Today’s Blog post comes from 
“Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work)”
by Stephan Schiffman
Get it off Amazon Here

Want to double your sales?  Double your cold calls.   In order to REALLY make that work you have to be comfortable with a “NO”.   Or, even better, see the VALUE OF A NO

The Value of a No

As we said before, you need to know how many appointments you need to know how many calls it takes to make the number of appointments you need to get the sales you want.  You need to know these.

• It can be frustrating – but you’re going to get plenty of “no” answers when you make these calls.  Ready for a surprise?  You don’t need to worry about that, if you know your ratios!
• Because – If you aren’t hearing “no” you’re not making sales!!

So realize there is a ratio of “no” answers to “yes” answers. A typical ratio would look like this: You’re going to make 20 calls, speak to 5 people, and set up 1 appointment.  Or you’re going to see 20 people, make 5 presentations, and make 1 sale.  What’s important to understand about that 20 : 5 : 1 ratio is that in the process of doing that, you’re going to hear “no” nineteen times.  In other words, for every appointment or sale you get, you have to collect 19 “no” answers.

My sales training company did a lot of training with life insurance companies.  When we worked with a brand-new life insurance agent, somebody who’d just been hired, we would give that person a chart with 250 boxes.

Every single time that person talked to someone about life insurance and heard “No” they put an X in the box.  When the chart was full, that person had heard 250 “no”, we gave them $1000.   Because, if you stop and think about it, you’ll realize that in the process of getting 250 “no” answers that sales person would probably generate $10,000 in sales.  In other words, we could afford to pay out $4 for every “no” because we would make it back.

• It’s important to understand that every time someone says NO, you’re getting closer to YES.
• If you understand this concept, and you know the ratios, you can predict how long it will take you to reach a certain level of sales.

5 Ways to Double your Income:

1. Double the Number of Calls:  For most people, that’s probably not a realistic option.
2. Get Through More Often:
3. Get More Appointments: In other words, instead of speaking to 7 people and getting 1 appointment every day, I could get 2 appointments or even 1.2 appointments.  As long as I increase that ratio over time, I’m going to me more successful
4. Close More Sales: The 4th way to increase my income is to get more sales from my appointments.
5. Generate More Dollars Per Sale:  If I could just get twice as many dollars out of each sale, I could (theoretically at least) double my income.

Just 1 more call a day:  If you watch sports, you know that winning or losing can come down to 1 run, stroke, point, or fraction of a second.  You just have to win.  You don’t need 1000 appointments per day, you just need 1.

One salesman decide he wanted to be the best in the country.  He normally made all of his prospecting calls in the morning.  Every single day, just when he was ready to leave the office, no matter what time it was, whether it was 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, he sat down at his desk with his coat on and called and called until he spoke to 1 more person.

• Looking at his numbers more closely: 149 conversations with new people, 49 first appointments, 83 total appointments and 10 sales.  If that salesperson had merely spoken to 1 more person per day, gotten 1 more appointment a day, made 1 more sale a day or week, or had increased any 1 of those numbers by 1, he would have increased his income substantially.