Commercial financing companies and lenders have now been categorized with the latest business to business prospect database. All captive equipment leasing companies have been categorized by the particular equipment that they sell & lease.  These categories include:

Agricultural Equipment sales leads, Aircraft Equipment Sales Leads, Automotive tools & equipment sales leads, Boat Dealer sales leads, Computer equipment sales leads, Construction equipment sales leads, Copier sales leads, Finance & Equipment Leasing Sales Leads, Fitness Equipment Sales Leads, Food Processing Equipment sales Leads, Golf Cars & Equipment Sales Leads, Landscaping Equipment Sales Leads, Laundry Equipment Sales Leads, Lift Truck Sales Leads, Logging Equipment Sales Leads, Machine Tool Sales Leads, Manufacturing equipment sales leads, Medical equipment sales leads, Phone System Sales Leads, Printing Equipment Sales Leads, Trucking equipment sales leads, Vehicle Sales Leads, Welding Equipment Sales Leads

Most commercial financing institutions, including major banks and community banks have been categorized and ranked with our latest BtoB database.  Financing categories include:

General Equipment Leasing, Business Loans, Agriculture Loans, Debt Collection, Entertainment Finance, Factoring & Merchant Cash Advance, Hospitality Leasing, Investment Banking, Money Transfer, Real Estate Backed Loans, Structured Settlements, Wireless Land Leases

Make That Sale! – Most Memorable Sale from DreamSimplicity on Vimeo.

Hosted by Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder & CEO of SellingPower Magazine. You can follow his blog here

“Beginning in 1981, Gschwandtner took Personal Selling Power (Now called: Selling Power Magazine) from a Four Color direct mail piece that was sent to 25,000 sales managers to a highly circulated global sales publication providing rich sales content to its readers, with insight from key thought leaders from various industries.” The Full Wiki

Selling B2B is a difficult job, but it’s even more difficult if you keep making blunders that can scuttle the deal.  Fortunately, the most common blunders can be easily identified and avoided.

This post contains the 9 most common blunders that B2B sales reps make when working on a major opportunity.  It also contains easily-followed advice on how to make sure that YOU don’t make them.

Click to see the first BtoB Sales blunder »

Getting in with your dream client can sometimes be the most difficult part of any deal. To get in, you may lower the commitment level so that you are asking for a commitment that is easier to obtain; you make it easier for your dream client to say “yes.”

The Big Value of Small Commitments

You want your dream client’s business. They know that you want their business. But if you were to say, “Hi, I’d like to spend time exploring the most challenging parts of your business with you, help you to create a vision as to how those things might be made better, then spend the next ninety days working with you and your team on a massive transformational change effort and become your trusted partner for life,” it might be a little more than your dream client can agree to, sight unseen.

So, you lower the commitment level. You say, “I’d like to spend 20 minutes with you to understand your business and to explore any future opportunity to help make some improvements.” Twenty minutes is something that is easier to commit to.

Lowering the commitment level is very useful when trust has not been established. It allows your dream client to agree to low level commitments that have little or no risk attached to them—other than you not making that time valuable for them.

Big Deals Require Big Commitments

Later, as the deal progresses, you need to ask for higher-level commitments. Lowering the commitments can and will unravel the deal you are putting together. If you are working in front of the deal, then you need access to the buying team members so that you can understand their needs and ensure that what you present reflects their needs and their vision of the right answer. You need access and information from all kinds of people in a complex sale, so that what you sell not only wins, but so that you can ensure that it succeeds for your client.

As the deal progresses, you have to ask for greater and greater commitments, never lowering the commitment level so low that you cannot obtain what you need to win and what you need to later succeed. The resistance isn’t usually a lack of trust; the resistance is usually the lack of time and resources. To obtain greater commitments, you are going to have a history of being a value-creator, and you are going to have to be able to explain the return you intend to generate on their investment of their time and effort.

You have to be prepared to say, “I know that other salespeople haven’t asked for this access to the members of the buying team in the past, but meeting with your buying team members allows us the opportunity to listen to them describe what they specifically need from any solution we propose, and we get a chance to talk through any issues that might prevent what we propose from succeeding. Ultimately, it allows us to work with your team to make sure what we do produces the outcome that you need, as fast as possible, with fewer missteps, and a lot less disruption. I promise I’ll make it worth their while.”

At the very end of our sales process, we have to ask for the big commitment: trusting us with their business. Along the way, you will have moved from commitment to commitment, increasing the level of commitment the whole way.

Not asking for the commitments that you need extends your sales cycle, decreases the likelihood of winning the business, decreases the likelihood of your solution matching their needs, and making obtaining the commitments you need for a real transformation later next to impossible.

Conclusion

It can be very useful to lower the commitment level early in the sales process, especially to get in. But you cannot get trapped in too small commitments later, when they will unravel your deal and cause you to fail for your dream client.

