Get “Sales Fit” for the New Year
By Ian Brodie | January 4, 2009
It’s that time of year where I start to think about losing the excess pounds I’ve put on over Christmas. This year, while scouring the internet for the latest fitness plans and hints, I came across a site with a philosophy towards fitness that’s equally as effective for sales.
The expert in question, a hyper-fit young lady going by the nickname “Chicken Tuna“, has a very frank and refreshing approach to getting fit and healthy. Her key observation is that despite the claims of various “lose weight quick” and “get fit the easy way” systems, the reality is that losing weight and getting fit requires hard work and dedication.
So what do you do when you want to be in shape but you don’t like working out and eating healthy? Admitting it is the first step. I admit it, working out can be a thorn in my side many days….(almost every single time, frankly) Then I face reality…. it is truly the only way to get in great shape. There are no magical pills or tricks, if there were I would be first in line.
Her advice: “suck it up and do it anyway”. In particular, whenever you’re tempted to peck at that snack-bar or skip a workout remember you have a stark choice - the short-term feel-good of unhealthy food or a lie-in, vs the long-term feel-good of being healthy and looking great. She’s not healthy because she’s lucky enough to like eating plain food or to enjoy working out - like the rest of us she hates them. But she’s made a choice to choose a healthy lifestyle and to pay the price (in terms of missing out on luxury foods and having to knuckle down and do the workouts) for doing so. The vast majority of us choose the easy route.
And, of course, the same applies in sales.
Almost no one likes cold calling, or facing rejection or having tough conversations with clients. But if we want to succeed in sales we too have to “suck it up and do it anyway”. We have to avoid fantasizing that somehow there is a shortcut or an easy route to sales success. Although there are certainly some routes which are more painful than others, all routes require hard work and putting ourselves well outside our comfort zones.
And as with fitness, most of us choose the easy route. Instead of making those cold calls, we choose to polish up our website or redesign our marketing materials. Instead of voicing our concerns over the progress of an opportunity to a client we choose to stay silent and not risk “upsetting them”. Instead of asking for specific referrals in clear and uncertain terms we pussyfoot around the subject and ask clients to “mention us if they meet anyone who might need our help”.
It takes bravery to take the hard route in sales. To take risks, to face rejection, and to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations. But the choice is equally stark. If we take the easy route now, then slowly but surely our sales will dry up. Every now and then it’s worth reminding ourselves of that.
Ian
Topics: Sales Philosophy & Psychology | No Comments »
Three Painful Truths for Salespeople
By Ian Brodie | December 12, 2008
Painful Truth #1 – Your Customers are Busy
No, I mean really busy. Business executives today are overloaded, overstressed and over-sold-to.
We used to live in a world where business opportunities were in short supply. Today, business executives are bombarded hourly with offers from sales people offering to slash their costs, double their profits, turbo-charge their web traffic or one of a myriad of other seemingly attractive propositions.
What does that mean for you? Well, only you can work it out for your business, but there are a number of potential implications:
- The old advice to “always sell to the top” may well not work for you. The top is where the crowd is. The top is screening out calls from almost everyone but the well-known and the well-trusted.
- If you do get to meet senior people you must really respect their time. Do your homework. Don’t bore them with a pitch until you’ve listened and know where they’re at and what they’re focused on. But don’t be subservient either – you (should) have something they value.
- Unless what you have to say is highly memorable – the chances are that your potential customer or referral partner will have forgotten it in a few weeks – maybe even less. Think about your own experience – of all the people you met at networking meetings a month ago – how many can you really remember? Despite all your initial interest and good intentions – can you really recall their “elevator pitch”? Could you really refer them with confidence to others? Even the ones who followed all the good networking practices and listened to you and made you feel good – how many of them can you remember? Probably not many.
- What makes a message memorable? If it’s highly relevant and targeted so that you potential customer really empathises with it. If you’re able to tell it in story form (see Selling with Stories), if you’re able to do something of value for them (such as introduce them to a valuable contact, or send them some really useful information afterwards) and if you are able to repeat your message over multiple occasions.
