Sales Blog with Sales Tips

Ever read “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson, MD? Well, the cheese has been moved when it comes to cold calling.

The biggest challenges faced by sales professionals today are getting past voice mail and getting calls returned, according to a survey by Teleconcepts Consulting.

Things Aren’t Going To Improve
These issues have always represented a roadblock when prospecting. I’m afraid the phone is going to continue its decline in its potency as a stand-alone prospecting tool.

There are numerous current studies on the effectiveness of prospecting by phone. Most of them indicate a one-percent close rate. For every 100 calls made, only one of the contacts turns into a customer. Mileage may vary depending on industry, but it will be poor.

Negative ROI (Return On Investment)
I was watching a video by Jeffrey Gitomer recently and he made an outstanding observation about the one-percent close ratio when cold calling by phone and using no additional resources or tools.

It has a negative ROI.

The substantial investment in time calling the other 99 prospects – who don’t buy from us – causes us to lose ground because we could be using that time doing something productive.

Beyond The Phone
There are resources available to us today that allow us to: 1) be better prepared before attempting to contact a prospect, and 2) “pull” prospects to us.

1) Be Prepared
Many salespeople call prospects with little knowledge about the company or person they’re calling. In 2010 this is completely unacceptable to prospective customers. They expect us to know something about their company or they will simply not engage us.

Prospects don’t want to hear about our company; they want to know that we are knowledgeable about them. Knowing something about their company elevates their perception of us.

It’s simple and fast to reference Jigsaw, NetProspex, LinkedIn, Ryze, Plaxo, Xing, etc. on the web.

2) Pull-Prospecting
Instead of beating the phone to death (which we know doesn’t work so well anymore), why not have prospects come to us? Your competitors are doing this. It’s time for you to start too.

Your primary objective in the activities below is to become a noted authority in your industry. Someone that people go to when they have a need. To become referable.

• Beginners in pull-prospecting will join LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to establish a presence. They will join groups and pages aligned with their industry on LinkedIn and Facebook and participate in discussions.
• Intermediates in pull-prospecting can write short articles specific to their industry and distribute them to prospects and customers. They can also guest post on blogs relevant to their industry.
• Advanced pull-prospectors will start a blog. See blogger.com.

The New Realities
Many of us grew up using The Yellow Pages and a phone to prospect. It’s all we had.

We now have many more resources available, thanks to the Internet. Because of the plethora of information on the web, we can know more about prospects before we initiate contact. We have to know more. It’s a new rule of engagement.

The Internet also gives us an opportunity to gain credibility in our field and become referable – to pull prospects to us.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer
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By Scott R. Sheaffer,
“Comatose Management”
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Six Short Stories of Destructive Management Practices, Volume I
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Available in printed and Kindle edition on amazon.com
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Today’s guest post is by Russ Emrick. Russ is a sales professional with 25 years of experience. He focuses on sales coaching and specializes in lead generation. Learn more about Russ and his company at www.breakoutselling.com.

Recently I had a new water well dug at my residence. I realize now that the effort it took to find a good water supply is analogous to locating new opportunities.

Both start with a plan and changes are made as necessary.

Plans Don’t Always Work
Engineers studied my property. Their research identified the location and depth where water could be found. After drilling at the specified location and to the depth they calculated, no water spouted up. It was a dry hole.

Time for “Plan B.”

Selling often has the same outcome. After in-depth research and needs analysis, we may not uncover any customer opportunities. However, good preparation means having multiple options so that we have the flexibility to change course.

Muddy Water That Nobody Can Drink
On the second attempt, the drillers did find water, but it was undrinkable. The water was mixed with contaminants.

When we drill for information from customers, we frequently accept muddy answers instead of drilling deep enough to get good information.

I call vague customer answers, “stems.” In other words, they are just the beginning of an answer, but certainly aren’t enough to move the sales process forward. There are no flowers to be found here.

