You say, you couldn’t make payroll yesterday because your clients have stretched out their payments. Or, you can’t sell products because your bank has frozen your credit line. Maybe, your Horoscope Sign was a 5? Because, because; we can always find excuses upon which to blame our troubles.

FACT: even though the stock market declined 83 points yesterday and the new Stimulus Plan will place future generations at risk, guess what didn’t happen, yesterday?

Brian Williams on the NBC Evening News didn’t broadcast any report by IMS (Immigration Services) about an alarming number of visa application cancellations. Foreigners are still lining up at the gates of our great, but temporarily troubled country, waiting patiently for their legal entry papers. Illegal aliens are still tragically dying in rickety old leaky boats on the high seas off the Florida coast. I’m sure, a few even came across our Southwestern border in the past few nights.

No matter how good or bad Friday the 13^th was for us, it was still a better day than for most foreigners.

Whatever daily calamities challenge small business owners like us, we have much more to be thankful for than when my father first set foot on US soil in 1919. Nicholas Demetrious Alagazakis (Nicholas D. Allen, the Americanized version) was a Greek Immigrant who found himself in a strange, foreign country in a time of war.

Not quite penniless, but with just the clothes on his back, and a working fluency of English; he was destined to make his family of four boys proud of his American Legacy.

Thanks to an established Greek Community in New York City, where he quickly made friends, he found employment and later became an insurance salesman for the Prudential Life Insurance Company.

At the end of WW1, he brought my English mother, Dolly Fortune, to this country where they became citizens. Hard work and good fortune empowered him to become a ship owner of the Prudential Steamship Company headquartered at Battery Place in New York City.

In WW2, he and his company prospered and he moved his growing family to Florida in the late 1940’s where he settled into a new business as owner of the Florida Yacht Basin on the Miami River.

When my brothers and I were growing up, a day never went by when Nicholas didn’t thank this great country for the opportunities it afforded he and his children. While TV and radio were daily distractions, we were constantly infused with his spirit of gratitude and reminded to fulfill our individual American goals and destinies. And, we have. My brother Homer became a ship owner; Winston, an architect; Milton, a software company executive; and me, a sales training consultant.

Our legacy was repeated millions of times in every corner of our great country. Through the Great Depression and the many peaks and valleys of historic economic trends; we have weathered harsh circumstances and still prospered individually and grown our nation.

That’s my story. That’s why I am eternally thankful to be an American. That’s why I still count Friday, the 13^th, as my Lucky Day. Every day I breathe our air is my blessing.

I’d like to hear your story.

Today, my 30 years of experience has better equipped me to rise above the Chicken Little fray of, “The Sky is Falling…..the Sky is Falling” mindsets of an alarming number of small business owners.

Did I see THIS Recession coming? Yes, but I just wasn’t prepared for the Government to be so unprepared to respond so poorly to manage and slow down this deepening crisis. Nor, did I anticipate how quickly the R-word would become our grim reality. Like many self-employed small business owners I have been sticking to my knitting; meeting my daily challenges; and letting the BIG Picture take care of itself.

Well, the BIG Picture has front-and-centered and gotten my attention! In my face, on the nightly news and also in my pocket. Suddenly, sales training budgets with several of my oldest b2b clients have gone on crash diets!

Did I have a Backup Plan? Yes. Today, I will begin the process of sharing with you the nuts-and-bolts of my Plan. I’ll tell you how and why to structure your own Recession-Proof source of new business referrals. 

I have a formal business contact network and my own Super-Givers network inside this group. One of the lead organizations in my formal network is BNI (Business Network International), the World’s foremost Business Referral Networking Organization. Founded in 1985, in Southern California by Dr. Ivan Misner, an organizational management consultant, BNI has grown to become the ’800 pound Gorilla’ in the face-to-face world of business networking. With over 5,000 chapters in over 40 counties, BNI is growing exponentially at about 100 chapters monthly.

I can’t say enough good things about BNI, especially now as we ride out what looks like a lengthy Recession. The 30 local Chapters in the Central Florida BNI Region have become my “Islands of Prosperity in a Sea of Recession”.  These 30 chapters have 600+ member companies whose reps meet weekly to document and share serious b2b and b2c referrals in the spirit of BNI’s Givers-Gain Philosophy.

Besides providing a catalyst in the form of robust, well-managed chapters with non-competing member companies, BNI provides several monthly members-only, informative referral marketing 2 hour training workshops. Member Success Programs, MSPs in BNI’s lingo, enables chapter members to continually sharpen their referral marketing skills. These are top notch, info-packed sessions well worth the nominal $15. fee.

While my company, Leads-Plus, Inc., is a member of BNI’s Referral Masters Chapter in Winter Garden, FL, my BNI membership entitles me to visit any of the 29 other Central Florida chapters so I can actively exchange referrals and network to my heart’s content. These 30 chapters are my formal network.   I attend my weekly Referral Masters Chapter meeting plus, one of the other 29 Chapter meetings. 

Dr. Misner has authored and co-authored several best-selling books on the subject of referral marketing and networking. According to the mainstream press, he is  “The Father of Modern Networking”, a richly deserved title since he is still trotting the Globe spreading the BNI Gospel to thousands of business professionals, monthly. 