Painful Truth #2 – Most of the Time Your Customers Don’t Need Your Product
Most significant purchases are made infrequently. How often do you hire a new accountant? Or buy a new computer?
This means that most of the time, your customer is not only not in buying mode, they’re not even aware of having a need or a problem that your product can solve.
The implication: either you need to find a way of identifying potential customers who are approaching that time period where they start looking for solutions (for example, by leveraging Trigger Events, or by getting them to self-identify) or you must find a way of nurturing those potential customers over time.
Nurturing is more than just keeping in touch with potential customers (although that’s a start). It means you must find a way of adding value for them repeatedly over time – so that when they do reach the point at which they begin to think about buying, you’re first in their mind.
How can you repeatedly add value over time? Some do it through high quality email newsletters. Others do it in a more tailored manner by constantly thinking of the customer and how they can help – and then doing something about it: sending them useful news, linking them in to potential customers and partners, offering tips on their business or sharing insights.
Clearly, nurturing can be a big investment so you can only “manually” nurture prospects who have the potential to become have value customers. For others you need to automate the nurturing process somehow.
Some firms shy away from this automation – feeling it’s too impersonal. But even a general email newsletter (provided it has high quality content) is better than doing nothing at all – that’s the ultimate in impersonal.
Painful Truth #3 - People Don’t Trust Salespeople
Years of dysfunctional selling behaviour has taught prospects to be very wary of salespeople. They’ve learnt that despite their fine words, salespeople really care more about themselves and hitting quota than they do about serving their customers and solving their problems.
Once your potential customers put you in this bracket, they start to put up their defences. They “clam up”. They don’t really answer your questions truthfully – scared to give away “ammunition” you might use to “sell them”. They nod agreement and say yes just to get you off the phone and later cancel your appointment. They never return your calls or emails. They tell you “we don’t have that problem” when they do, or “we’re already working with someone” when they’re not. All because they’re frightened of “being sold” – of being manipulated into doing something they’ll later regret.
Nowadays, salespeople are taught to “qualify hard” to avoid wasting time with people who are going to deal with them like this. But in reality, so many are distrustful of salespeople today that if you qualify them out you’re going to be left with a tiny prospect list. Instead, you must learn to avoid defensiveness.
Once our potential clients pigeonhole us as “typical salespeople”, once those defences are up it’s immensely hard to breach them. By far your best course of action is to avoid them going up in the first place. And to do that you must absolutely avoid behaving or sounding like a “typical salesperson”.
Even if your job title doesn’t involve sales, even if you’re a “consultant” or a “client partner” (and even if you really aren’t in sales) customers will mark you as a “typical salesperson” if you do the things typical salespeople do:
- Initiate conversation with them using an obviously pre-prepared script.
- Talk more about how great your product is than listen to what they’re interested in.
- Ignore what they’re saying and continue with your agenda: “you already use one of our competitors – that’s exactly why we should meet”, “you don’t need any of our services right now – that’s exactly why we should meet”, “your entire family and friends were wiped out in a freak avalanche – that’s exactly why we should meet”.
- (Seemingly) exaggerate the benefits of your product and don’t help them in an objective manner.
- Push them for action faster than they’re comfortable with.
- Use transparent closing techniques: “when would you like delivery?”, “will you be taking 20 or 25?”, “Should I put you in to meet up on Monday at 3.15 or Wednesday at 4.30?”
- Inject false urgency or scarcity – “my boss is on vacation, so I can offer these at half price for one day only”, “we only have one of these left and another customer is interested and will be calling me back in an hour”, “I can only give you this offer if you sign-up today”.
Unless you want them to deal with you like a typical salesperson, then you must differentiate yourself from the typical salesperson in how you act and what you say. You must eliminate these behaviours from your repertoire. And your primary weapon to do this: your mindset. If you set out to genuinely help your customers, the negative behaviours will begin to fade away.
