I work for Stealth Monitoring which acquired Eyewitness Surveillance. I am a Rock Star Inside Sales Representative for Stealth Monitoring.
I started my career as a Research Assistant in Washington DC for a think tank called JF Coates and assisted writing two books for them. I also sold robots for schools, Special Ed reading and programs for teaching social skills to school districts and private institutions. I enjoy going on cruising, swimming, and teaching English to new immigrants.
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:01
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone! My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on The No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you, do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30 days guaranteed, not only remove it, but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you to much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes, click on it to find out more. All right! Let's get started.
Umar Hameed 0:42
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of The No Limits Selling Podcast. Today we have Suzanne Nettles here. She is an ace appointment getter. Suzanne, how many appointments have you gotten over your career using the telephone?
Suzanne Nettles 0:55
Or, you know what? I don't know. But I do know for the company I'm working for now, it's over 1000.
Umar Hameed 1:01
Wow. And this is just in this short period of time?
Suzanne Nettles 1:04
Yes.
Umar Hameed 1:05
So do you know how to make grown men cry? Because a salesperson, give them a telephone. Because people are scared of getting appointments, right? And calling people and getting rejected. So tell me, how did you get better? And how do you land appointments with folks out there in the real world?
Suzanne Nettles 1:20
I'm a very genuine person. When I'm on the phone, I always work for companies, I truly believe in their product and services. So I'm very transparent. I'm very honest, and open. And I honestly want to make that phone call to be one of the best phone calls that person gets today.
Umar Hameed 1:39
Brilliant. So that's the intention is to give them the best phone call for the day.
Suzanne Nettles 1:43
Make them smile. I want to make them think open up, talk to me. I want to make them leave with not feeling bad that they answered the phone from a complete stranger today.
Umar Hameed 1:54
So if you called me, what would you say? So you know, my name is Umar. So how do you start that conversation?
Suzanne Nettles 2:02
Well, I use somebody's name and say, you know, "Hello, Umar, I introduced myself, you know, I, Suzanne Nettles from, you know, a security company. And we are well known in the security business. I don't know if you've heard of us before. But we are very well in the automotive world, we secure businesses using monitoring with live audio, which is very effective against crime, weak at your assets with live audio. And we would love to show you how we do that. Are you open to just a brief, you know, web demo or phone call? So we can show you what that looks like. And we can look at your viewership, you know and give you like our suggestions and pricing for that. How does that sound?"
Umar Hameed 2:46
That sounds good. And how? What are the typical objections that you get? So out of 10 people, how many people say, "Yes, Suzanne, I want a demo?"
Suzanne Nettles 2:55
You know what? In the past, I could do that. And make like, if I made 10 phone calls, no, if I made 22 phone calls, I would get an appointment within 20 days.
Umar Hameed 3:07
That's when you were on your heyday?
Suzanne Nettles 3:08
Yeah, it'd be for COVID. You know, COVID kind of change things. You know, we were calling right when COVID started. Oh, my gosh, I got dreadful conversations about, "You know what, this isn't a good day, I'm gonna have to lay off half my staff." You know, I said, "You know what, I totally understand that, how about we talked about this, like, in a couple months or something?"
Umar Hameed 3:30
Brilliant. Or you could say, "Well, if you let go one more employee, you could afford us?" No, don't do that. That would be bad. So basically, you basically get to the point.
Suzanne Nettles 3:41
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 3:42
"Heyou want this is Suzanne, I'm calling from a security company. We're the number one player in this area, we help protect a dealers with video with audio, and that really protects, we'd love to set up a demo for you. Would you like to do that?" Pretty much that's your pitch?
Suzanne Nettles 3:58
Yes. And what days, you know, on like, Tuesdays or Wednesdays, what's best for you?" You give two choices.
Umar Hameed 4:05
Nice. Presumed close with two times. So our people and we've, they're on the call today, we got Areej and Shafaque and we may get them to ask questions in a minute. So one of the questions they get asked a lot is, "How did you find me?" For some reason, they get that a lot. So how do you answer that? Do you just tell them I found you online or?
