Avoid the mistake of too many B2B sales people—that of handling the initial call as if the prospect has already decided to buy from you.

Buyers of business services are different from retail consumers, true. Business buyers do not generally waste their time browsing on a whim for call center services, for example. When business people begin researching a purchase, it is usually because there is a real need and they recognize the value these services will provide to their business.

On your initial call to a lead, however, it’s best to dismiss any preconceived notion that they will immediately set up an appointment with you. Even a well-qualified B2B lead is not a purchase order, and you can expect to encounter some resistance to being “sold.” Yes, the prospect has already demonstrated interest, but you still have some work to do in order to earn their time and attention.

First, scrutinize your attitude toward your prospect as it will come across in the way you speak to that person. Of course you definitely want to avoid referring to the person you’re speaking to as a “lead” or “prospect” during your conversation. Never say, for example, “I received your lead” or “I understand you’re in the market for…” Also, avoid using certain classic sales tactics that are now widely recognized and resented by buyers, such as assailing the person with a series of questions to which the only logical answer would be “yes.”

A much better approach begins with an attitude of helpfulness. You can disarm a potential buyer’s defenses by asking him or her to tell you why they began researching. Even if you already have some details about the lead, such open-ended questions demonstrate your interest in their needs, and their answers can provide you with additional valuable information. Once you have learned more about the prospect’s needs—and possible objections—you can begin to educate him or her about your solution.

If you don’t succeed in making an appointment on the initial call, do not despair. This is still a viable lead. Offer to send the person some information and say that you will be in touch to make sure they received it. This shows respect for their time and leaves the way open for further nurturing.

You have now established some familiarity and trust as a professional who will listen and provide helpful information. The next time you call, your prospect may be more open to setting an appointment, confident that you aren’t simply trying to “sell” them—and that the buying decision still rests in their hands.

Here are five important keys to successful lead follow-up and appointment setting.

1. Keep your pipeline filled. And call each lead on a last-in, first-out basis. This will ensure you are contacting the freshest leads within the first five minutes, when they are actively thinking about and researching a purchase.
2. Treat each pre-qualified lead as you would a cold call. This will help you to avoid being overly familiar or presumptuous, which can have an off-putting effect. If the prospect asks where you got their information, a simple reply is best. You might say, “We work with InsideUp to connect with businesses that are looking for information about our services.” By addressing the question and then moving on to discuss their needs and your solutions, you will keep the focus on how you can help them rather than on how you received their information.
3. Be persistent. This is a key attribute of a good sales person. According to Campbell, “Quite often it will take a dozen or more calls to a single prospect to get a result. The experienced telemarketer knows this, and they will not discard a lead until they are convinced they have exhausted its potential.”
4. Vary your calling times.  If your initial call fails to reach the person you need to talk to, try calling a bit before or after regular business hours. When the gatekeepers are less likely to be in the office, your call may be picked up by a company decision maker.
5. Perfect your phone “presence.”  Your telephone manner is an important key to successful telemarketing. “You should sound as fresh and lively on your 100th call as you do on your first call,” advises Graham.  “Keep your tone sharp and lively.  Be pleasant and engaging, but without being in any way ingratiating or condescending. And, critically, learn to be a good listener. The hallmark of a bad telemarketer is that they seldom stop to draw breath. Rather than engaging with a prospect, they speak ‘at’ them, not ‘with’ them.”

Successful appointment setting involves continual fine-tuning of your telephone sales skills, but giving attention to such details will help you get the most from your leads.

During the first 30 seconds of your initial phone call, whether you’re speaking to someone personally or just leaving message, the person listening to your voice will begin to form an opinion about you.

You can ensure that opinion is a positive one by following these best practices on your initial phone call.

1. Before you pick up the phone, take a brief moment to breathe deeply, relax and smile. When you’re at ease and feeling confident and friendly, this will definitely come through in your voice. Some salespeople make a habit of speaking on the exhale, energizing the sound of their voice. Keeping a mirror on your desk can remind you to smile when you’re conversing with a potential customer.
2. Begin with an engaging introduction. Greet the person in a friendly manner, using their formal name if you know it. Immediately identify yourself, using your full name and title and the name of your company. Briefly state the reason for your call; your prospect will appreciate your respecting their time by getting right to the point. Follow the same procedure when leaving a voice mail, then clearly state your contact information or let the person know that you will email them your contact information.
3. Focus on the call. It can be easy to get sidetracked during a phone conversation, and the person on the other end of the call will most likely know when your attention has been diverted. It takes discipline to eliminate distractions, ignore all other activity around you and concentrate on what your prospect is saying, but it is essential to do so.
4. Concentrate on the prospect’s needs. In your enthusiasm for conveying the benefits of your services, it can be easy to forget to ask open-ended questions and then really listen to the answers, even taking notes. The information you glean from a two-way conversation will help you address their problems and offer solutions based on their needs.
5. Always be professional. Regardless of how the conversation goes, you want to leave each potential customer with a positive impression of you and the company you represent. So always maintain a polite and professional demeanor and end each conversation on a positive note.
6. Ask for an appointment. Complex B2B service contracts can be difficult to impossible to win on the initial call. Endeavor to set an appointment for a visit, and let the person know that you will call to confirm the appointment.
7. Confirm your information and close strong. Thank your prospect for their time, briefly recap and reinforce your company’s potential for providing a solution to their needs and that you look forward to helping them achieve their business goals. Remember to say “Goodbye” and wish them a good day, allowing your prospect to hang up first, whenever possible.