Painful Truths – But Useful Guidelines
The truth may be stark and painful – but it’s the only thing that can guide us to a better way. If you can understand and build an effective way to work with people who are incredibly busy, don’t need your product very often, and who probably don’t trust you – then your sales will really take off.
It’s either that, or set off on a Quixotic quest for a “perfect” prospect who will respond to yesterday’s sales techniques.
Topics: Sales Philosophy & Psychology, Sales Techniques | 3 Comments »
Book Review: Making the Number - How to use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance
By Ian Brodie | December 7, 2008
There’s a lot to like about the book - but also a number of points I’d disagree with.
Let’s take the positives first:
A Book Whose Time Has Come
In many ways, this is a book that’s long overdue. As the authors point out - almost every function of business is measured and benchmarked in some way - yet there is a reluctance in many organisations to use the same rigour in measuring sales. Sales is often regarded as more art than science. Yet is there any reason why sales should be less measurable and less “benchmarkable” than, say, R&D or HR?
Sure, there are a wide variety of factors which influence any sale - many of them difficult if not impossible to measure directly. And often there are many random and uncontrollable factors which affect outcomes. But there are equally as many imponderable factors in other business functions too. As long as measures are used intelligently - something we’ll come back to later - then they can help improve business performance enormously.
A Clear Methodology
The authors set out a very clear methodology for sales benchmarking - right from initiating the project, to defining and collecting data, to analysing the data, making improvements and working to sustain those improvements. They cover both activity level and strategic level metrics, and include much information on how to overcome the obstacles to implementing sales benchmarking.
Details and Depth
There are many useful examples and case studies in the book - and many lists of typical metrics which can be used to benchmark sales performance. There are also details for the mathematically challenged on how to calculate standard deviations and percentiles. I also appreciated the detailed notes on each chapter with references and links for follow-up research.
Intelligent Use of Metrics through Hypothesis Testing
For me, the best chapter in the book is on “Focused Action”. In particular, the use of a hypothesis testing approach to intelligently use sales metrics to understand the true issues and take appropriate action. The hypothesis testing approach described takes understanding from the level of “bronze customer deal size is 32% below peers” to the reasons why. Perhaps the issue is lack of value being delivered, or perhaps it is not being communicated well enough to customers. The hypothesis testing approach identifies what the underlying issue is (and hence what the right corrective action to take is) in a data driven manner.
Concerns with the Book
Overall, I found the book very worthwhile - and would recommend it to all sales leaders looking to improve the performance of their function in a rigorous manner.
However, I do have a number of concerns which potential readers should bear in mind:
Selling What You’ve Already Bought
A minor concern - but a particular bugbear of mine - is that so many books nowadays seem to spend a large portion of their early pages “selling themselves”. In this case, there are 40 or so pages justifying why sales benchmarking is so important. To be frank, if I’ve just bought a book on sales benchmarking I don’t need convincing why it’s important. Fine, include arguments like this later on in the book as examples of what to say to convince others. But you don’t need to sell the concept to me - I wouldn’t have bought the book if I needed convincing.
Types of Sales Activities Covered
Most of the examples in the book are geared around a transactional model of sales activity - essentially a “call based” model. The basic underlying equation used is
revenue = activities x conversion x transaction x talent x time
The logic is that by carrying out more activities, converting more of those activities into sales, getting a higher value from each sale, having more sales resources, or more available time for selling - then revenue will go up.
This model is valid for some industries - for example the primary care salesforces of pharmaceutical companies mainly work in this way. Selling is done in short sales calls (”details”) where products are discussed with the physicians. These activities are clearly measurable - and that’s exactly what the pharma companies do. In other cases, sales may be driven by running public workshops, or RFP responses - distinct, measurable activities.
