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hi my name is James Shepard and today I want to give you five quick prospecting tips uh for prospecting small business owners now the reason I came up with these five tips is that um I've been out in the field the last couple of days with um a new sub agent that I have here in the local area and so I've been out prospecting with him and there were some things that happened while I was out prospecting um that kind of took me by surprise and it's interesting I hadn't been out prospecting for a little while and when I got out there uh you know some things I did differently that I just wanted to share with you that I really think will help you in your prospecting efforts for small business owners um I've made these a little bit more General so that for those of you that maybe are selling our point of sale system or if you're selling our merchant services or Payroll Services or web design uh whatever it is you're selling to small business owners I think these uh five prospecting tips will be a help to you um number one walk into every business walk into every business let me tell you um our prospecting plan here in our our local area um I'm going out uh four times a week and uh prospecting here in the local area and uh we're building kind of a new business here in the local area I've already got a a large local processing business here but and so what I'm doing is I'm going out 4 days a week prospecting and we picked an area where we have a mall um in our area and we are going from that mall to a Walmart um that's about a 10-minute drive away so what we're doing is that's the only area that I'm prospecting so I'm trying to go to you know it's an area where we have a lot of small businesses and so um our goal is we're going to walk into every single one of those small businesses now uh let me give you a quick tip on this that will really help you out um unless I am 100% certain that a business is Corporate okay um then unless I'm 100% sure that it's corporate or unless I know it's a doctor's office a lawyer's office a dentist well even dentists I'm walking into so really lawyers uh you know doctors and a couple other professionals like CPAs I don't go to those um but everybody else every other business I walk into um and you know I do that because it helps me to keep my route really tight um too many guys they they try to Target you know only specific businesses and it really can get to be a drag because after a while you're going to be going all over the place um you know I went out um I've been out for two days this this last week and that's when we started in this new market and in those two days um I'm I'm not I'm literally within about probably a hundred yards of where I started um because I've gone to all these businesses there's like a little mini mall There's an actual mall so all the businesses I've gone to maybe a little more than 100 yards but definitely within a square mile um I'm going to these businesses that are all right in this one area so now as I go back over there for my next time for my follow-ups all my follow-ups are all right there in the same uh tight area and I don't miss any opportunities um you'd be really surprised I've been really surprised as I went out um going into certain businesses I'll give you an example um there's a business I went into called The Cold Stone creery and I know that that business um is a large business with lots of locations so um I almost didn't go into it um but you know I said you know what I'm just going to go into every business and see what happens and turns out that it is a franchise operation and I got the cell phone of the franchise owner after going back twice and I called him up and we're probably going to get together here in the next week and he owns two Coldstone creamies and he owns some car washes so that was a really really good appointment for me and I'm probably going to uh make some pretty good money on that sale um and I would never have even known if I wouldn't have walked into the business so um unless you're sure that it's corporate walk in um I had one business yesterday I walked into and when I it was um called party central I think and they sell party supplies and when I walked and gave him my card I asked if they're corporate and the lady said yeah we're we're corporate and I asked well how big are you as is it Regional or is it nationwide she said oh we're Nationwide and they're I have a Umbrella Corporation and all this so that was no big deal it took me 30 seconds and then I said hey thanks for your time she handed me my card back you know and I turned around and walked out and went to the next business so I don't mind wasting a little time if I'm not sure if it's corporate I'd rather do that uh than I would miss an opportunity to make a really big sale okay so number one walk into every business um unless you're sure that it's a huge corporate location because again it might be franchise and many franchise operations allow the franchise owner to decide who they're going to use for merchant services uh and for point of sale systems um number two you do your opening pitch carefully open carefully that's my number two pitch so walk into every business number one number two open carefully now let me explain what I mean by that I was actually kind of surprised at myself yesterday especially with the opening pitch that I was using out in the field um in the area where I was at uh it is a little a little bit more competitive than my normal Market okay so I had to be a little bit more careful because if I wasn't careful and I just if I would walk in and do my normal pitch and just say hi my name is James Shepard I'm a local business owner offering credit card processing Services I do the credit card processing for so and so I just wanted to find out who you guys are using um sometimes that might not have worked the best for me right at the very beginning okay um because as soon as I would say hi my name is James Shepard probably have gotten shut down um because it's a really competitive area so let me give you a