• “We have to drive costs out of the supply chain.”
• “We need to decrease our time-to-market.”
• “Our operational efficiencies need to be improved.”
• “We want more of a return from our technology infrastructure.”

Notice that none of these statements are quantifiable. I think George Orwell called this Doublespeak. They really say nothing. There’s a big difference between general customer issues and specific customer points of pain.

We have to dig deeper when we only get a trickle of muddy water from our customers.

• Reframe their answers by asking how a certain issue affects their business.
• Ask them to tell us what they think the solution to their problem looks like.
• Whenever possible, quantify their answers – in dollars and numbers.

Finding Clear Water Is Not Enough
On the third attempt, the well produced sparkling clear water, but not enough to supply the needs of my family.

Many times we immediately engage prospects and customers despite the fact that their well is shallow.

By digging down another 250 feet, a gusher of drinkable water finally erupted from my well. If we continue to ask informed questions of our customers – and wait for the answers, we can frequently find areas of opportunity.

Know What You Want To Achieve
It took four attempts to get a well that produced a large volume of clear water. Mission accomplished. Knowing what I wanted from that well guided me through the process. The outcome was established before we started.

We have to begin the sales process by knowing what we want to achieve. We also need to be prepared to walk away from some opportunities.

Flexible plans, quantifiable outcomes and persistence create winnable opportunities.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

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We’ve all done it. We’ve wasted ginormous (this is actually a word) amounts of time and resources selling to the wrong people. People who aren’t empowered to buy.

When the reality hits us that we’ve been chasing leaves in the wind, it always feels like a slug in the gut.

3 Kinds of Non-Buyers
These non-buyers fall into three general categories: 1) recommenders, 2) information gatherers and 3) influencers. Non-buyers are normally involved in any kind of significant purchase. However, for something to be sold, a decision maker has to enter the scene at some point – the sooner the better.

Not only is a decision maker necessary, but our chance of closing an opportunity goes from nearly zero to something far north of zero when we deal directly with decision makers.

Attributes Of Non-Buyers
These are a few of the common characteristics of non-buyers posing as decision makers:

• Pride. Virtually all sales tips deal with an element of this deadly sin in our customers. When we ask non-buyers if they have the authority to order, we frequently won’t get a truthful answer. Non-buyers find it hard to say, “I don’t have the authority to sign that contract.”
• They’re immensely available and always willing to talk with us.
• They’ll commit to everything, just short of a purchase. They know they’ll never make a decision to buy anything from us.  As a result, they’ll never be held accountable for anything either.
• Title incongruity. This is a fancy way of saying that non-buyers may be Executive VP’s, but they don’t have any of the normal privileges associated with the title – like the ability to buy. If you sell to banks, large utilities, telecom monopolies, etc., you know exactly what I’m talking about. Every third person is a VP of something.
• CXO’s. Most C-level executives don’t make buying decisions. They don’t have the attention span, time or interest in getting tied up in the majority of purchases. We can invest ginormous (remember, it’s a real word) amounts of time getting to C-levels only to find they have no interest in getting involved.

2 Sales Tips To Help Us Limit Black Holes
1. Ask the following potent question early in the selling cycle, “Besides yourself, who else is involved in the buying decision?”

This question is powerful. It strips out the pride issue because it assumes the person we’re addressing has buying authority. This question can only be answered in one of two ways:

• “No one else is involved.” If he or she is telling the truth, you’ve found a decision maker.
• “I’ll have to run this by…” You’ve probably found a recommender, information gatherer or influencer when you hear this.

2. Qualify the opportunity from all dimensions. We’re always in a better position to identify decision makers when we’ve done our homework on budget, competitors, timeframe, legal issues, product fit, etc.

The Single Biggest Problem
When we find ourselves in a situation where we’ve been pursuing the wrong person (i.e. recommender, information gatherer or influencer), it’s usually a result of our not assertively asking enough questions up front.

If we’re afraid to ask the questions that need to be asked, we increase our odds of heading down the spiral of a selling black hole.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Find a New Sales Job