But other sales activities aren’t so measurable. When sales professionals go networking, or keep in touch with existing or prospective clients - can we really just measure the number of these activities? Or in reality, aren’t sales primarily driven by the quality of these activities - not the quantity?
For me, where sales are driven primarily by relationships - as the majority of sales in my sector of professional services are - they become very difficult to quantify. Not necessarily impossible - but difficult, and benchmarking these qualitative factors is something the book steers clear of.
Comparability
Another area of concern I have is with the comparability of activities for benchmarking. The approach used in the book (and by Sales Benchmarking Index - the company the authors founded) is to group the salesforce to be benchmarked by size, industry, sales model (solution providers, missionaries, etc.), channel type and geography.
This is much better than taking a simplistic “one size fits all” approach - but is it really valid to compare metrics from firms even within the same categories?
For example, within the pharmaceutical industry again, the activities of salesforces selling to general practitioners versus hospital specialists are very different. In one model, sales are driven by short, standardised calls of a few minutes long. In the other, meetings are long, complex technical briefings and interactions. Metrics like the number of calls and the length of calls from these different models can’t be validly compared. Even within the same model of selling to general practitioners - the activities when selling “new to the market products” are very different from selling mature products. Even when selling “new to the market” products, the activities can be very different for selling new products with similar properties and methods of action to existing products vs selling a completely new product which requires significant education of the medical community.
Even within the same company, selling exactly the same products and services, different salespeople can be highly successful using radically different methods. In his excellent book Creating Rainmakers, Ford Harding reports from his extensive studies of highly successful sellers of professional services that Rainmakers share very few common characteristics. They all had a “system” for generating sales - but the system varied significantly based on the skills, experience and preferences of the individual. Some rainmakers maintain extensive networks, others are experts at making cold calls, others nurture a small number of very close client relationships. All are successful - but simple measurements and comparisons of call rates, meetings attended, presentations made etc. cannot give guidance as to what the right levels of these activities are. Some salespeople will make very few calls - others will make many. Which approach is right? It’s very much dependent on the individual - not on a universal measure of “best practice”.
What to do with the Numbers
Even if you do have exactly comparable situations - how do we turn the benchmarks into action? The main example from the book highlights some of the difficulties here.
In the example, benchmarking reveals that although Acme Corporation has a higher average deal size than its peers for its large (Platinum & Gold) customers; its average deal size for small (Bronze) customers is well below that of its peers. The book then goes on to analyse why that might be the case, and to propose actions to address the situation to get the Bronze customer deal size up to par.
But is this really the right way to proceed? An alternative interpretation of the data is that Acme is really suited to working with larger clients. Perhaps its salesforce understand big company culture and decision-making well. Perhaps its products are particularly suited to big companies. So perhaps a better strategy than trying to get the average deal size up for small customers is to abandon those small customers and focus sales efforts on the larger customers it’s already doing well with. It could well be that by playing to its strengths, Acme can become far more successful than simply trying to emulate its peers across the board.
And this highlights one of the main dangers of benchmarking. Instead of encouraging companies to think strategically and to focus on areas where they have unique capabilities, it encourages “me too”-ism. The basic path of benchmarking is to identify areas where your firm is “weak” and to attempt to pull those up to peer group level. But the risk with this is that you risk diluting and weakening the very reasons why you are strong in other areas. Companies - like people - have unique bundles of interrelated strengths and weaknesses. Often, trying to “fix” the weaknesses can damage the very things that give the company its strengths.
Of course, there’s nothing in benchmarking generally or this book in particular that forces you to take this “fix the weak areas” approach rather than thinking more strategically about maximising strengths. But it’s no surprise that that’s the approach given in the books main example - and that’s the approach almost always adopted when benchmarking. It seems to make sense - yet it can actually be quite dangerous.
Summary
Now please, don’t take the above to mean I don’t think this isn’t an excellent book - it is. And it’s really the only good book on sales benchmarking available.