Following these basic best practices for the initial phone call will establish a positive tone for future interactions and establish your company as a professional organization that your prospects will feel confident doing business with.

You can maximize your conversion rates by following a few best practices.

1. Respond quickly.  A report by Harvard Business Review states, “Companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later. Yet only 37% of companies respond to queries within an hour.”
2. Personalize the email. Even though your goal is to respond as quickly as possible, taking a moment to personalize your message will increase the chances of your email being well-received.
3. Clearly identify yourself in the subject line with your name or the name of your company, along with a brief sentence to let the recipient know the email contains information they requested. You can give a quick bit of information about your services, or a call to action such as “Reply to this email for a 10% discount.”
4. Create a headline that succinctly states the main message of your email and answers one of the top questions your reader will have—why they should be interested. Try to include an important benefit of using your services.
5. Give them a reason to respond. List three top benefits your product or service will provide. This is a good place to break up the text with a bullet list.
6. End with a call to action. Make it clear exactly how you want the reader to respond, such as clicking a link to a landing page or registration form. Keep the landing page consistent in appearance and theme with your email so your prospect knows they’re at the right place.
7. Keep your message brief. Shorter emails draw higher response rates.
8. If you use a template, be sure to personalize the message with a point or two that is relevant to your prospect’s needs.
9. End with a digital signature that includes your company logo, web address and contact information for a professional touch.
10. Proofread carefully. Nothing can diminish your credibility like a typo or grammatical error.

Voss Graham, author of Three Games of Selling, notes that it can take up to ten “touches” to close a sale of complex B2B products or services.

“I keep running into sales people who really think they can make a large B2B sale with just one sales call,” Graham commented in a recent blog post.

That first critical contact, the initial call, when handled well, can pave the way for successful lead nurturing, and ultimately, a closing of the sale. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1. Open the conversation by identifying yourself, your company and the reason for your call. You may need to remind the prospect of their request for information, but be careful never to refer to “the lead you submitted,” or in any other way label the person you’re speaking to as a “lead” or “prospect” during your conversation.
2. Ask the right questions—ones that will allow the prospect to add more depth to the information you already have about them. Avoid asking questions to which you already have the answer. Ask, for example, what motivated them to begin searching for information, or what key benefit they expect to receive from the services they’re seeking.
3. Get “centered” before each sales call. This advice comes from a recent CBS Moneywatch article, along with these pointers, “During your conversation with the customer, focus your intent on the customer: words, gestures, tonality and context. Don’t think about what you’re going to say next. Listen, then respond, then ask another question.”
4. Show personal interest. Rather than focusing the entire conversation on your company and its services, give your prospect the opportunity to talk about what their biggest challenges have been when making similar buying decisions or about their past experiences with other vendors.
5. Keep in mind the customer’s buying process. Asking a few questions such as “is there anyone else who will be involved in this decision?” or “will this work with your present budget?” will give you some insight into how you should proceed.
6. Don’t be afraid to address the pricing question. Your willingness to give the prospect an idea of the price range they can expect will go a long way toward establishing trust and keeping the dialogue open.
7. Ask what other companies they are considering. This should not be viewed as a taboo subject. A simple inquiry regarding which of your competitors your prospect is looking at will give you the opportunity to showcase your unique selling point.

Nigel Girling, author of Improving Sales through Pipeline Management, details four ways to get more sales from your pipeline.

Since LinkedIn was designed as a platform to help business people connect, you will find it offers a number of tools created specifically for that purpose.  Here are a few ways you can use LinkedIn to create awareness about your services and, quite possibly, garner some quality leads.