Questions

1. What commitments do you ask for that you make easier to obtain by lowering the commitment level?
2. At what stages of your sales process do you find it useful to lower the commitment level and make it easier for your client to agree?
3. When do you need to ask for greater commitments in order to get what you need to win the deal and to succeed for your dream client should you win?
4. What causes you to reduce the level of commitments that you are asking for as a deal progresses? What are willing to go without that, had you obtained the commitment you really needed, you would have better positioned to win and to succeed?
5. How can you obtain the greater commitments that you need to win and to succeed? How can you make sure that your dream client knows how agreeing to those commitments benefits them in the long run? What language do you need to use to most effectively ask for and obtain the high level commitments that you need?

Read More:

Successful salespeople are different. That’s what I’ve noticed. You may have noticed this in your company, too. These behaviors seem to work for them. Don’t you think they should work for you, too?

1.  They have a huge Rolodex. Selling is finding customers who need or want what you have to sell.  Successful salespeople find their customers differently than less successful salespeople. One sales manager found that salespeople were more successful when they had more people resources to tap into. It didn’t matter if salespeople had much sales experience or came from a non-sales area. If they had maintained contact with their mentors, peers and managers over the years they were able to use their contacts as a source of sales leads and information. They were also more successful. You can start by maintaining meaningful contact with your customers. What better people than satisfied homeowners to recommend you to new prospects?

2.  They read fast. Customers value salespeople who possess knowledge and offer unique insights. To get these insights, you have to be current on a variety of topics. Business and non-business reading is essential. How do you process all that you need to? You’ve got to read fast. Taking a speed-reading course can increase your reading from 250 words a minute to almost 1000 words a minute. You’ll be able to acquire much more information that can be of use to your customers.

3.  They apply technology. How do you use the information you acquire to serve your customers? Is it easy to access that information when you need it? Having the information and being unable to access it quickly is the same as not having it at all. Time spent looking for something is time that could be spent supporting your selling. Do you want to refer a past customer to a new client? The sales greats use technology to manage information. Their databases make it easy to retrieve information. With the data they can see where their sales are and what they need to do to meet their goals. They can quickly locate the information they need. They spend time selling with information, not looking for information.

4.  They’re naturally curious. When they talk with customers and prospects, they use the word “why” a lot. They intuitively know when to ask “why” to get more information. They know that information is more powerful if the reason behind it is known. They don’t guess why a customer prefers a certain location. They ask why and find out from the customer’s point of view. In addition to why, they also ask great questions learning far more about their customers than less successful salespeople.

5.  They love what they do. Ask a sales great what they love about selling and they say, “Everything.” Being around them is like being around an energy source. Their attitude of optimism and belief in the value of their work portrays this enthusiastic attitude to others. As one executive told me, “Passion is infectious. It’s more important than what you know.  Maintaining the passion is the biggest challenge in business.” Great salespeople are able to maintain their passion.

6.  They do the unexpected and more for their customers. Salespeople can go out of their way to do something special for their customers. Getting customers for your customers, creatively showing a home if you’re a realtor, or making personal introductions for prospects are what talented sales professionals do. They think it is their job, not something extra.  In fact, most salespeople don’t make the extra effort.

7.  They’re very creative. Being creative means the process of coming up with new ideas for business. Sales greats see possibilities where others give up. Getting told “no” by a worthwhile prospect is not the end for great salespeople; it’s just the beginning. Using their creativity they find news ways to get to “yes” with the prospects who are a challenge. Creativity is the foundation of selling. It’s useful for questioning, presenting and strategizing.  Believing in your creativity is the first step to being creative.

You may have noticed these habits in other successful salespeople. When you adopt these seven habits, the success that others achieve can also be yours. read more

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You can even subscribe to our YouTube Channel while you’re at it. We will be posting a lot of videos demonstrating our new services and features.

Thanks so much for your contniung support.

The ProvenProspects Team!

May 10, 2010
-By Mat Zucker

Gallup regularly ranks the most trusted professions and, year after year, near the bottom — below advertising practitioner — is the beleaguered car salesman. Admittedly, neither of us is as virtuous as nurses or police officers, but is this how we see what we do?

Sales, like advertising, is an easy profession to lampoon, but it’s a shame, especially now. Customers are overwhelmed with choices and brands need to do a better job guiding. A significant part of this is persuasion through the craft of sales. New tools and platforms are making it better for customers and salespeople alike to consider and connect over products. Social networks make it easier for peers to endorse a brand, databases can find patterns and tailor messages more intimately, ubiquitous and interactive video even updates the classic infomercial.

But for many of us in marketing who are supposed to be selling, there seems to be a reluctance to actually sell. It doesn’t sit well in our bellies, as if we’re doing something wrong. We as professionals — especially in direct marketing — must own up to what we actually do. And defend it.

Our agency founder, David Ogilvy, started as a salesman. He went door to door selling kitchen stoves, working on commission. “No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat,” he said. “That made an impression on me.” His relentless focus on sales was his crusade for us as an agency. “We sell, or else” is still our motto today.

Ogilvy had plenty of advice on selling. “You can’t bore people into buying your product,” he warned. “You can only interest them in buying it.” He also advocated the quality of one’s skill over the quantity of calls, and utter respect for the consumer. (“The customer is not a moron,” he said. “She is your wife.”). The principles of this wisdom are still true.

