Recent Articles from Sam Dobbins
Sales reality check: Excuses, excuses
The telephone sits on your desk, quietly waiting to take your message to some lucky person buried deep in the spreadsheet of names you have on your call list. You reach for the phone and . . . stop. Maybe today isn't a good day to reach out. Maybe your script needs a little polishing before you d...
Seven reasons cold calling will never die
Did you know that most people lie? They don't mean to, of course. They're usually very busy and don't want to spend time on the phone. So they'll tell you they're not interested in your product or solution while at the same time they're doing Internet research on buying the product you have to off...
Top sales tips for the follow-up
How much money are you leaving on the sales table? How many prospects disappear without your knowledge as to why? You designed a great marketing campaign last quarter. Why aren't the results what you wanted or expected? At the core, the answer to the questions above can be summed up in one thou...
The dialing for dollars game
As a pre-sales professional, you have cold calling as your main source of interest generation. It's a numbers game. Yet many sales people find picking up that phone intimidating or a necessary evil at best. But this needn't be so. Cold calling is a process of elimination. A no, and a no, and a no...
Teleprospecting: The bridge between marketing & sales
In just about every executive meeting of any business-to-business-focused organization, nothing raises tension more consistently than the question: Where are the sales? CEOs pound tables demanding answers. Sales vice presidents squirm, then point to Marketing VPs, saying that Sales needs more and...
Cold-call lessons from your garden
With spring approaching, many of us turn to gardening as a wonderful way to enjoy our outdoors, escape from the sterile world of work, and relieve ourselves from the stresses that build up over winter. For a few weeks at least, life is good. And then come the weeds. These nasty plants invade our v...
Top 10 cold-calling mistakes
Cold calling should be simple, right? Pick up your suit of armor to face all the rejections you'll hear in a day, keep your eye on the prize of new sales, and lift that telephone receiver. Success and money will roll in. Or will it? If cold calling were as simple as the thoughts above, everyone wo...
Cold-calling from the heart
Calling on decision makers takes a lot of heart. You need the courage to pick up your phone and interrupt a busy person's day. And you need the heart to make a solid connection with the decision maker who, in turn, will give his or her cooperation in your acquisition of valuable marketing informa...
Easy steps to sales success
High probability telephone prospecting involves making the kind of sales calls that result in your increased intelligence about suspects and prospects. This intelligence, accumulated through discovery cold calls, will eliminate wasted time calling on inappropriate contacts, and free you up to gather deeper knowledge of those who currently do or will want the products and […]
Selling with the right brain
Most telemarketers, teleprospectors, new business development specialists and insides sales representatives do not understand that they struggle making business-to-business cold calls because they are working off of a rigid strategy designed to sell a product/ service. Generally, this is a grueling experience because they are not relaxed while working from a pre-determined script. Using the [&hell[...]
Is your company’s sales “Maserati” gathering dust?
Why is your Maserati parked in the garage? One would think that instead of parking a Maserati in the garage and letting it sit to collect dust, you would have it out on the highway maximizing your investment. This is similar to a company having a marketing database and not getting the most out of […]
Buyer, buyer, pants on fire
All sales representatives and new business development specialists have made discovery cold calls to a company to introduce themselves and their services to the appropriate executive decision-maker. And many times, the decision-maker will answer the telephone and respond with, “Send me information. I’ll get back to you.” After a few days of not hearing back […]