Are you struggling with managing your outside sales team? Or are you someone who’s struggling with approaching new people face-to-face, doing cold calls? Outside selling is a common problem of its own and today’s guest, Robert Hartline, is a total genius who created a solution for this. Robert runs a company called Call Proof, an app for outside salespeople.

How does this work?

The tool takes all those listed in your call log made from the mobile phone and thrown into the cloud. They match it with their own clients and prospects and then give salespeople an easy-to-use tool to locate who they’re going to visit it’s easier for salespeople to route to the closest prospects and see more people throughout the day.

Here are the highlights of my conversation with Robert:

Inside Sales versus Outside Sales:

• Challenges of outside selling: Traffic, scheduling, resources
• Different skill sets between sitting behind the desk and correspond to emails and find prospects and handle leads versus talking to strangers, walking in and straight-up cold calling
• It’s easier to reject someone on the phone than when you talk to the person face-to-face.
• You have to realize that a lot of people don’t sit behind the desk all day.

What makes someone successful at outside sales?

1. Ask them to tell you about their morning ritual.

A good salesperson has a good morning ritual they stick with. When they incorporate getting up early and working out, they are already above everyone else. People who exercise and care about themselves are willing to do the difficult things.

2. Have a mentor or somebody you can shadow.

Most sales interactions only encompass 8 different objections as to why someone will not buy your product. Salespeople who can close everything know how to answer these particular objections each and every time. You have to find a person who knows how to answer those. Beg or borrow time from that top salesperson, even pay him if you had to or take them to dinner. Don’t try to recreate the sales wheel.The data is there. They must be doing something you should emulate. Take notes. Record everything.

3. Practice.

Once you’ve listened to the master, you have to practice. Before practicing on real life people, practice by yourself and with yourself or ask a cousin, a friend, or someone else to come over while you practice with them. Ask for feedback. Don’t waste your valuable leads with not having the right practice.

Strategies for practicing:

• Don’t practice with your co-worker without a third party.
• Someone has to be the customer, someone has to be the salesperson.
• Practice back and forth with one other party.
• The third person is the witness to call you out.

4. Take a buddy with you to serve as your accountability partner.

Take a buddy with you where you do one cold-call and your buddy watches and listens without saying a word. Then flip roles. This will help drive and push yourself to go out there and keep pushing through.

5. Always do a follow up.

Follow up is king. Every interaction you have with a prospect means you’re creating a task to do something later. You never walk away from a prospect without some kind of a promise or action.

Robert’s Major Takeaway:

Do the follow up. Don’t wait to call your prospect and follow up later. You have to get to it now or it will just go away.

Episode Resources:

Connect with Robert on Twitter @hartlinerobert or send him an email at robert@callproof.com.

Get the Call Proof app now and see the wonders it can do with the way you do outside sales.

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