1. First, be sure to fully flesh out your profile with information about your company. You can embed your videos and company blog on the profile page, and add a  “share” button so your content can be sent to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg. Also, be sure your company is listed in the company directory, with details about the services you provide.
2. One of the best ways to establish yourself as an authority in your field is to answer questions on the LinkedIn Answers page. You can find this section under the drop-down menu labeled “More” at the top of the home page. Browse the categories in the column on the right-hand side of the page for topics in which you have expertise to share. Maintain credibility by refraining from making promotional statements and focus on supplying helpful information.
3. Join several LinkedIn groups. How to Use LinkedIn For Business: A Beginner’s Guide, by Hubspot, recommends joining, not only groups pertaining to your industry, but also several outside your industry so you can connect with businesses that might need your services. You can even create and manage your own group. By actively participating in group discussions, offering valuable tips and insights, you can expand your circle of influence and enhance your reputation as a respected authority in your field.
4. Take advantage of LinkedIn Applications to create surveys and slide presentations, display your portfolio, embed your blogs and tweets, keep up with professional events and conferences, and more.
5. Regularly post status updates and share content. Keep your LinkedIn presence fresh by posting news about your company on a weekly basis. Provide content in the way of blog posts that others will find useful enough to share. With more than a million users, content posted on LinkedIn can become viral. If your content is widely shared, it may even be featured on LinkedIn Today, the site’s news aggregate service, providing you with even more exposure.

Visit LinkedIn’s learning center for more tips on how to get the most from your LinkedIn membership. And while you’re there, stop by and visit our profile!

If you ask politely what their specific concern is, most people will tell you—giving you a chance to overcome their barriers and close the sale.

Objections based on cost can actually be a moot point if you frame your offer in a way that addresses the issue. If you effectively show how your product or service will actually save the company many times more than its purchase price, you have already addressed the question of price. If the prospect is still resistant, a satisfaction guarantee should dispel any remaining concerns.

Offering a guarantee is also effective when you’re faced with the objection that your service/product won’t work—or that it simply is not a good solution for their particular needs. Be ready for this objection with the appropriate social proof. Case studies and testimonials from satisfied customers whose needs and situation are similar to those of your prospect will sometimes be all that is needed to close the sale.

If your prospect just can’t see how your solution will help their company, this is where education-based selling comes in. Be prepared with facts and figures that illustrate how your product or service is used to resolve a problem common in their industry. Help your prospect to visualize the end result—their company operating more efficiently, saving money or experiencing exponential growth.

Of course, the better you know your prospect to begin with, the more prepared you can be to overcome their barriers to purchasing. InsideUp provides qualified leads with detailed data as well as pre-set appointments, so you can speak with prospects who already have a high level of interest in your services.

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Education based marketing works especially well in the B2B arena, but only if you are providing the right answers to questions your customers actually have. Conversations with your existing customers can provide some insight, but what about future customers, the ones who are still in the research stage?

One simple way to know what questions you should be prepared to answer is to read materials designed to help business service seekers find a provider. If you offer ecommerce solutions, for example, do an Internet search for “tips on choosing ecommerce services,” or “questions to ask an ecommerce provider.” This will help you address the most common concerns of your target market. If you expect reputation and experience to be a deciding factor, you can be prepared with testimonials and referrals from your best clients. Or perhaps you’ll be fielding a lot of questions about price. Can you offer easy financing terms to help close the deal?

When you closely align your offering with what your ideal client is looking for, your prospect won’t need to search for the “next best alternative.” In his book, The Personal MBA, Josh Kaufman highlights this point, saying, “Understanding the other party’s Next Best Alternative gives you a major sales advantage: you can structure your agreement so it’s more attractive than their next best option. The more you know about the other party’s alternatives the more attractively you can frame your total offer by bundling/unbundling various options.”

Even after you’ve addressed a prospect’s main questions and aligned your offer with their needs, you could still be faced with some tough objections to the actual purchase. In a future post, we’ll look at ways you can overcome the most common objections.

Even if you believe you’ve got a good grasp on your keyword focus, it’s important to realize that just like so many other business processes,your keyword strategy should never be static. There is no ‘set and forget’; keyword campaigns must continually evolve and progress along with your business.

For your PPC campaign, avoid centering on one broad term. Rather, choose highly targeted phrases of two or more words to capture searches for providers in your specialty. A staffing service, for example, would do better with the keyword phrase “staffing and recruiting services” than a single keyword such as “staffing.” 

Remember to add words such as ”company,”  ”provider, ” vendor,”  ”consultant,”  or any other terms your potential customers may use when seeking the type of business services you offer. Also, take note of keywords with the potential to expand your reach to vertical and horizontal segments of your market.

Filter out unwanted traffic by listing “negative” keywords. For B2B marketers, this may include such terms as “jobs,” “employment,” “free,” “retail” and “open source.”

To improve your rank in organic search, be sure the keywords used on each page are aligned with and relevant to the overall purpose of your site. Avoid stuffing your content with keywords; sophisticated search engine algorithms can sift out low quality content that has been created for the sole purpose of drawing search engine traffic. Quality content that is relevant to your site will naturally include a realistic amount of keywords.