Don't Give Up: Why Sales Persistence Pays Off

(This Article Was Originally Posted on Business News Daily. The original article is linked below)

Outside any ballgame or rock concert, you're sure to find a scalper or two hawking their wares. These folks make a living selling tickets to sold-out shows, and their method of operation is always the same: Hit up everyone that walks by, and if they're not interested, then move on to the next person.

For scalpers, this strategy is perfect. Unfortunately, there are many salespeople who use the same approach when they prospect for new business. When a call does not result in a sale, they banish the prospect, never to call again. Much like the scalper, they move on.

A study from Dartnell Corp. investigated the number of times a prospect was called before a salesperson waved the proverbial white flag. Here is their data:

• 48 percent quit after the first contact

• 72 percent stop after the second contact

• 84 percent give up on a prospect after the third contact

• 90 percent wave the white flag after the fourth contact

As you can see, almost half of all salespeople quit after the first call. And the vast majority (90 percent) quit relatively soon after.

Why Sales Is the Thing Most Entrepreneurs Get Wrong

So why do 90 percent of salespeople quit so quickly? There are many reasons, and the simplest is that they let business and life get in the way. Some get caught up in busy work because it is easier than having to follow up. Others just lack the discipline to make those follow-up calls.

The fact is that 10 percent of salespeople make the fifth call, and studiesshow that 80 percent of sales are made after that fifth sales call. Which leads to the conclusion that 10 percent of salespeople win 80 percent of the business. Successful salespeople use their persistence and their stick-to-it mentality to win, and win big. In the same way that air gets thinner at higher altitudes, competition wanes after the first few calls. And the key ingredient that differentiates the average salesperson from the truly great ones is persistence: The persistence to make that first call and the discipline to make a half a dozen after that (without annoying the potential client, of course).

It's persistence that increases a client's confidence in a salesperson's ability. It's what makes a salesperson stand out from everyone else. And it's how salespeople stay top of mind when the client is ready to buy.

Successful salespeople don't expect to sell anything on that first call. They know that only a small percentage (1 to 2 percent) of people are looking to buy in a first call. They tend to be the people who are already familiar with what they need, and have already done extensive research. And if you happen to call at the right time, the business is yours.

But this is not the norm. Most buyers are not going to be ready to sign that purchase order when a salesperson calls. Most will not have time to talk, or will lack the resources or the authority to make a decision.

Rather than trying to make that sale, the goal for the first call should be to implement a follow-up strategy, a strategy that allows you to build a relationship and trust by engaging in an ongoing dialogue. Much like a relationship, you can't propose the first time you meet someone. Your goal on the first date is to make it to the second one. And your goal on the second date is to interest your prospect in a third date.

In building a relationship, you'll develop a much better understanding of the client's needs and wants. You'll get to understand their underlying problems, not just the superficial ones that appear obvious. And once the client knows that you understand them, they are yours. They won't go anywhere else anytime soon because the chances that another salesperson will come along that will be as committed is slim.

As a general rule, the more difficult a client is to get, the harder they are to lose, because stealing these kinds of clients requires persistence and discipline. And, remember: 90 percent of all salespeople don't have that.

The key to converting your pipeline into actual sales is the ability to hang in there when others have given up. It means being persistent with phone calls, emails or even a personal visit over several months. Because the longer you hang in there, the greater the chance that your competition has given up. Just remember to make that fifth, sixth and seventh call.

Anything less, and you're better off scalping tickets.

Click Here to View the Original Article.

Trump’s Campaign Said It Was Better at Facebook. Facebook Agrees (via Bloomberg)

Fair warning... There's nothing intended to be political by this post. It's simply to convey the power of Facebook's marketing resources when used effectively.

The link to the original article is sited at the bottom of this page.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has boasted often that it made better use of Facebook Inc.’s advertising tools than Hillary Clinton’s campaign did. An internal Facebook white paper, published days after the election, shows the company’s data scientists agree.

“Both campaigns spent heavily on Facebook between June and November of 2016,” the author of the internal paper writes, citing revenue of $44 million for Trump and $28 million for Clinton in that period. “But Trump’s FB campaigns were more complex than Clinton’s and better leveraged Facebook’s ability to optimize for outcomes.”

The paper, obtained by Bloomberg and discussed here for the first time, describes in granular detail the difference between Trump’s campaign, which was focused on finding new donors, and Clinton’s campaign, which concentrated on ensuring Clinton had broad appeal. The data scientist says 84 percent of Trump’s budget asked people on Facebook to take an action, like donating, compared with 56 percent of Clinton’s.

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump ran 5.9 million different versions of ads during the presidential campaign and rapidly tested them to spread those that generated the most Facebook engagement, according to the paper. Clinton ran 66,000 different kinds of ads in the same period.

As is typical at Facebook, employees had access to the white paper, according to a person familiar with the matter. Employees routinely publish papers so colleagues can dig into issues facing the company and learn how certain products work.

A former Facebook employee cited the information from the white paper in a memo to Representative Adam Schiff’s office in early March, saying it could help Congress ask the right questions about whether the campaign coordinated with Russia. For example, according to the paper, more than a quarter of Trump’s ad spending was tied to third-party data files on voters, and leveraged a Facebook tool that helped the campaign show ads to people who looked similar to the names on file. Clinton’s ads aimed for broader audiences, with only 4 percent of her Facebook spend on the lookalike tool.

“Did Russian operatives give the Trump campaign a list of names to include or exclude from advertising that was running on Facebook?” the former employee asked in the memo.

Republicans shut down the House of Representatives’ investigation into Russia and Trump days later, “leaving questions unanswered, leads unexplored, countless witnesses uncalled, subpoenas unissued,” Schiff, a California Democrat, wrote on Twitter. A Schiff spokesman declined to comment for this story.

But Congress is still focusing on the use of third-party information on Facebook for another reason: the company’s ensuing crisis over data on 50 million users obtained by Cambridge Analytica, a political advertising firm that helped Trump’s campaign. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is set to make his first congressional testimony on the issue in a matter of days.

One key question Zuckerberg is likely to face, raised in the former employee’s memo to Schiff: What lists of Facebook users did Trump’s campaign upload for advertising purposes?

Facebook is still working to unearth other information that congressional investigators have requested. The company is continuing to comb through its site to identify content posted by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian organization that used Facebook to manipulate public discourse in America ahead of the election. On Tuesday, the company took down more than 270 accounts and pages operated by the IRA that were used to spread messages to people in Russia and neighboring countries.

“This is the next step towards removing them from Facebook entirely,” Zuckerberg wrote Tuesday on his Facebook page. “Organizations like the IRA are sophisticated adversaries who are constantly evolving, but we’ll keep improving our techniques to stay ahead -- especially when it comes to protecting the integrity of elections.”

Click here for the original article.