What it Takes to Get More Appointments

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan
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Everyone Can Sell. Not Really. Top 10 Reasons Why Not - By Dave Kurlan

Without question, the most popular requests I receive each week are for help with making appointments and, specifically, creating positioning statements. For example, Pat and I traded about 6 emails over the past 10 days to get his positioning statements just right.

But what if you nail your positioning statement but you're still struggling to get appointments?

My guess is that you're doing one of the following things ineffectively.

* Not introducing yourself correctly. Never use anything other than "it's" to introduce yourself. Never use more than 5 words - Hi ____, it's Dave Kurlan."
* Not sounding familiar enough. You must sound like someone they know - pretend you are calling your best friend, not a prospect!
* Not obeying the rules of the road. There is a stop sign right after your introduction. You don't get to speak again until they respond. That's how you get their attention.
* Not asking permission to proceed. You must ask if you can take 10 seconds to tell them why you called.
* Not pacing yourself properly. Slow down and break it up so that they have enough time to process what you're saying.

It should not sound like this.

It should sound like thisinstead.

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Free PDF Download
Everyone Can Sell. Not Really. Top 10 Reasons Why Not - By Dave Kurlan

About the Author: Dave Kurlan

RSS for Dave's articles - Visit Dave's website
Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).
Click here to visit Dave's website.

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