But to all of you keen to embark on sales benchmarking - while lauding your enthusiasm - I must remind you to avoid the pitfalls I’ve mentioned:
- Make sure that you have good measures for your most important sales areas - don’t just focus on the easily measured ones
- Make sure you have a valid comparison group to benchmark against
- Make sure you apply the results intelligently - don’t just unthinkingly focus on improving the worst areas. Think first about whether you need to do those areas at all - or whether you’re better off focusing and improving what’s already good than on trying to fix something you’re just not good at.
Ian
Topics: Recommendations, Sales Philosophy & Psychology | 2 Comments »
Sales Bloggers Union Site Launches
By Ian Brodie | December 6, 2008
With a surge of undergound anticipation second only to the new Watchmen movie, the Sales Bloggers Union has officially launched.
To quote from the press release:
Every two weeks, eight of the sales community’s most active voices share their thoughts on a particular sales subject. From cold calling to negotiation, learn what to do in any selling circumstance.
Do you want to give your sales team fresh ideas? A new post goes up almost every weekday from a different voice with a different point-of-view. Whether you’re selling directly to the consumer, managing sales teams, focusing on selling to big businesses, or trying to build a startup, there is something to help you improve your business and sales skills.
Wow - sounds great! Even better - it turns out I’m part of the gang!
Seriously, I’m really proud to be a contributor. There’s a wealth of sales experience and expertise amongst the team - covering different industries, different situations, and different perspectives. We’ll be pouring out our best thinking day after day over on the Sales Bloggers Union site - so I thoroughly recommend you visit and subscribe for updates.
Ian
Topics: Recommendations | No Comments »
Understand Your Client’s Beliefs to Learn How to Sell More
By Ian Brodie | December 3, 2008
His point was that when persuading - or in our case when selling - it’s critical to understand the underlying beliefs of the person you are trying to persuade.
People tend to demand far more evidence for a statement or recommendation that clashes with one of their existing beliefs than they do for one that is more in line with what they already believe. So as a sales strategy, it’s usually far more effective to work to position your recommendations as building on an existing belief than to have to challenge and overcome one.
In reality, most salespeople rarely think consciously about the beliefs that might be impacted by what they are selling. But a little thought can cast a great deal of insight and help shape a more effective strategy.
For example, if you’re selling some form of management consultancy services then it may seem that what you’re doing doesn’t challenge any significant beliefs in your potential client. After all, you are highlighting ways for them to improve their business by using your services - what could be challenging about that?
But if what you are proposing to do falls under the remit of the potential client or other person with influence over the buying decision then you had better be careful. It could well be that a belief you are challenging is their belief that they need to be seen as not having any weaknesses in their capabilities. In other words, if they need you to help them, doesn’t that make them a bad manager? Shouldn’t they be able to do this stuff themselves? Very often potential clients are seriously concerned about whether hiring you may make them look weak in the eyes of their managers, staff and peers. What you are selling challenges their belief that they need to be “on top” of all the activities in their remit.
For this reason, when selling consulting services I always look for a “get out clause” for my clients. A reason why it’s OK for them to need me that isn’t damaging to their self image and their fear of what others might think. I explicitly look for a rationalisation for why they can’t do this themselves. There has been a change in what customers need that they couldn’t have been aware of, for example. or perhaps they need to focus on managing their team and optimising today’s performance while someone with an “objective viewpoint” looks at their strategy. The logic doesn’t have to be iron-clad. Just something to make them feel at ease and comfortable hiring me without feeling they are admitting failure somehow.
Of course, different issues will arise in different selling situations - but it’s surprising how often what seems like a purely rational buying decision will have a powerful emotional dimension due to the impact of the decision on the underlying beliefs of the buyers.
Ian
* Image courtesy of Skeptical Enquirer magazine. You can find a very interesting article on the persistence of beliefs by psychologist George Lester here
Topics: Sales Techniques | 5 Comments »
Guest Post: Has social media finally arrived in BtoB marketing?
