What To Do When A HotProspect Ghosts You (PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING)
By Glenn Fallavollita, President of Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 223
Time To Read: 54 Seconds
You just hung up the phone with a hot prospect. And although the person had an interest in what you are selling, they ghosted you after getting their proposal. Now what?
Send This e-Mail To A Prospect Who Ghosted You (After My 2/4 Call Strategy).
After leaving a few voicemails, I highly recommend sending the e-mail below.
[First Name]:
I have called a few times in the past few (days/weeks) and have not heard back from you. And since I want to be professional in my follow-up efforts with you, it would help me a lot if you hit the reply key and type in the number that represents your situation; I will take it from there.
#1: Glad you are touching base. Please call me (today/this week/next week) to discuss the details of your proposal.
#2: Thanks anyway (your first name), but there isn't any interest in moving forward with your company.
#3: The timing isn't right; check back with me in 2 to 3 months.
Again, if you would hit the reply key right now and type the number that best describes your situation, I would greatly appreciate it!
Name – Title
Company
Phone
e-Mail
P.S. You will find attached a one-page list of client testimonials from businesses (who switched from ____ to us, similar in size to yours, etc.).
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Hiring A Salesperson?
8 Tips To Help You Avoid A Bad Hire
By Glenn Fallavollita, President - Drip Marketing, Inc. & SellMorePayroll.com
Word Count: 521
Time To Read: 2.1 Minutes
50% to 66% of all newly hired salespeople* quit or get fired in their first 4- to 12-months of employment. That’s right; almost 66% of all newly hired salespeople won't last longer than 12 months!
This One Business Lost $200,000 With 5 Bad Hires.
I recently spoke with a business owner who hired and fired one sales leader and four salespeople in 18 months - who lasted, on average, 6.4 months. By the way, his out-of-pocket expense for these bad hires exceeded $200,000. Yes, $200,000. What’s worse is this: The five hires above generated less than $15,000 in new sales for the $200,000 spent.
8 Tips To Help Avoid A Poor Hiring Decision.
Tip #1: Don’t Rush The Hiring Process - While you may want a salesperson on your staff, keep in mind the cost of hiring the wrong person; therefore, take a careful look at your interviewing, reference checking, and onboarding process.
Tip #2: Pay A Bounty - Go to your staff, database of contacts, and vendors and say, “I’ll pay you $5,000 in cash if you can help me recruit a successful salesperson.” What you need to do next is hand each person a one-page overview of whom you are looking for and how the $5,000 is paid. By the way, you will only pay the $5,000 if the salesperson produces $X in revenue in their first 12-months of employment.
Tip #3: Check References As Salespeople Will Embellish Their Success - References are the best chance you have at gauging whether someone can perform a sales job at your company. By the way, the most common lies of a resume, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com, relate to:
Embellished skill set – 57%
Embellished responsibilities – 55%
Dates of employment – 42%
Job title – 34%
Academic degree – 33%
Companies worked for – 26%
Accolades/awards – 18%
Tip #4: Ask Past Employers This Question - “If you had the chance, would you hire <first name> again?” Their response, or lack of an answer, will be eye-opening.
Tip #5: Look Deep Into Your Rolodex, LinkedIn Contacts, And Vendors - When you have an open sales position, reach out to your contacts to see if they know of anyone (or maybe themselves) who might be interested in a sales position at your company.
Tip #6: Test Them On The Computer - The days of not being computer savvy are over for a salesperson. Because of this, test every candidate on their ability to use a CRM program and Outlook BEFORE you hire them.
Tip #7: Don’t Hire Salespeople Who Will Work From Home - If you can avoid it, hire a salesperson within a reasonable driving distance from your office. I've seen more salespeople who work from home fail - especially when they didn't have a full-time sales manager.
Tip #8: Make Sure You Are Ready - BEFORE you consider hiring your next salesperson, make sure you are ready (sales training manual, sales tracking reports, prospecting databases, sales scripts, etc.).
Executive Summary: Before you hire a salesperson, ask them to role-play on these two things:
Their discovery process when talking with a prospect.
A PowerPoint presentation on what they are currently selling. Wow, what a novel idea!