Suzanne Nettles 4:26
Yes, I do get that, especially if I have somebody's cell phone number. They say, "How do I get this phone number?" And I say, "You know, be honest with you. There's data out there, you know, I check on things like SignalHire, or Seamless AI. And it has those numbers. And so I just, you know, look for phone numbers of businesses and their direct phone numbers. And sometimes I get cell phone numbers in that side found you. When I found your name on the website, and I understand that you're the general manager or the owner. And so that's fine. Give in your time."
Umar Hameed 5:00
So you're booking appointments, one out of 22 calls, so probably out of 100, getting about five appointments a day, which is a pretty fabulous. So Shafaque, Areej, do you have any questions for Suzanne?
Shafaque 5:14
Yeah, I have a question that I'm in, I get asked this a lot. So right now what we are doing is we are booking people for a podcast for like 40 minutes. It's a 40 minute podcast, a lot of people since they've not heard of the company, they become a bit hesitant and you know, understandably so. So what worked best in that scenario was that I asked them to have a 10-minute [garbled] call with us an introductory call between Umar and you know, that particular person. And that sort of worked somehow, that sort of,
Umar Hameed 5:52
So the question is.
Shafaque 5:54
Yeah. So the question is, how do I get them directly up or say yes, to the 40-minutes call instead of the prep call?
Suzanne Nettles 6:03
You know, what, sometimes when people have never heard of you at all. And careful that you're not somebody who's trying to cheat them, or somebody who's dishonest. Ao they may need more information, like an email, with a link to the website, that kind of thing. I've had to do that lots of times because they just didn't hear of us before. And they just want to check us out before they say yes to a phone call or web meeting. And I totally understand that. So I say, "Okay, I will send you an email with the information about us. And have I just call you back tomorrow."
Umar Hameed 6:36
That is certainly simple. And another thing to add to it. Shafaque is this is, "Hey, John, I'm not surprised to hear you say that, you know, a lot of people haven't heard of Umar. But he's had, you know, the number one realtor in the US on the show. He had the number one realtor in Canada on the show. And in that community, he's quite well known. And that's exactly why we should have you on the show. And the key phrase is, that's exactly why we should have you on the show. Just go for another close." So if you need to send an email, you can do that but it delays it. People want to be heard and just saying, "Hey, I totally get that. I didn't want to work for Umar. But when I met him, he's a delightful man." And you could even just use humor to go there. Does that help answer your question, Shafaque?
Shafaque 7:22
Yeah, that pretty much covers it. Yeah. Thank you.
Umar Hameed 7:25
Cool. Have about you Areej, what are you hearing? And how can Suzanne help you?
Areej 7:31
I think Suzanne already covered my question, which was that, you know, people ask me a lot, "How did you search me?" Or, "How did you find me?" "Where did you get my number from?" So she pretty much what are what are my takeaways from Suzanne are that she was very honest, that yes, we searched them on Google or on website, right? So that's my takeaway. And she answered my problem or question already.
Umar Hameed 7:54
So a lot of times, you know, how you are finding them is, you know, we put you know, successful realtors in Google and your name came up.
Suzanne Nettles 7:54
I was looking for successful realtors, and I found you.
Umar Hameed 8:06
Yeah, who's gonna say, 'Well, wait a minute. I'm not, I'm not that successful," everyone goes, "Oh, really? Wow."
Shafaque 8:14
Yes. And Umar, I really like how you said that, you know, we have interviewed the very first or the best realtor in US or Canada. Can you share their names with us as well, in case if they ever asked just like randomly on a group?
Umar Hameed 8:27
Sure. I'll let you know who the one the superstars are. We had Kyle Seyboth, he does 500 transactions by himself every year, which is just an insane number. Most people are getting like maybe 30 or 40 or 50. Before they have like other realtors helping them and this guy is like a beast. So we've had amazing people coming on. So we'll talk about name dropping, which always helps.
Areej 8:52
I have one question from Suzanne. So Suzanne, you know, this appointment booking thing sometimes gets very tricky. Sometimes, you know, you're doing exactly what you do every single day, yet, some days are bad days, and you don't get appointments. So how do you keep yourself motivated in that situation? And what would be kind of key takeaways from you? How do you overcome them? Or what is it that you do? Is it more dials that you do? Is it highlight how you keep up your motivation?