I believe we are all persuaders, wired to sell from the beginning. Growing up, we learn how to get a few minutes of someone’s attention, how to do our homework to find facts, how to turn no’s to maybe’s. We’re taught the value of a firm handshake, the politeness of maintaining eye contact and, hopefully, how to respect other people’s time and build a relationship that unlocks value over the years. Some people, of course, are far better than the rest of us. What do they know that we don’t? What does good salesmanship look like?

We certainly don’t know all the answers, but from our own experience and talks with experts, some guidance is emerging. Good salespeople know what makes their products special, but they start by listening. They focus on their customers’ successes — and how they can help them reach them. They prioritize creating value together rather than a quick yes. Sure, they try to make it easy for us to buy now, but they know better than anyone else that the most profitable and meaningful relationships are long term.

These are good lessons for us in marketing. There is much to learn from those who do it very well and much to celebrate about the value of good salesmanship together. If Gallup talked to customers of these great salespeople, I bet their ranking would be quite different. Ours too.

Mat Zucker, executive creative director at OgilvyOne Worldwide New York, is currently helping run the agency’s Search for the World’s Greatest Salesperson. He can be reached at mat.zucker@ogilvy.com and you can follow him at @matzucker.

Not too long ago a mortgage broker in Texas asked if I’d write a lead generation  package for his company-actually he just  wanted me to write a letter.

I guess he didn’t need an envelope. More about that in a moment.  So my first question was: who is your target market? Tell me a little about the clients you’re looking to attract.

“Anyone that needs to refinance an adjustable mortgage” he laughed.

Anyone? Now that’s a tightly defined demographic if I ever heard one.

So I politely educated this young grasshopper about why he needs to narrow his base of opportunities-just so he doesn’t mail 50 million letters to all homeowners in America with an adjustable rate mortgage.

I suggested, therefore, that he target a  defined geographic area, and maybe homeowners with a house valued at over $300,000 and who refinanced or purchased their home more than two years ago.

“Sure, sure,” he said.

“Great. So what’s your offer?” I asked.

“You mean, how much I can pay you?”

“No,” I said, “what are you offering your prospects so they’ll immediately rush to the phone and call you?”

I heard then what I have heard SO many times before…

An impassioned trashing of the competition:

…They’ re only in it for the money; they don’t care about their customers; they don’t understand the products out there and how to use them, they got their license and immediately began selling-and then most of them are out of business in a year or two… So on and so forth.  And then I heard the obligatory self-praise

oratory:  That is… how much he cares about his clients; how many years he’s been in business; how much continuing-ed training he’s had; how much value he brings to the table; how much great service he provides. So on and so forth.

“Great, so what are you offering your prospects so they’ll immediately rush to the phone and call you?” I repeated.

“…What do you mean?”

“Well,” I asked, “why should Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner call you and not the other mortgage broker who is saying the exact same thing? After all, they all DO say the same thing-how much great service they provide; how much they care about their clients-don’t they?”

“Yeah but…” So he then repeated, with even more fervor, how much more he cares, how much better service, etc., etc.

“Let me ask you this,” I said, “How is your prospect to know that you’re better, that you’re the good guy and not the bad guy? Telling them that it’s so, won’t make them believe it-now will it? Somehow you’ve got to PROVE it.”

Then I told him about the importance of testimonials, third-party endorsements, accreditation, etc., etc.

“And all of that will help you prove to your prospects that you are who you say you are. But that’s still not enough. Because if the broker down the street has any marketing savvy, he can and will prove it too-quoting his track record, his honesty, his competence, blah, blah-in all of his marketing promotions.

“So you need a unique selling proposition, don’t you,” I said.

“Huh?”

“We’ve got to find something that’s unique about you; about the way you conduct business, how you reward your clients for their loyalty-how you will do something specific, measurable and desirable-so that these prospects will want to pick up the phone and call you.”

“Like what?”

“Offer them something that your competition doesn’t”

“Like what?”

“Well, certainly not good service, great value and a low interest rate. But it could be a guarantee of some sort, a gift related to home ownership, or a free report, like ‘The TOP 10 Mistakes Homeowners Make When Refinancing a Mortgage-that Always Costs Them THOUSANDS of DOLLARS!’”

“Something no other broker is offering-or saying-something that the prospect will find useful and of value.

“And, you must provide urgency or scarcity, or both. For example, make it a time or quantity limited offer, but explain why! And not only must it be believable-it must also be true!

“Finally, deliver your package in a way that will guarantee that it will be opened and read.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I can provide you with the best lead generation package ever written, with the best offer ever imagined-but if the envelope doesn’t get opened, what good will it do you?”

“So how can we guarantee that the envelope will be opened?”

“Now,” I said, “you’re thinking like a marketer!”

And so I gave him some ideas, of course. And I’ll tell you what they were… in a future post.

Till then… own your market.

About the Author:

Barry A. Densa is one of America”‘s top freelance direct response copywriters. Visit www.WritingWithPersonality.com and see how Barry easily and quickly converts prospects into buyers using salesmanship in print”. And while there, sign up for his highly regarded FREE ezine: Marketing Wit & Wisdom!