The keynote speaker at the combined meeting of the Dallas and Ft. Worth chapters of Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI) was Herb Eagle, President of SMEI. His opening comment was that salesmen and golfers have a lot in common. He went on to tell the audience, all sales and marketing types as the name of their organization implies, when they gather in the “19th Hole,” you never hear golfers talk about all of the bad shots they made that day, only the few good ones. He further asked, “What do salesmen talk about at the end of the day? All of the rejections, missed appointments, disinterested prospects . . . or the few good sales calls that resulted in sales or future call-backs? Obviously the latter.

Salesmen, Mr. Eagle went on to say, deal with rejection every day of their business lives. Statistically, salesmen receive seven negative answers before they receive a positive one. Old-time pitchmen would tell trainees to ask a series of questions in which “no” was a good answer, before they started asking the questions to which a “yes” was the desired response. In that manner, they would get all of the client’s “noes” out of the way first. This may sound a little simplistic, but in the minds of the pitchmen, it worked.

Sales psychologists like Kerry Johnson, say that a salesman should mirror the prospects comments and opinions. When the client uttered an opinion or made a statement, the salesperson should listen, then rephrase the utterance and feed it back to the client. In this manner, he appeared to agree with the prospect without parroting or patronizing him and a common bond was established.

All of this is fine and dandy for end-of-the-day-bar-conversation, but what is the best approach in the real world? Spending as much time as possible in front of customers is how skills are developed, honed and applied to make sales. It really is that simple. The more time salespeople spend making presentations, following up and closing, the more sales they make. But, how can a sales manager be sure his sale staff is maximizing their face-to-face contacts? Make them do sales and expense reports at night or on weekends is fine, but what about prospecting, appointment setting and travel time?

Providing pre-qualified sales leads is a premiere means of assuring that salespeople are getting more time in the field in front of prospective customers. A professional lead-qualification operation will supply a sales team with a continuing flow of leads and appointments, so that the salespeople spend less time on telemarketing or cold-calling. The best part of this deal is that these services may be outsourced for a set fee, instead of being accomplished by an in-house staff that requires salaries, incentives and company benefits.

Imagine how effective a salesperson would be if they had five or six scheduled presentations every day, instead of spending one or two days on the phone or cold-calling to fill up their schedule for the rest of the week. “Windshield time” is tough to avoid, but a well organized schedule can minimize travel time between sales calls, particularly when a field operator is dealing with a list of qualified prospects and appointments arranged in a geographical sequence. Efficiency and effectiveness may now be added to sales manager’s evaluation reports.