Suzanne Nettles 9:19
A little differently than my teammates do that are newer, some are newer, you know, and they just go by list and just call. My experience has been since I've started working for the company was knowing who I was calling, looking up in our database as to who we spoke to in the past. So I don't dial blindly. I look them up and say, "Hey, we gave you a proposal like a year ago with," you know, such a such person, you know, "so we've already opened the door at your dealership before you already met with us." We'd like to revisit that or see what's changed this year. And it always helps to know who we already spoke, they beat out even be there, which there's lots of changes in the automobile business, you know, with who's the service manager is who's ownerships, I mean, they're changing ownerships all the time. So it's, but it's helpful, even if the person is no longer there to say, "Hey, we met with this person, "you know, and, "we've, we've looked at your deals, we've been at your dealership before." And so that makes it a little bit more warmer, you know, [garbled], you know, because we've been there before. Also, with certain industries, you know, that Sundays are really, really bad not to bother something. For automobile dealerships, for general managers, you do not bother them at the end of the month, the last day of the month you it especially with on Friday, the last day of the month, or you just don't do that. Bbecause if you call them they're gonna assume it's like wanting to buy a car from them. And when they hear that it's not, oh, my gosh, you know, that is you're working at a disadvantage. And actually, I have been cussed out before. So...
Umar Hameed 11:11
Well, that was me, so that doesn't count. So Areej, another way of thinking about this is, so I was talking to this guy, he works at a printing company. And I noticed in LinkedIn before I called him that he used to work for Hewlett Packard. And I did some consulting for Hewlett Packard. So as we're chit chatting about, you know, "Hey, how are you ta...da...da...da...?" And I can feel a coldness coming from his side, like, "Who the hell are you? Why are you calling me?" And then I go, "Oh, you know, I noticed that you worked for Hewlett Packard five years ago, I used to work for them in Canada." And all of a sudden, it's like, "Oh, my God, you're part of my tribe." "Really? Do you know so and so?" So there's two human needs. One of them is to be an individual, look at me, I'm pretty. And the second need is to be part of a tribe. So when we came out of the caves, our survival depended on being part of a tribe. And if we did something wrong, and the tribe sent us Chanda, say, "Get out of the tribe," we would be killed by animals or other tribes. So what we need is any kind of connection with the person we're calling, like, sometimes as little as, "Hey, Suzanne, I noticed you went to this university, my second cousin went there as well." And Suzanne gonna say, "Really? your second cousin." And all of a sudden, it builds a connection, "I didn't even go there," it wasn't even like, "Oh, my God isn't? It's a second cousin. That's all you need is some connection. So sometimes doing a quick search, "Oh, this realtor won an award. It's like, you know, "Hey, John, how are you? This is a reach, we're calling you to be on the podcast and I noticed you won an award last year. Tell me more about that?" And they're gonna go, "That award. Well, let me tell you how fantastic I am." So just find any small thing to connect. And I think that's what Suzanne saying, a little bit of research goes a long way.
Suzanne Nettles 12:59
Yes.
Areej 13:00
Right. Right. After lots of research now, [garbled].
Umar Hameed 13:03
Nice. So Suzanne, tell us about sometimes you have this is what Areej and Shafaque are finding. Like, sometimes they're just hot. And they're just like, everyone they call once a yes. And then other days, nobody wants to talk to them. And it seems to be like a pattern that day. What do you do when you've got a day with just a bunch of no's? Any thoughts?
Suzanne Nettles 13:27
I have to like, look back at my month to say, "Oh, you know what? Yeah, this is tough. But I really know how to do this." And also sometimes, you know, if it really is a bad like, nobody's saying, yes. Or maybe it's maybe a sad, you know, time of the month for that particular
Umar Hameed 13:48
Industry, yeah?
Suzanne Nettles 13:49
That, you know, they are working on getting their own sales, or they may be away, like a whole bunch of people are meeting at the same place that day. So I don't use that time to sharpen up my email, sharpen up my dialogue, do some research, send out emails, do something else that's productive. It may be phone calling that day bill will be another way of being productive. To keep it moving, you know?
Umar Hameed 13:49
Yeah, don't stall. And one of the things really that I'm taking away from this conversation and others that we've had, is this does not have to be a complicated thing. You're gonna get some yeses, you can get some no's. And basically the format is, say the person's name.
