everyone believes in. Listen as Thoreson explains how sales managers can develop and maintain strong organizations.

Referrals are the preferred strategy for getting new business, and yet many service professionals struggle to get them—and to get new business from them. What are they doing wrong? For many it starts with simply not asking for referrals or for not asking correctly. Listen as Colleen Francis, President of Engage Selling, explains the mistakes people make, what a referral system should consist of, and the success one firm has seen from using a referral system.

The economy is beginning to turn around, but that does not mean consulting firms can go back to what they used to do to get new clients. Referrals and waiting for the phone to ring will not cut it, says RAIN Group President John Doerr. Consultants must follow the new rules of selling services, which includes embracing selling and going after their ideal clients. If they don't, success will be difficult if possible at all.

Leonard A. Schlesinger, President of Babson College and co-author of Action Trumps Everything, talks about how professional services firms should use entrepreneurial thinking, such as "creation," to solve problems.

Every business has to focus on content marketing--publishing articles, white papers, ebooks, podcasts or webinars--to attract new clients and become the go-to provider in their market. But they have to do it right, warns Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman, authors of the new book Content Rules. They need a strategy: plan what to do, share information, solve problems, and be human.  

Virtual events, while similar to other online lead generation tactics, differ in one unique way: they allow you to generate and qualify leads early on, speeding up the sales process. Forget about generating a lead and then handing it to sales to qualify, says Dennis Shiao, author of Generate Sales Leads with Virtual Events. People enter your virtual booth, and you interact with them and qualify them on the spot. Listen as Shiao discusses the benefits of virtual events, gives examples of organizations that have succeeded with such events, and explains how to get started using them.

We've all heard the rumor: cold calling is dead and doesn't work anymore. Nonsense, says Wendy Weiss, the Queen of Cold Calling. It's actually the perfect tool for today's economy she says. The problem is most people do it really badly. Listen as Weiss explains some of the myths and misperceptions that cause cold calling efforts to fail.

During tough economic times, you may have to take on less-than-ideal clients to keep the lights on and generate the revenue you need. But you must not make that a habit if you want to attract higher-paying ideal clients and grow your business. Listen as Randy Shattuck, President of The Shattuck Group, explains why pursuing ideal clients should be a top priority and how to get those clients.

We all speak in metaphors: "It's cold as ice," "I don't have the bandwidth to handle that right now," "The room looked like a bomb hit it." It's imperative now that services professionals strategically use them in sales conversations to get prospects to pay attention them. Listen as Anne Miller, author of Make What You Say Pay!, explains how to use metaphors to effectively describe your services, how your services help businesses, how to address client objections, and how to get your foot in the door of a new client.

Every sales call is met with initial resistance. But by following a few key practices, you can weaken that wall and get prospects interested and willing to meet with you. Listen as Kelley Robertson, author of The Secrets of Power Selling, explains what you must do within the first few seconds of a sales conversation to get—and hold on to—prospects' attention.Learn More: Attend Kelley Robertson's webinar, Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals, on Nov. 4.

Want to get buyers to notice your website over your competitors'? Then stop making it look like theirs and stop trying to make it all things for everyone. Follow basic marketing advice and uncover the one thing you do different from everyone else, and use your website to clearly explain that one thing, says Ben Hunt, website consultant and designer and author of Save the Pixel: The Art of Simple Web Design. (RainToday.com listeners can save 30% off the cost of the Save the Pixel.)

Chances are 40% of your business is unprofitable, and you aren't even aware of it. Thanks to antiquated accounting systems, this information goes unnoticed. The good news is that it isn't difficult to uncover those trouble areas, and it's easy to solve the problems and significantly increase profitability, says Jonathan Byrnes, author of Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink.

How many times has a prospect objected to your price? How often have you heard people say it isn't a good time to buy your services? Client objections are a way of life, but they aren't the end of a sales conversation. They are, in fact, a good thing because they show there's an interest. Following the strategies RainToday founder describes in this podcast, you can get past client objections and make the sale.

Think your bio isn't important? Think again. It can make the difference between winning clients and watching prospects walk away. With millions of people doing business as independent professionals, you must lead with information that compels people to want to engage. Forget the traditional boilerplat bio. Listen as Nancy Juetten, author of the second edition of Bye-Bye Boring Bio, explains the four essential elements of bios, describes the biggest mistake people make with bios, and gives examples of compelling bios.

Why do people buy from you and not your competitor? Is it a higher level of service? Is it a diversified level of service? Is it a complex niche that you're in that because of your experience or industry will give you a leg up and help your clients? When you can answer that--explain your value proposition--then you can build out your marketing plan, target your ideal clients, and grow your business, says Mike Schultz, President of the RAIN Group. You won't have to compete against price.

As clients and prospects become more difficult to reach, you might be tempted to make your marketing louder. But don't. It will only annoy them, says Adrian Ott, author of the new book, The 24-Hour Customer: New Rules in a Time-Starved, Always-Connected Economy. Instead focus on strategic marketing that fits into the "ebbs and flows" of their time. Listen as Ott outlines how to embed yourself and your services into clients' habits and routines and some of the new rules for marketing services.