Are you still calling prospects to set up appointments? Just calling? Well, every other salesperson is doing the same exact thing! If you want the prospect to believe that you and your company are different from the competition, then you must prove it to them from the beginning. First impressions are lasting; so make sure it’s a good one!

Calling your prospects is only one of the many resources you have for establishing contact with them and setting up the appointment. It’s also the method most likely to leave the worst impression on your prospect. When you call, you are assuming that you are important enough for your prospect to stop whatever they’re doing at that moment just so you can try to sell them something. Get over yourself; they don’t want to talk to you.

This doesn’t mean you should stop calling your prospects, it just means that you should stop relying on this method to gain that appointment. If you want to successfully intrigue your prospect, you must learn to match the right message with a variety of mediums. Use your imagination! Think of some creative ways to get in front of your prospects and grab their attention.

Your initial contact with your prospect should show that you are creative, persistent, and that talking to you is worth their time. Have the courage to try something fun and new with your prospects. If you feel scared to come out of your comfort zone, think about this: if your boring method isn’t working with them now, don’t you think it’s time to try something new?

Customers don’t care about you; they care about themselves, so give them something they’ll enjoy or can actually use. Try sending them sales leads, fax them a joke, or create a customized document with creative business ideas and solutions that your client can use to become more productive and profitable. Prospects want to read about themselves and how they can get better results. This kind of result-based approach will stand out among the other stuff your prospect receives.

No matter what you try, some prospects may simply try to wait you out. They will ignore your voicemails and e-mails, and wait for you to get bored and go away. You must have the longevity to remain pleasantly persistent with your prospects or you will never win the appointment or the sale.

The only thing separating you from your competition is your ability to decide that you are going to win. You will get the appointment with the prospect because you have the creativity to stand out and the determination to remain pleasantly persistent! Being pleasantly persistent means that you are NEVER annoying or pushy and that you will apparently NEVER go away.

So how do you remain persistent without seeming pushy? Make them your friend before you try to make them your customer. Send your prospects personalized e-mails or handwritten notes to set the tone for the transaction. Regardless of your company, your product, or the nature of your situation, you should always make your contact with your clients as personal as possible. In today’s high-tech world, people are starving for personal attention, and your effort to contact them in this manner will show them how important their business is to you.

This sets the tone for your relationship, and your relationship sets the tone for the sale.

Throughout this entire process, keep a clear objective in mind. See your transaction as a series of goals. Sure, you may want that appointment, but first you must work on getting your prospect to pick up the phone and call you, or finally take your call. Representing your good ideas creatively, personally, and persistently will not only get the appointment, it will get you the SALE!

Tom Richard conducts seminars on sales and customer service topics nationwide. Tom is also the author of Smart Salespeople Don’t Advertise: 10 Ways to Outsmart Your Competition With Guerilla Marketing, and publishes a free weekly ezine on selling skills titled Sales Muscle. To subscribe to this free weekly ezine go to http://www.tomrichard.com/subscribe

Great sales people all have a few things in common.

1. They have a plan for how they will create sales.

2. They always see success instead of failure in their selling activities.

3. They take ACTION on new ideas, methods and processes they learn instead of “waiting for a better time to make the improvement.”

I tapped the mind of several top sales thinkers, trainers and coaches I know for their perspective.

Here’s what they have to say.

Jeffrie Story of Unleash Your Sales DNA, turns hidden sales potential into money. She is one of the top call reluctance experts in the corporate environment today. Jeffrie shares the following:

“In my experience through coaching, training, and my own selling, the best advice is to get out in the market!

“Visibility and contact initiation are critical. In fact, the scientists at Behavioral Sciences Research Press have discovered the overwhelming key to success: the number of sales contacts initiated with prospective buyers on a consistent basis. Well, that’s not news, is it?

“Salespeople all say they know about the numbers game, but they don’t internalize it at an emotional level, or relate it to their goals.