Suzanne Nettles 14:35
Yes.
Umar Hameed 14:36
"Hello, Suzanne. As soon as you say that people respond. They're in a party, they're in a crowd. They're in the mall and someone says Suzanne, even though they're not talking to you Suzanne, then you're going to turn around and you know, "What Hello." So people love the sound of their own name. So when you call the person, "Hello, Suzanne, this is Umar from No Limits Selling. The reason I'm calling is to invite you to come on our podcast. We interview leaders on how they grow their people. for their revenue in themselves, this is a great opportunity for you to showcase your company, yourself and any new initiatives would love to have you on the show." Done. Other than say, "Who is this?" Then you get to say, "Hey, this is Shafaque. This is why I'm calling..." or, "How did you get my name?" "I was on Tinder, I saw your profile," no, don't say that. That would be bad.
Suzanne Nettles 15:26
And I do name drop. We already work with some of the largest automobile dealerships. And I do mention that and say, 'Hey, you know, there's the top 150 auto groups. We work with many of them. And we work with five of the eight largest ones."
Umar Hameed 15:41
So why play coy, why don't you just name drop, like, "Hey, we work with you know, Mileage One. And we work with this company," or do you not the actual name drop, but you see where they are in the scheme of things.
Suzanne Nettles 15:53
I try not to name drop. I mean, there are some names I am allowed to name drop, because some of them don't want to be named drop.
Umar Hameed 16:02
Yeah, you gotta ask permission, for sure. Brilliant. Suzanne, are there any questions that we should have asked you about how to be effective at landing appointments that we did not?
Suzanne Nettles 16:13
Hmm. I can't think of any at the moment. One thing I do do that lots of people don't think about or do, after I have an appointment, I always write a handwritten thank you note with my business card.
Umar Hameed 16:26
Nice. That's, that's beautiful. And one of the things we can do, because we're not actually there, because you know, we're remote from these folks.
Suzanne Nettles 16:34
Right.
Umar Hameed 16:35
Like, not in the same country sometimes, is to just drop a little video saying, you know, "Hey," we're an audio file, "Hey, this is, uh, this is AJ, thanks so much for coming on our podcast, I heard the episode You were amazing. Looking forward to our next conversation."
Suzanne Nettles 16:50
Cool.
Umar Hameed 16:51
Especially if you can like to cite something they said. So, have you been trained to do this, Suzanne? And do you get ongoing training to stay sharp?
Suzanne Nettles 17:01
At different jobs, they did train me on my positions. And I also joined a professional group, the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. And their conventions, and I listened to there. Read their white papers, I watched your Monday morning sales minute, and go on LinkedIn and I watch you know, other professionals present different things and and I try to learn from other people.
Umar Hameed 17:30
So a friend of mine, his name is Steve Richard, he's one of the founders and did a lot of the content for that organization. So he hadn't come to Baltimore. He's on stage and he teaches people how to do set appointments. And then at the end of it, he says, you know, "Is there anybody out in the audience that's having trouble landing the appointment with someone?" Someone puts up their hand and he goes, "Okay, what's the name of the person you want to get hold off?" They go, "Billy Bob," he go, "What's your name?" they go, "[Whatever the name was]" "And oh, by the way, what do you sell?" And then he gets his iPhone, his microphones over here, a lapel mic, and he dials the person and lands an appointment, without knowing the industry, without knowing the person, just having a conversation. And that is a magical thing to watch. And it just shows you that you don't need to be a genius in your fields, you just need to be able to connect to the other human being. Break them out of their spell, everyone's in the spell, that they're like busy with their day, they're thinking about, you know, why their spouse hates them, or whatever. And you need to snap them out of the day. And the way to do that is to use their name and get to the point.
