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When prospective customers call you on the phone and for some reason want to buy – either they heard something good about you, or they read something about you, or they read something that you wrote, or someone referred them to you – the chances are close to 95 percent that you can make some sort of sale and build some sort of relationship. Not bad odds.

REASON: The prospective customer called you, seeking information they consider necessary to make a purchase.

BACK TO REALITY: You come into your office and sit at your desk. Today’s the day you’re going to (have to) make 100 cold calls to prospective customers. The odds are that 95 percent of these calls will end up somewhere between “no” and a hang-up. Bad odds. Of the five people who display some form of interest, one may eventually end up buying.

RECAP: You will make the sale 95 percent of the time when you RECEIVE an unsolicited call from a prospective customer. You will lose the sale 95 percent of the time when you MAKE an unsolicited call to a prospective customer. Hello!

YESTERDAY: For the past 10 years (yesterday), it’s likely that your business has been winning sales by capturing low-hanging fruit, and you, as a salesperson, have thought to yourself, “I’m pretty good. I made president’s club.”

TODAY: All of a sudden, you get to today, and you’re looking around for fruit. It’s nowhere to be found.

Now you’re in scramble mode for several reasons:

1. You’ve built no platform.

2. You have no video testimonials to prove your value or the value of purchasing your product.

3. You have little or no reputation in your marketplace.

4. Your product or service is highly competitive, and it’s difficult for you to differentiate yourself from the people you hate. Your competition.

4.5. You have no value message that you send to your existing customers week after week.

TOMORROW: There’s an old expression that says, “If you want things to get better, you have to get better.” If you have not prepared for this time or tomorrow, then NOW is the time to dig in.

When sales are tough, your competitors will come at your existing customers with offers that appeal to their pocketbook. You have to be providing valuable service. You have to be a value partner – and a value provider. If not, you’ll either lose the account, or worse, be asked to match the price.

Many salespeople at this moment are somewhere between whiny and panicky. They’re worried about their jobs when they should be worried about their customers’ well-being. They’re worrying about the state of the world when they should be concentrating on their customers’ loyalty.

The 95 percent success strategy is very simple, but requires WORK if you want to be on the receiving end of an unsolicited call:

• Become a consistent value provider.

• Get your existing customers to endorse you, support you and stay loyal to you.

• Utilize the strategy employed by every great athlete: Self-talk equals self-performance.

Tell yourself you’re going to hit a home run, that you’re going to return the punt for a touchdown. And picture yourself doing it.

Figure out where your value message is with respect to your customers’ perception of it, and their willingness to receive it.

And then do the one thing that 95 percent of salespeople will not do: Work your ass off. Today.

Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached by phone at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2008 Jeffrey H. Gitomer