*At smaller, independent businesses.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Apple’s New e-Mail Privacy Policy: And
How It Will Affect Your e-Mail Open Rates (Print And Share With Your Marketing Team And Sales Leader)
By Glenn Fallavollita, President of SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 244
Read Time: 58 Seconds
Have you seen an increase in your e-mail open rates in Q4 2021/Q1 2022? If you have, it is due to Apple's new "Mail Privacy Protection policy - a new policy that prevents e-mail marketers from using invisible pixels to collect information from recipients.
The feature is now available for users of Apple’s Mail app for:
In the past, data from an e-mail was loaded only when the recipient opened the e-mail and downloaded the e-mail’s images, which happened automatically in most cases.
This data included a pixel, which allowed your e-mail provider to detect that the e-mail was opened, what device was used, and sometimes where the subscriber was located when they opened the e-mail.
With Mail Privacy Protection, Apple Mail preloads images and content of e-mails you send — including the tracking pixel — regardless of if the recipient actually opened the e-mail or not.
Other Key Points:
Apple’s new e-Mail Privacy Protection policy is now forcing marketers and publishers who use e-mail to reach their subscriber base to rethink some of the ways they’ve measured, monetized, or used e-mail.
Consumers might eventually notice a difference in the marketing e-mails they are getting — and may see brands reaching them in other ways outside the inbox, like texting.
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Some owners and sales leaders feel that blasting a "one-size-fits-all" newsletter to everyone in their e-mail database once or twice a month is “marketing” their business. And if you do too, you are losing tons of sales leads AND referrals.
Here’s why…
85% To 90% Of Your Prospects (And Referral Partners) Are NOT Reading Your Newsletter:
That’s right; a massive 85% to 90% of your prospects and referral partners are NOT reading your newsletter. And those that do:
Spend 10 - 15 seconds skimming your newsletter.
ONLY 2% will click on your “read more” link.
Apple's new "Mail Privacy" policy and other anti-virus software programs are giving you false positive open and click-through rates.
Think about this, 85% - 90% of your NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES and REFERRAL PARTNERS are not reading your newsletter. So let me ask you; "Is this acceptable to you?" If it isn't, call me ASAP!
10 Tips To Get More People To Open Your Next e-Mail Campaign(s).
Segment your databases, i.e., clients, prospects, referral partners, etc. Then write content relevant to them!
Add new e-mail addresses to your databases.
Send e-mail campaigns that go beyond a newsletter, i.e., press release, employee or CPA spotlight, product upgrade/enhancement, etc.
Personalize your e-mails, i.e., Hello [first name].
Avoid writing a wall of text.
Write better subject lines.
Send a reminder e-mail to everyone who DID NOT open your initial campaign.
Write better headlines and subheadlines.
Add a highly visible call-to-action or low-risk offer.
Call the prospects and CPAs who open your e-mail campaign (use my 2/4 call strategy).
Summary: In today’s work-from-home environment, your database of prospects, referral partners, and clients are spending more time in their inboxes. And if you want to capture someone’s attention, so they read your next e-mail campaign, consider the tips I have listed above!
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
e-Mail Newsletters:
6 Best Practices For Your Business By Glenn Fallavollita, President of Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 413
Time To Read: 97 Seconds
Are you thinking of e-mailing a newsletter to everyone in your marketing database(s)? If you are, I have listed six tips to help you get more people to open and read/skim it.
#1: Define Your Newsletter’s Goal or Purpose? If you are not tracking each newsletter sent, and the content used, you will never know what is working or NOT working. Here are some objectives of a company's newsletter:
To educate someone on a particular subject(s).
To showcase a client, employee, referral partner, etc.
To promote a new product/service.
To announce a new salesperson or system upgrade.
What your goal should be: Stay top-of-mind with your database of past customers, prospects, referral partners, etc. with relevant and engaging content.
#2: Make Sure Your Content Resonates With The Majority Of Your Target Audience. Sure, you can blast a generic one-size-fits-all newsletter to everyone in your marketing database, but if your main objective of sending one is to say “BUY FROM ME!,” your open- and click-through rates will be below average at best. Sending relevant content is your key to success.
#3: Always Grow And Update Your Databases. One of the best things you can do is grow/update your marketing databases. If not, your open rates will remain stagnant.
#4: Use Proper Formatting. Nothing could be more boring than a wall of text (I see it all the time) in a newsletter. If you want to attract a reader,
Use headlines, sub-headlines, bullet points, and 2 - 3 sentence paragraphs.