Suzanne Nettles 18:36
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 18:37
And by saying, "Hello, how are you? How's your day going?" From the experts, what I'm hearing is nobody wants to hear that because you don't really care. Most people don't care when they say, "How's your day going?" It's just like, filler, just get to the point, "Hi, hi, Suzanne. My name is Umar. The reason I'm calling is to have you be a guest on our podcast," or, "The reason I'm calling is to have you use our service to sell your home," or whatever it is and they go, "Okay, you got my attention with my name. I know who you are. I know what you want," and then you do a sentence or two and then ask them, "Are you ready to book an appointment?" In which case they're going to say, "Yes, I am. Where have you been all my life?" or, "No." And people won't say just no, typically they'll go, an objection, "We're too busy right now." "We don't have enough money." "We don't have this. We don't have that." As soon as you hear an objection, what you need to do is say, empathize, "Hey, I get that. A lot of people are going through this circumstance right now. But you know what? ABC Company had the same thing and that's how they reacted. But now they're a customer. And they're our number one fan because what we allowed them to do is this, and that's exactly why we should get on a call together." Suzanne, thank you so much for being on the show. Areej and Shafaque, thank you for coming on and asking questions. Are there any last question that come up for you before we let Suzanne escape and get on the enjoy the rest of her day off?
Shafaque 20:05
Yeah. Thank you so much, Suzanne. Just one question. So we, you know, clients ask us to send them emails, we send emails. What's the threshold of follow up calls or follow up emails? Like, how many times should we call them after we like, either discard them from our list or close? Like the deal?
Suzanne Nettles 20:28
Okay. I do read about cadences. And when I read before I started, this was predictable revenue. And it talks about cadences, you know, your phone calls and your email, your phone, call your email, and how to stretch them out. So that's very important, your cadence because you don't want to be too soon after each other. You know, like, your second phone call shouldn't be like, the next day, you know, you have to give some space, or else you look like you're stalking somebody. But I have read that in the past, you could get somebody on maybe less than six phone calls. And now it's different. Now it's around eight, like eight touches, touches me an email or phone call. And do not give up after three is what I'm saying. Really, it's longer and you have to stretch it out. And I would say, now it's about eight.
Umar Hameed 21:24
And one of the nice things I absolutely agree with you Suzanne. One of the nice things is this is that nobody remembers what they had for lunch today. Okay. And they certainly don't remember you if you were unwelcome phone call. It was just your a bothersome phone call, they hung up. Soon as they hung up, they've forgotten you. And when you call back tomorrow, it might be a better time. And they're like, "Oh my God, thanks so much for calling," and they'll forgotten that they hung up on you the day before. So keep going. Don't be a pest. But even if you call more often, they're not going to remember generally because they're too busy with their world and what they're doing. But yeah, having a cadence I think is so important, Suzanne because if you can say, I'm gonna call on day one, I'm gonna send an email right after my call, I'm gonna call on day three, I'm gonna send an email. And then after the email, second email, I get a return phone call. And it's like, "Wait a minute, what if I made the second email the first email what I get more return phone calls." And once you have something predictably made this mechanism, you can start examining it and making it better. But if you just do it willy nilly, and you don't have a cadence, and you don't have a process, then you never know what's working and what isn't. So it's really important to say this is our process and then we can always improve our process as we move forward. And one of the things I'm asking, this is going to make AJ and Shafaque really nervous is I ask clients, "Oh, you were talking to Shafaque? How did that call go? What did you do? Well, what could you do better?" and people love you guys. But sometimes I get a you know, this person didn't really answer this question to my satisfaction. And in which case, then I coached you guys on how to do that. So asking customers, you know, what's working, what isn't? Especially when you go on a call, they say, "Absolutely don't want this." And said, "Hey, I totally get that you don't want this. Can ask a quick question. How did this call go? Did I do a good job? What could I have done better?" And sometimes people go, "You know what? The opening was good, but it got muddled over there," and people will be happy to give you feedback. I'd say probably half the people will give you feedback, because they're salespeople too. And they feel your pain, sister.
Shafaque 23:30
Perfect. Thank you.
Umar Hameed 23:33
Any more questions for you, Areej before we let Suzanne go and start her afternoon drinking?
Areej 23:39
Very wholesome conversation and thank you so much, Suzanne, for taking our time. I've literally noted down some points and they'll really help us get definitely more.
Suzanne Nettles 23:50
But it was such a pleasure to meet all of you. And I hope you all do well. I really, that book called Predictable Revenue is a very short book. And honestly, it's an eye opener.
Umar Hameed 24:02
We'll we'll get it for the staff. Suzanne thank you.
Umar Hameed 24:09
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.