“When we go fishing, we don’t put emotion into how many times throw our line out - we throw it out consistently and count the fish we catch.

“By internalizing the numbers game, doubts, fears and disappointment disappear, giving salespeople the motivation to keep prospecting. And if they keep learning during this prospecting phase, their skills improve too!”

Sharon Drew Morgen, of Morgen Facilitation, is a new thought expert on sales. Her client list reads like a Who’s Who of the top companies in the world.

Sharon Drew offers us the following ideas to use right now to increase sales performance:

“I believe our sales take longer than necessary because of the time it takes buyers to manage all of the decisions they need to manage internally to get the necessary buy-in and acceptance.

“If sellers concentrate on helping buyers make buying decisions, rather than placing a product, buyers will not only make much quicker decisions, but they will meld the seller’s product into the solution.”

Here are a few tips Sharon Drew recommends:

1. Always announce it’s a sales call and ask if it’s a good time to speak. This will ensure the buyer understands the seller is being honest and respectful.

2. Recognize your job is to support the buyer in designing their best solution and note it will require buy-in from all of the people and rules that created the problem to begin with.

3. Use the first part of your conversation to help buyers recognize their current situation: why haven’t they solved the problem until now? What would stop them from resolving it now? What would need to change for them to be able to create a solution now?

Remember that buyers only buy when they have all of their own answers - and information doesn’t teach them how to decide.

Help them manage their change issues first. They will make your product part of their solution. You won’t have to sell anything.

Sharon Drew also notes, “What’s so interesting is that sales actually creates its own problems and results: lengthened sales cycles, objections, closing problems, etc.

“For some reason we have never questioned the model itself - just the results. Sales people have always assumed sales was about placing product rather than supporting the decision.”

David Hepburn, Master Sales Trainer for the Sandler Institute, talks about the sales persons plan. Here are his ideas.

The usual 3 steps to sales that most people follows are:

1. Small talk

2. Features and benefits

3. Close

When the client balks, the salesperson will go back to #2 and “throw up” some more features and benefits and then try to “close” again and again and again. I personally found that to be extremely hard work.

The Sandler Way has taught me that I need let the client do all the hard work. (I was getting to many gray hairs to keep doing it the old way)

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Bond and Rapport

2. Upfront contracts, explain what will transpire

3. Pain, find out where it hurts

4. Budget, bring it up as soon as possible to help qualify

5. Decision, this is really a review of the upfront contract, their pain and the budget.

6. Fulfillment of the sale

7. Post Sell, make sure buyer’s remorse will not lose a sale later on

Remember, almost none of us grew up telling our parents that we were going to be “Salespeople.” Most people just fell into it; giving us yet another reason for proper training.

How You Can Change Your Sales Outlook and Increase Your Effectiveness.

1. Have a plan for how YOU will create sales consistently

2. Increase your sales skills, and then practice what you have learned until you master it. Then learn some more, practice it until you master it and learn some more. Repeat this pattern for the rest of your life.

3. Initiate contact frequently, with people who can buy your offer to increase sales.

4. Learn how to manage the buyer’s decision making process and sell with minimal resistance.

5. Have a plan of ACTION for every sales call, write it down and follow it consistently.

These are the secret ACTIONS of top sales performers and the people who make them great. Take one of these ideas and use it today. Repeat tomorrow, and the next day.

Growth only happens when you step out of your comfort zone and take action on great new ideas that you learn.

Bill Gluth is “Your Talent in Business Expert” and a professional speaker, trainer and consultant. He is the first person to specialize in developing “talent” as a competitive business strategy.

Bill brings clear, simple and focused action steps to any business building program. He spotlights a step-by-step process for unleashing your talent in business so that you can learn how to be unique in a commodity driven world and stand out in any industry.

Find out more about Bill Gluth’s Small Business Coaching Services by visiting http://www.explosivebusinesscoaching.com