really good tip um I hope you pay attention to this tip and maybe write it down and practice it um because it's really really effective number one when you walk in don't say anything sooner than a customer would say something let me explain what I mean by that when you walk into a business um for instance I walked into a business yesterday there was somebody at the counter okay so what do I do well I kind of walked around the store I looked at some things see what they have then I walked over to the counter waited in line then you know didn't look like I was trying to sell something and then when it was my turn then I got to the counter then I spoke to the owner okay so take your time chill out relax don't walk in there and look for the first person you can find and run up to them and tell them your pitch okay just slow it down don't say anything before a customer would say something because otherwise you're going to alert them that you're a salesperson okay so take your time relax have a big smile on your face um when I walk in I'm always having a big grin I walk in and smiling um and you know hi how you doing today um things like that okay so just being relaxed uh giving a nice introduction how you doing today okay next um before you get into your opening say this line this is what I say I say um how name is James Shepard I just had a quick question for you okay practice saying that just like that uh you know hi my name is I just had a quick question for you okay so that is going going to set the mo the the mode of the conversation to be in your favor because they're going to will they're going to be willing to listen to you to ask one question okay so this is just a little tip for you again you can use my standard opening and it does work really well but this is something to kind of do before that walk in with a big smile on your face don't say anything until you a customer would say something and then when you do say something just introduce yourself by saying your name and say I have a quick question for you um and then this is the question that I like to ask um especially if it's a little bit of a larger store um a retail store um I'll ask this question I'll say um well here's a question I have for you now my name is James Shepard and I am a local business owner um I offer credit card processing Point of Sales Systems um Payroll Services a lot of different services for small business owners and I was just curious now is this like a a single location or are you guys like a big corporate uh deal something like that okay um very formal very relaxed um a good conversation starter I'm introducing myself I'm letting them know what I do but then before they can respond to that I'm saying are you guys like a a big corporate uh deal or is this just like the an individual location um that is a great question to throw people off guard a little bit um and to get them talking okay um just get them talking about it and you know so the idea is you know oh well I wasn't even sure if I should come in here CU I I don't deal with big corporate accounts I didn't know if you guys were a corporate account or whatever one of the things you'll find one of the keys to sales you okay if you want to be a really good salesperson let me put it this way um being a good salesperson is important at the end of the sale but at the beginning of the sale the most important thing is not seeming like a salesperson okay so you want to almost walk in like you're kind of you're just you're relaxed you're smiling you're glad to be there but you almost don't even know if you should be there you know what I mean you're kind of like so um you know I'm just curious I just have a quick question um I do you know credit card processing um Payroll Services uh point of s systems things like that for small business owners but I really wasn't sure if I should even come in I didn't know if you guys are corporate or if this is like an individual location and that just will leave it so Broad and so open that it's very rare if you do that even in the most competitive market it's going to be really rare for somebody to shoot you down right off the bat and say you know oh we're not interested normally you're going to at least say oh we're we're individual or well it's a regional company we have three or four locations you know whatever it might be okay um so number one walk into every business number two open carefully when you walk in um number three follow up religiously follow up religiously okay um once you get somebody you got to follow up with them all right um I have a list of prospects that we generating and every single day that I'm uh prospecting um I am going to start at the beginning of that list and I'm going to work my way through the entire list and I am going unless I already have them marked as not interested or closed no in my case is unless I have a marked as not interested in that stage every other stage of the sales process I am going to take every action that I can possibly take with that particular lead that day okay so once I contact the owner and even if I haven't contacted the owner if I might have there next action step of call the owner okay like for instance um on Monday I went prospecting and I had three companies that said you know we have two or more locations they gave me the number for their corporate office okay so the first thing I did on Tuesday was I called all three of those places um and tried to get in contact with the owner I got in contact with one of them which was the Coldstone crey guy um and that when I go back out tomorrow I'm going to start out by calling um all of the other ones again um every day I'm following up following up following up following up every day follow up religiously with all of the people that you have on on your list Until you realize you know what this is a waste of my time this person is not going to buy from me um then get rid of it okay and move on to the next one learn to take next action steps this is part of the follow-up religiously point but learn to take next action steps when you get done at a business don't be