Add pictures, videos, and colors to engage a reader.
#5: Add A Low-Risk Offer. If you are wondering what type of low-risk offers you should use, ask yourself these questions:
Do I want to direct a reader to a specific landing page on my website? If it is, highlight a hyperlink to that page.
Do I want to promote a special whitepaper? If it is, highlight a hyperlink to download a special whitepaper or guide (or a landing page on your website).
Do I want to get a client or a referral partner to refer my business to their friends or business clients, respectively? If it is, add a one-click button that directs someone to a “refer us to a friend” or "refer us to a business client" page on your website.
#6: People Will Only Skim Your Newsletter. The harsh reality is this: People spend about 7- to 10-seconds skimming your newsletter. Therefore, re-read tip #4.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Are you a salesperson who wants to upgrade their sales skills? How about a sales leader who wants to jump-start their sales team? If you are, you will find the information below of particular value (feel free to print and share my tips).
Stop Your Whining: It’s time you stopped whining about your sales dilemma, as it will only prolong the issue.
Deliver Every Proposal In Person Or Via A Webinar: When giving a proposal for what you are selling, provide a prospect two to three options either in person or via a screen share program.
Don’t Give Up: ~50% of all salespeople stop calling a prospect for at least 9- to 12-months or altogether after their first unsuccessful attempt at moving the sales process forward. Remember, decision-makers change and your competition is never perfect.
e-Mail More Than An Newsletter To Help Market Your Biz: If you are only blasting a generic, one-size-fits-all e-newsletter to everyone in your e-mail database, you are committing e-mail marketing suicide.
Give 100% Because 99% Or Less Won’t Cut It: If you are giving anything less than 100%, the sales profession (and your sales leader) will eat you up.
Go Old School: If you read something of interest in a magazine, scan it/take a picture of it and e-mail it to the people you have in your database.
Invest In Yourself Because No One Else Will: Since no one will care more about your sales success than you, I recommend that you take a few sales training classes and read as many books on the subject of sales and marketing as possible.
Keep Score Of Your Sales Results AND Sales Activities: Once you start keeping score, you will see what is/isn’t working.
Look At What Your Company’s #1 Salesperson Is Doing: If you want to become better at what you sell, blueprint what your company’s top salesperson (which is frequently the business owner) is doing, what they say, whom they say it to and how often they say it.
Make The Commitment To Increasing Your Sales: The first step to increasing your sales is the commitment to taking action.
Power Off Your Smartphone: You and I both know that your smartphone is a massive distraction to you.
Schedule Phone Blitz Sessions Each Week: Start scheduling time each week to have 90- to 120-minute phone blitz sessions.
Start Calling More People: One of the top ways to increase your sales is to make more phone calls to your database of contacts.
Stop Being A Mind Reader: You cannot look at a prospect’s name and say, “I’m not going to call this person as they’re probably not interested in buying what I am selling.”
Stop Playing The Sales Stalking Game: Most salespeople play the “let’s see who I can call” sales stalking game with little to no strategy on who to call. Avoid this type of following-up.
Work Continuously On Building Your Database: Your marketing database(s) represents 50% to 60% of your sales success; therefore, make it a priority to build and update your CRM databases.
Write Down Your Sales Goals: Doing better is the result of taking action on that decision.
Your Sales Pipeline Is YOUR Life: Starting today, you will fill your sales pipeline with more sales opportunities.
My Last Two Pieces Of Advice.
#1: Start Taking Action Today: If you want to win more sales, start improving your sales and marketing skills today, not tomorrow. Successful salespeople don’t wait until their selling season starts to take action.
#2: It’s Called “Selling” For A Reason: Unfortunately, many underperforming salespeople lie to their sales leader about the number of sales calls they had each week, how robust their sales pipeline activity is to even where they were on a particular day. Today is the day you will start taking ownership of your sales pipeline/results and your time management skills.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help payroll service owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
e-Mail marketing is still a terrific way for your business to build trust, credibility, and brand recognition in the marketplace; however, it needs to be done right. And based on my experience in sending 100+ million e-mail messages, here are a few pointers for you to consider:
Have a colleague do a 4-second test on your e-mail campaign.
Proof your campaign 2X.