By Ian Brodie | November 29, 2008
Today’s post is from Peter Motley - MD of Marketing Crew - looking at current trends in social marketing for BtoB.
Will 2008 be remembered as the real start of business to business (BtoB) social marketing in a way that is much more than just debating whether to start a blog? Can we finally see a change in the way marketeers communicate!
The answer on social marketing for BtoB seems to revolve around the real purpose of the activity itself; whether it’s business people networking to gain personal benefit or to market their product/company brand! A new report by think-tank Demos has concluded that staff should be encouraged to use social networking as part of their business activities as it can boost staff loyalty and morale.
It would reasonable to predict that social networking sites like Viadeo, Linkedin, Plaxo, Ning and Ryze will see their membership ranks soar in the next few quarters as widespread insecurity drives people to connect with others to boost their social capital.
Can the same be said of product and service placements in blogs, podcasts, business groups in networking sites, etc? In recent months we have seen a rise in online BtoB business networking sites being offered, especially to small businesses.
Any long run success of business social networks will come down to basics, which are their ability to become a new channel to market, or to take the cost out of the marketing equation. If these are achieved we will see the seed corn that is driving current developments turn into some very big opportunities.
Large players like BT are heavily promoting BT Tradespace, in a bid to gain a foothold in the online business networking space, somewhere between directory sites like Yell.com and networking sites for boutique consultancies, dominated by online entrepreneurs like Thomas Power with ecademy. Plus there are emerging regional offerings like “Lets Do Business” in the South East and “Your Business Club” in the North West.
Add to the mix the popularity of social networking sites being used for business, such as Facebook, and Bebo, plus the explosion in business blogging sites and business videos loaded on You Tube, you have countless outlets to post entries which promote your offerings. One example that has become legend is Blendtec’s Will it blend on You Tube that has catapulted their high quality blenders from obscurity to leading brand awareness in the US.
In Mintel’s recent study of 2,000 Britons, which is based on extensive research into both social networking and viral marketing, they claim, “the emergence of online social networking is transforming the way we communicate and how we spend our leisure time, on- and offline”. The watchers are now looking to see if this success can be replicated in the business world.
Despite the fact that the report focuses on viral content and talks quite extensively about email marketing, I think we are seeing the convergence of a number of ways of sharing content via social and pseudo social networks. Be it some key marketing message, product placements, professional networking, industry watching, negative product or company reaction, all are now in the “marketing mix”.
We have seen examples of “good old” word of mouth marketing on social business media sites like twitter with London Theatre, and SEOmoz having a dramatic effect. However, the outcomes of which, if not handled professionally, could cause such rapid impact that it makes Gerald Ratners famous comments look snail paced!
The future of social marketing in this social media era is not about the next emerging happening, as I feel it did arrive in 2008, but now about understanding how it’s reinventing the way that we all need to communicate?
Peter Motley is passionate about marketing and about delivering value for money for his clients. Peter sees real business to business marketing as turning the business plan into an achievable marketing strategy and ensuring its delivery. You can contact Peter at Marketing Crew
Topics: Guest Post | 2 Comments »
New Report and Free Trial on RainToday
By Ian Brodie | November 22, 2008
One of my favourite and most frequently visited sites is RainToday. It’s a fantastic source of articles, white-papers and research reports, webinars and premium content - all focused on marketing & selling professional services. It features some of the best writers and experts on professional service business development - from Bruce Marcus, Ford Harding and Alan Weiss to in-house gurus John Doerr and Mike Schultz.
They’ve just released a new report on Business Networking for Professionals, including:
- The golden rule of networking
- Who to network with and where you can go to find them
- 3 tips for starting a conversation
- 6 open-ended questions to get contacts talking and to build a relationship
- 8 common networking stereotypes to avoid
The best news is that if you sign-up for a free 7-day trial of annual membership you can download the report and all the other available tools and guides for free. RainToday’s promise is that if you’re not satisfied with your membership you can cancel at any time during the free period and not only will you not be billed, you can keep all the content you downloaded during the trial.
