Contrary to popular belief, sales prospecting is not dead, and cold calling is not the boogeyman everyone has made it out to be.
Don’t get me wrong. I think picking up the phone and calling people you don’t know so you can sell them something that they don’t want is a colossal waste of time. And it generates a lot of bad blood to boot. But that doesn’t mean you should simply forego picking up the phone and communicating with people. Continue reading
In an earlier post, I cited an example where Jessica had unsuccessfully tried a few times to engage a prospect during her sales opening. Yet when she asked a question that cut to the heart of her contact’s problem, Jessica’s sales starter got her contact’s attention. And it earned her a meeting!
Here’s a tip: the more generic your sales starter, the less engaged your contact will be and the less effective your sales opening will be.
Instead, make your sales opening specific to the contact and to their business or industry. Jessica was successful when she created her opening to address her contact’s challenges down to a personal and career impacting level.To make that happen, Jessica had to do some research on her contact. She had to know something about her contact’s business, and the challenges her contact faced on a regular basis.
Mind you, these aren’t cold contacts. These are people in companies where you think you have a decent shot at driving some business. These are people who have already raised their hand and have in some way indicated that they are in the market for what you are selling. So take a little time to do some discovery work on these people.
Here’s your assignment for the week. During your lunch break today, write down the top five industries that you serve. Then, for each industry, write down five companies that you are looking to break into or are looking to upsell.
Then, when you are back in the office, write down three contacts that are in a position to make a decision for each of the companies you have listed. Now, for each of those three contacts, write down:
The information here is easy enough to find on Linkedin, your CRM, and their social media streams and blog posts. You don’t have to go overboard and discover every detail about their lives. But you do have to show them that you are seriously interested in their business.
Now, you have some options in creating your sales starter before you perform that follow-up call. And your sales starter will be more effective at grabbing your prospect’s attention because it leverages an issue, concern, or idea that already has their attention.
Remember, no one cares how much you know unless they know how much you care. So, do like Jessica. Use a sales starter that shows your prospect immediately that you have their best interest at heart. Your sales opening will seize your prospect’s attention every time.
Are you ready to take the quiz?
Want to know if your sales process puts you in the field of play and not on the sidelines?
Take our online sales evaluation here and quickly assess how your knowledge and skills stack up in the industry.
Here’s something I overheard one of my inside salespeople say when we ran a call center:
“My prospect won’t even give me the time of day. If he knew more about me and my offering, I’m sure he would be willing to talk.”
The internet gives us an unprecedented opportunity to get out in front of our prospects in a big way.
But as sales reps, you have to show up before someone can ask you to dance.
Try this experiment on Google. Run a search of the name your customers know you by. For example, if your name is Robert Jones, but all of your customers call you Bob, search for Bob Jones. Continue reading