Avoid using “No-Reply” in the sender's e-mail address field.
Remove These e-Mail Addresses.
Clean your e-mail database.
Link your e-mail’s low-risk offer to a landing page.
1. Have A Colleague Do A 4-Second Test - Send a copy of your e-mail campaign to a colleague to see if they can quickly determine your low-risk offer.
2. Proof Your Campaign At Least 2X –Before you press the send button, print your campaign for proofing and then hand it to one or two other people for proofing.
3. Avoid Using 'No-Reply' In The SENDER'S e-Mail Address – Avoid using the phrase "no reply," or a similar phrase, as your e-mail sender's name.
4. Remove These e-mail Addresses – Before you launch your next mass e-mail campaign, I recommend removing all generic, i.e., @aol.com, @hotmail.com, etc., and role, i.e., service@, info@, etc. e-mail addresses from your database. Why? They will be the ones who cause the most issues for you with services like Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, etc. After doing that, upload your database to a third-party verification service to tag the invalid/complainer e-mail address.
5. Clean Your e-Mail Database - After sending your e-mail campaign, remove all bounced e-mail addresses. With services like Constant Contact, they make it easy to do this.
6. Link Your e-Mail’s Low-Risk Offer To A Landing Page – To help you provide a reader subscriber with more information, connect your offer to a landing page.
In today’s world of home office working, your target audience is spending more time than ever before in their inbox. And to help you maximize your e-mail marketing efforts, spend a few extra minutes making your e-mail campaigns a great brand experience.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
7 Reasons Why Your Business
Needs A Drip Marketing System
(Print And Share At Your Next Sales Meeting)
By Glenn Fallavollita, President - Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word count: 324
Time to read: 1.3 Minutes (at 250 words per minute)
As you look at your database of prospects, past clients, etc., can you tell me the ones who will buy from you in the next 90 days? In all reality, you and/or your salespeople will be off by 90% (YES, 90%) or more. Do you know why? People buy when they are ready and not when you or your salespeople want them to.
Here’s Why You Need A Drip Marketing System Installed At Your Business.
The benefits of a lead marketing system via e-mail marketing are numerous. In fact, it is the fastest, simplest, and most economical way to build your sales pipeline. Here's how:
It will help you/your business build trust, credibility, and brand recognition in the marketplace.
Maintains consistent contact with prospective buyers as they travel down the sales cycle.
Help find sales opportunities in your database of prospects, clients, and referral partners.
Encourages referrals from your database of clients & referral partners.
Finds cross-selling opportunities.
Shows someone the value you/your business brings to the marketplace.
Creates an EXCELLENT reason to follow-up with someone.
Staggering Stats All Owners And Sales Leaders Need To Read.
50% of all salespeople stop contacting a prospective buyer and/or referral partner after their first unsuccessful attempt at moving the sales process forward. A number that skyrockets to 95+% after their third unsuccessful attempt.
27% of your sales team will turnover each year, according to the Harvard Business Review.
The first time someone hears about your business, there's a good chance they won't buy from you.
People buy from people/businesses they like, know and trust.
Executive Summary: A well-articulated drip marketing system will show your database of prospects, referral partners, clients, etc., the value you/your business will bring to their business. More importantly, it stays in consistent contact even when you and your salespeople give up.
So tell me, what’s stopping you from installing a drip marketing system at your business?
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
8 e-Mail Prospecting Tips To Help
Generate More Sales Leads (PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING)
By Glenn Fallavollita, President of SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 594
Time To Read: 2.4 Minutes
You might have heard that e-mail marketing is a waste of time because prospects are too busy to open an e-mail from someone they don’t know; however, statistics show many “cold e-mails” are still being opened.
To help you receive a better e-mail response from your database of prospects, referral partners, and yes, your clients, I have listed a number of quick tips below.
1. Proof Your Campaigns: The #1 thing you can do is print AND triple-check your e-mail marketing campaigns. Look for typos, formatting errors, no low-risk offers, etc.
2. Write Enticing Subject Lines: The difference between a great subject line and one that is less than stellar, is the difference between an e-mail getting read and one that gets deleted.
3. Talk Like A Real Person: If your subject line reads like spam, it will be treated as one. Here are some words that could trigger a spam filter:
Best Price
Call Now
Cancel Anytime
Click Here
Don’t Delete
Double Your
Free Quote
Money Making
Why Pay More
Exclamation Points, i.e., !