Given the high quality of the content and the no-risk guarantee, it’s a pretty irresistable offer in my view.
Ian
Topics: Recommendations | No Comments »
Getting Past First Base
By Ian Brodie | November 8, 2008
How do you turn an initial contact with a prospect into a fully-fledged business relationship? It’s the essence of sales - but it’s an area where many people really struggle.
Robert Middleton has an excellent analogy for this process which he calls “Marketing Ball”.
By the way, if you’re an independent professional (a consultant, coach, therapist, psychologist, etc.) and you want to attract more clients and win more business then head over right now to Robert’s Action Plan Marketing site and sign up for the free marketing audio and workbook. I must warn you though - within a week of reading his free material I had been so impressed I bought his “whole shebang” package.
One of the core principles Robert introduces via the analogy is the importance of progressing “one base at a time” in sales. You can’t expect to go from initial contact to a sale in one hit. In fact, it may be too much to expect to go from first contact to even a meeting directly. You need to take things one step at a time by adding value and providing information to your potential client to build up the trust needed for them to take the next step.
A case in point: one valuable source of new opportunities for service businesses is new startups. Lacking an incumbent, there’s a much better chance than normal for accountants, solicitors and other providers to establish a relationship.
When I started my new business, I had nearly a dozen letters from accountants, web designers and marketers - each keen to talk to me about how they could help me (or perhaps, more accurately, how they could get business from me).
To give them fair credit, they had at least made the effort to scan for new business formations to identify high potential clients for themselves.
However, none of them took it further than that. Other than sending a letter to make me aware of their services - none of them did anything for me that would make me want to do business with them.
If they’d perhaps sent me a short guide to start-up finances, or successful small business websites or other useful information related to their business. Or if they had offered me something of value for free - 30 minutes of their time to share some of their experiences on what works well in their field. Perhaps even mocked up a website for me or made suggestions for my marketing approach. Any of this would have demonstrated both their competence and their client-focus - their desire to be helpful and their willingness to invest in doing so.
But no. Just an advert. Just them telling me how good they were.
All that effort to find me, then they couldn’t get past first base.
Ian
Topics: Recommendations | 3 Comments »
Warming Up Cold Contacts
By Ian Brodie | November 4, 2008
I’ve been “tagged” by Ford Harding to take part in an interesting concept: a “blog meme” – a series of posts by different bloggers on the same topic. You can see Ford’s post here and the original idea from “Bizzie Guye” here.
So here goes……
Warming Up Cold Contacts
In “Managing the Professional Services Firm”, leading professional services guru David Maister labels cold calling as a third-tier “desperation” measure.Certainly the vast majority of professionals intensely dislike cold calling and are more than eager to accept the many pronouncements that “cold calling doesn’t work”.
But the reality is that many professional service firms and sole practitioners have used cold calling very successfully to grow their practices.
One of the keys to making cold calling effective is to “warm up” the call beforehand. In many cases this means pre-establishing a fledgling relationship with the prospect before the call is made. Perhaps sending a letter or an article in advance, or getting an introduction form a mutual contact.
But there is another – often overlooked – method for ensuring your prospect is more receptive to receiving your call. It’s simply to focus your calls on people who actually need your services.
It sounds ridiculously simple. Surely that’s what everyone does anyway?
In reality, it’s not. The majority of cold calling is to relatively unqualified prospects. Sure, they may be in a target industry, or be “likely” to need your services. But do they definitely need your services right now? Usually not.
And that’s why most cold calls get rejected – the repeated experience of prospects that the call is a waste of time. We’re an interruption to their busy schedules, and they’ve learnt that 9 times out of 10 a cold call is going to offer nothing of value to them. So they’ve learnt not to take calls from people they don’t know.