satisfied for making a note okay too many uh agents they make notes okay uh I met Bob he's a nice guy um he might be interested in working with us or whatever um that's not enough okay your note has to include a next action step okay in other words what are you going to do next what's the next thing that you're going to do with this account so your note needs to include the next action step and when you're going to take that next action step number four track everything track everything okay um you want to definitely make sure you know the name of the person you spoke with at the business you want to make sure you know the name of the business owner um you want to make sure you have the name and address of the business um you know all of those things are extremely important for your your followup you need to have everything tracked because again if you're going to follow up religiously you've got to have enough information so that you can go back and actually do these uh these follow-ups it's very very important okay lastly uh number five delegate procedures delegate procedures many of you are at a point where you are really good at selling some of you are watching this video right now and you are very good at making an initial contact you're very good at closing sales um but the problem is you've got 100 customers or so and you know you're only out prospecting for two or three hours a week because you have so much other stuff going on with your current customers if that's you if you're in that situation it's time for you to delegate procedures in other words create procedures for how you want to deal with installations and customer service and then delegate them okay you can find somebody for instance um what where I'm going right now I have a young man he is a high school student he's 17 years old and uh it's a sharp guy and he is going with me on Mondays and Tuesdays and he is learning how to generate leads he's going to go with me for the next um probably about two or three months he's going to go with me for two days a week and what he's going to do is two things first of all he's going to learn how to generate leads and then secondly he is going to learn how to do my schedule for that particular part of my life um and so his job is when I show up to go prospecting I have procedures in place I want to follow up with everybody that we need to follow up with um I want to make all the phone calls I need to make first things like that so when I get there he's got a uh list of you know uh business owners to call um he has a list of business owners we need to visit and so boom we go we go through that so when I show up I just show up and say what are we doing and he tells me where we're going he tells me who we're calling so he takes care of all that okay then I have somebody else once I make a sale that I'm able to turn that sale over to and they are going to key in the paperwork um get all the paperwork done and then they're going to go and the terminal and provide the customer service so that means all I have to do is go Prospect and then close deals and by doing that I can now of course I'm I'm pretty busy doing training material and webinars and all kinds of things like that so I don't have a lot of time anymore and I'm probably going to only spend about honestly maybe 6 or seven hours a week um out on this new business venture that I'm working on but I'll probably get two or three sales every week without any problem and the way I'm able to do that is because literally all I'm doing is prospecting and closing deals I don't do I'm not doing anything else I'm not even you know the guy that's with me is writing down the notes as I'm going so I mean I'm just boom going from one business to the next and the thing about this whole model some of you might think well I could never do that I mean that's got to be so expensive it's not okay um it's it's really not I have the whole thing set up to where everybody's getting paid based on the number of sales that I make and there's plenty of people out there that are looking for work um that are competent that you can train and they're willing to learn and they're also willing to become your partner they're willing to partner with you and say look I'm only going to get paid x amount the guy who's generating leads for us um that's with me I'm paying him $50 from every sale that I make from his leads now right now I'm paying him $50 even though he's just tagging along and watching me so and I make sales from leads we get when he's with me I pay him $50 and we have a little database tracking program for that so um you know pay him $50 the guy's doing the installations he gets half of The Upfront money uh that's left over after I paid the guy for the leads and in exchange for that he's providing all of the customer service and installations and I'm also giving him a percentage of the residual so you can be make a very creative way to do this so that uh you know it doesn't cost you an enormous amount of money and it allows you to get out there and make a lot of sales some of you guys that are full-time building your local business um honestly if you have any kind of organizational skill whatsoever um and you're a good leader there's no reason you shouldn't be able to get 20 or 30 deals a month if you're out there full-time because again if all you're doing is selling what difference does it make if you're only making say say you give away so much of The Upfront money you're only making an average of I don't know let's say 150 bucks uh per sale okay well if you're making 150 per sale and you're making 30 sales a month that's $4,500 in upfront money plus how fast is your residual going to grow at that kind of a rate okay so a lot of you need to think about how could I delegate some of these things um and and do it carefully now if you have questions about how to delegate how to grow your business model or prospecting shoot me an email um it's James ccsalespro docomo docomo if you're again my name is James Shepard with ccsalespro I hope this video has been a help and I hope that you have a wonderful week