4. Personalize Your e-Mail: Whenever possible, you should personalize your subject line to include a prospect’s name or company (or both). According to MarketingDive, personalizing an e-mail subject line can boost open rates by 50% and increase click-to-open rates by 58%.
5. Tell The Reader What’s In It For Them: When it comes to your low-risk offer, focus LESS on explaining how your product or service works, and more on how it can add VALUE to their business.
According to our research of 85+ million e-mails, the e-mail body that’s “just right” is between 150 to 250 words in length.
In short, prospects seem to respond best to e-mails that are short and to the point.
6. Format Your e-Mails For Smartphones: With a prospecting e-mail, you need to ensure your message can be read on a smartphone.
Fact: 70+% of smartphone users will delete an e-mail if it doesn’t look good on their smartphone. By the way, 30% - 33% of your prospects are reading your emails on their smartphones.
7. Know When To Send A Follow-Up e-Mail: If the majority of your cold prospecting e-mails are still met with a cold shoulder, you need to focus on sending more “educational" driven e-mails, i.e., here's an article you might find of interest.
8. Vary Your Messaging: If a prospect who opened your initial e-mail has gone cold; I highly suggest sending the following types of campaigns to re-engage them:
Special Newsletter (On A Hot Subject)
Press Release On A New Upgrade
Intro Letter To A New Product Or Service
Holiday Cards
Service Spotlight On A New Product Or Service
Client Spotlight On Why The Recommend Your Business
The Real Leads Will Come From Doing This!
After sending an e-mail campaign, I highly recommend picking up your phone for a quick “Oh, by the way,” call. If you are a client of ours, you know exactly what type of call this is! If you don’t, contact me directly for the answer.
Executive Summary:
Getting a prospect’s attention in a crowded inbox takes skill. To help you cut through all the marketing noise, you need to look at e-mail marketing as a long-term process, i.e., drip marketing, as it takes multiple follow-up e-mails.
Last but certainly not least is this: Almost every prospect is worth sending multiple campaigns; however, the ones who have opened your campaigns are the ones to call.
Use my 2/4 call strategy when making your Oh, by the way, calls.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help payroll service owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
5 Eye-Opening Sales Stats You Should Read (Print And Share With Your Sales Team)
Word Count: 363
Time To Read: 1.4 Minutes
1. Salespeople Give Up Way Too Early - 50% of all salespeople (and most likely yours) stop calling or sending information, for at least 9 to 12 months or altogether, to a prospective buyer or referral source after their FIRST unsuccessful attempt at moving the sales process forward. This number skyrocketed to 80% to 85% after their second attempt and virtually 95% to 98% after a salesperson's third unsuccessful attempt.
2. It Takes 15+ Touches By A Salesperson To Close A Sale - In a medium- to high-value business-to-business sale, it takes 15+ conventional touches by a salesperson (telephone conversations, face-to-face meetings, voicemail messages, personal e-mails, letters, and so on) before they close a cold prospect or referral partner.
3. All Salespeople Use Subjective Follow-Up Dates (This Is Huge) - 100% of all salespeople choose a subjective follow-up date to call a prospect after an unsuccessful attempt at moving the sales process forward. In other words, a salesperson determines when THEY think a prospect would be ready to learn about or buy what they are selling.
4. Salespeople Can't Predict When Their Hottest Prospects Will Close - 95% of all salespeople are unable to predict a prospect’s “proposal close date” with any degree of accuracy. Therefore, if a salesperson cannot predict when their hottest of prospects would close, how on earth can they predict when their database of warm/cold prospects will be ready to learn/buy what they are selling? They can’t; now reread bullet #3 above.
5. Prospects Forget 80% Of What They're Told - When talking on the phone with a salesperson, a prospect forgot 80% of what they were told in less than 60-minutes (when asked, they couldn't even remember the salesperson's name). In face-to-face meetings, where a prospective buyer is more engaged in what a salesperson is saying, it takes less than 24-hours before they forget 80% of what they were told.
Summary: The five data points listed above (and many more) are the reasons why you need to install a drip marketing system at your business. The good news is this: Your competitors are making these same mistakes, which represents a huge sales and marketing opportunity for you!
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