But what if you could be sure that the majority of people you call actually do need your services – right now? If that was the case then in the first few seconds of the call you could establish your value and they would be willing to listen further. Instead of calling hundreds of prospects for a tiny and therefore uneconomic response, a small number of calls to highly qualified prospects would result in a high number of positive responses and follow-ups.
How can we do this? It really depends on the situation:
- For certain types of product or service we can use desk research to identify the customers who definitely need our service. For example, a consultant who specialises in helping technology start-ups find their first customers will almost always get a good reception when they make targeted calls to these types of firm.
- If emerging customer needs are visible from outside the client firm, this can be used to identify prospects with definite needs. For example, a “trigger event” such as a change in leadership or the divestment of a business can generate specific service needs.
- The “grapevine” – networks of allied professionals and service providers close to a target client can provide information on their specific needs.
- A “low risk” cold call can be made to staff lower down the organisation than the target prospect. By calling people less likely to reject the call, vital information and real insights can be gathered on the true needs of the prospect.
- Allowing prospects to self-select and identify themselves is also possible. For example the typical on-line strategy of using pay-per-click advertising to offer a free report or resource in a specific area will allow prospects with needs in that area to identify themselves.
Other methods are also possible – always following the principle of investing before the call to identify highly qualified prospects.
Of course, such a strategy isn’t always possible. And it could be argued that such an investment in advanced research is more costly than simply calling a large number of loosely qualified prospects and finding out who’s interested by trial and error.
But doing detailed qualification in advance does two very positive things.
Firstly, it gives the sales person confidence that they are likely to get a positive response from the people they are calling. This confidence will come across in the call and make the prospect more likely to listen – creating a virtuous circle of success.
Secondly – and to my mind more importantly – it shows respect for your clients. Even if it costs you more to do detailed research in advance that it would to call in a less qualified manner, it shows that you have prioritised your client’s time over your own. It shows you care enough not to waste their time on a “fishing expedition”. Doesn’t that in itself speak volumes about the kind of sales person you are?
Ian
Now, I’m tagging Craig Elias and Paul McCord – both of whom I’m sure will add their own unique insights to the meme.
Topics: Sales Techniques | 1 Comment »
Sales Wisdom from Spongebob Squarepants
By Ian Brodie | October 29, 2008
Ok, so perhaps not the person you’d most expect to be dishing out vital sales tips - but as it turns out, this year’s Spongebob Annual (UK edition) has avery useful piece in it.
Here’s the plot: Plankton’s wife/computer has run away. Plankton, by the way, is the rather tiny, evil nemesis of Spongebob & Mr Krabs (Spongebob’s boss). In order to win her back he writes her a love letter as follows:
Oh Karen, you are my computer
Crawl back to me, the world’s best suitor!
I went to college, don’t you forget
The smartest guy you ever met!I am so great, I am so fine
And I own you, so you are mine
Remember though it may annoy you
Do as I say, or I’ll destroy you!
Spongebob, of course, is horrified by this self-centred poem and so re-writes it. As it turns out, Karen much prefers Plankton’s original. But in the real world, very, very few customers have Karen’s tastes.
Unfortunately, a great many sellers do seem to have Plankton’s writing style though. Perhaps not the “do as I say, or I’ll destroy you” elements - but certainly the self aggrandizing, self-centred approach to writing.
Sales - particularly sales of large, complex or intangible products - is very similar to the process of courting: of attracting, maintaining and growing the attentions of another.
You can’t demand that someone falls in love with your product, just like you can’t demand someone falls in love with you. It has to be earned. And although courting often begins with a certain amount of attention-grabbing behaviour, if it is to succeed over time it must switch to attention-giving. A successful relationship is characterised by growing mutual giving and growing mutual trust. The self aggrandizing attention-grabbing must give way to thoughts and acts focused on the needs of the other.
And it’s the same with sales. Once you have the attention of a prospect you must focus on their needs - and your communications must reflect this. As the old saying goes: Before They Care What You Know, They Need to Know You Care.
Onward!
Ian
Topics: Communication | 1 Comment »