Even if you aren’t a BNI member you can subscribe to SuccessNET, his monthly e-newsletter. It’s filled with timely tips for mastering the referral  marketing process. Go to www.bni.com to learn more about this great organization; to locate a nearby chapter and to subscribe to SuccessNET.

ROI Realities. My most recent 6 visits, in the past 30 days, to other local BNI Chapters resulted in 17 referrals, 6 of which have already converted into $4,600 in new b2b client sales prospecting training contracts and sales of my September-released eBook titled, How to Get Face-Time with People Who Buy What You Sell. To download a FREE Preview Minibook, CLICK on The Purchase eBook Now button in the right or top margin.

Next week, I’ll tell you about my Super-Givers network inside the 30 BNI Chapters in my Central FL Region and how to avoid participating in the Recession by weaving your own Recession-Proof Business Safety Net! 

How do you, the sales professional, determine whether the person on the other end of the phone is being truthful?  Your questions and how you ask them will reveal whether you are speaking with a liar or a potential buyer. Asking these questions on the phone will eliminate wasted face-time sales calls.

Professional Pollsters and Marketing Researchers who use the phone know the answer and so should you. They ask shielded questions. Actually, the same question, worded differently and asked once, twice or three times during the same phone interview.

I’m a great believer in having my 5-6 Qualifying Questions documented on a form I refer to as a CPQ (Call Planner Questionnaire). In fact, the CPQ is the lynchpin accountability tool  I encourage sales managers and small business owners to use to make certain their sales team members are turning in legitimate expense reports at week end.

You may recall from past blogs my statement, “You are making a Social NOT a SALES CALL if you do not have 1 completed CPQ for each face-time decision-maker appointment.” None of us in sales were hired to make social calls.  We aren’t paid for visits – ONLY CLOSED SALES! There should be 1 CPQ for each completed face-time sales appointment. This is RULE Number 2 of my Power Prospecting Formula.

One of the ‘key’ questions asked early on during the Qualifying Phone Follow up Calling Sequence should answer the important question:

1. Who, in addition to you [Mr/Mrs/Ms. Prospect Name] is involved in the decision to [buy, choose one vendor over another or change suppliers]?
2. Another variation of this is: [Mr/Mrs/Ms. Prospect Name], how many copies of [my report, executive summary, review and analysis, or, my survey] would you like me to bring to our meeting?
3. Still, another variation is:  [Mr/Mrs/Ms. Prospect Name], would you describe for me the decision-to-buy-process at your company?

 Answering these questions strikes at the very heart of my Power Prospecting Formula. In 1967, when I began my formal sales career with NCR selling computers to the hoteliers on Miami Beach, I often discovered decisions to purchase equipment were made at the holding company HQ office, seldom at the local hotel property. My sales proposals were accompanied by the local managers’ purchase request and mailed to a distant decision-making office, far removed from Miami Beach.

Today, more than ever before, determining who signs the checks locally is critically important.

Many times, when I have conducted my Qualifying Phone Follow up Calling Sequence, I have discovered I’m speaking with an ego-centric ‘decision-maker’ who replies, “I make the decision!” Then, when I ask a variation of the same question later on during the same phone interview, their answer conflicts with their first reply.

Ah ha, a liar versus a buyer!

As a rule, I will not keep an appointment with a prospect to fails my shielded questions test. How can I believe anything else that person will tell me at our face-time appointment?

Am I being too sensitive? Am I placing an X on the door of a potential prospect? No! In fact, those few times when I have kept the face-time appointment with a liar, I have wasted my time on non-prospects. I don’t have the time or patience to meet with people who don’t respect me. When someone lies to me, they don’t respect me!

This shielded questions technique works especially well for commercial and industrial telemarketing sales. In 1987, I developed a CPQ scenario for an industrial sales software vendor. Elaborate product information kits were mailed, in advance, to all inquiries. Yet, fewer than 8% of these elaborate product information kits resulted in sales.

Two CPQ Questionnaires were designed and tested. The first CPQ narrow-focused an inquirer’s: urgency, decision-making-process, including who in the company by name and position was seated on the Software Evaluation Committee and whether the committee had a ‘funded budget’  to thoroughly research, conduct field trips to vendor installation sites prior to creating a short list of the three most capable solution providers. The ‘funded budget’ shielded questions and answers separated the curious from the serious.

The second CPQ Questionnaire was used after the prospect received the basic information kit which was one quarter the length of the original elaborate product information kit. The telemarketers asked the prospects specific questions about the software architecture and platform. Questions which could only be answered if the prospect thoroughly read the basic information kit. Both CPQ’s included multiple shielded questions.

Almost 8 months to the day the dual CPQ Questionnaires were implemented, conversions to sales were averaging 19-24%.

I’d be shocked if most of you aren’t using a CPQ type document, either printed or screen-displayed. However, if you aren’t using shielded questions, make some changes; add a few and you are sure to improve your conversion to serious, not curious decision-making prospects.

In Chapter 7 of the September edition of my How to Get Face-Time with People Who Buy What You Sell ebook (also called the PowerProspecting eBook) I detail how to design the ideal CPQ. Also,  how to skillfully use my best secret weapon: The Columbo to forever eliminate wasted face-time sales appointments! CLICK on Purchase eBook Now. CLICK on Home Page. CLICK on View FREE Minibook. Remember, you have a 1 Year Money-Back Guarantee to test my Formula.

So, what works for you and your sales team? How do you filter liars and buyers?