Sales Blog with Sales Tips

I have an engineer friend, Steve, who uses a phrase that could be a candidate for one of the best sales tips I know.

“Don’t put the ‘buddy cap’ on.”

When he uses this expression he is referring to people who act as if they’re your best friend long before they’ve earned the right.

He’s offended when people do this to him. I agree with his sentiments.

Examples From Sales
I continually see this kind of superficiality in sales professionals. The following are real examples from cold calls I’ve overheard or have received:

“We need to catch up on things at lunch.”
“As a friend I…”
“Hi buddy, do you have a second to talk to me about…”

Prospects are on high alert for this kind of facade. It produces precisely the opposite effect of what’s desired.

It instantly labels the salesperson as disingenuous, manipulative and shallow. The prospect immediately feels a need for more distance. Not good.

The Real Formula For Rapport
In our personal relationships, we build genuine connections by showing an interest in people and helping them when they need us. Doing so creates a genuine bond over time with our friends.

Our relationships in sales are no different. This should come as no surprise since we’re dealing with people in both cases. I’m from the “people are people whether at work or home” school of thought. Sometimes we forget this.

While I’m On The Subject
While I’m on the subject of insincerity in sales, let me close with one of the most objectionable verbalizations when cold calling:

“How are you doing?”

The person on the receiving end immediately translates these words to, “I want something from you and I could not possibly care less about how you’re actually doing.”

Not a great way to plant the seed of a relationship. Remove, “How are you doing?” from your sales vernacular. Some of the best sales tips are those that tell you what to eliminate.

Sales Blog Verdict
We’re not a prospect’s best friend the first time we contact them. Both parties know this.

Helping prospects with their needs over time is the formula for legitimate interpersonal connections.

There is no shortcut.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

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We tend to treat our prospect funnels like a one-way street. We assume all prospects move in one direction.

New Opportunity -> Contact -> Opportunity Analysis -> Proposal -> Ready-to-Buy -> Customer

When we think this way, we can waste time and miss opportunities.

Funnel Fundamental #1
We hate the idea of taking prospects out of our funnel. We hate it because we like having a plethora of prospects and we don’t like giving up on them.

However, there is no such thing as a permanent prospect. If they haven’t moved forward for months and months, move on to new opportunities.

There is a time to remove a prospect from our funnel. Depending on the situation, we might want to openly tell the prospect why we have taken this action.  Frequently, and surprisingly, this will actually serve to get the prospect off the dime and get things going again.

Prospect hoarding is not selling.

Funnel Fundamental #2
Prospects can change their status – in all directions – when they’re in our funnel.

• They can change from a ready-to-buy to an opportunity analysis status.
• They can morph from a proposal stage back to starting over with a new decision maker.
• Etc.

They’re going to move according to their needs, not ours.

We’re in danger when we don’t recognize a change of status. For example, we can push too hard on a prospect we think is ready-to-buy when they’ve moved back to wanting us to submit an updated proposal. Because we continue to treat them as if they’re ready-to-buy, we mishandle the sales process and lose the opportunity.

Funnel Fundamental #3
How do we know when the status of a prospect has changed?

The biggest determinant of a prospect’s status is their behavior, not what they say. What they say means nothing.

We have to keep our eyes on what they are doing. Are they getting back with us? Are they being proactive? Do they have some skin in the game?

Conclusions
Sometimes it’s smart to do a stop-loss on our prospects and discard them from our funnel.

Prospects don’t move in one direction within our funnel. They can change their status in unexpected ways. Not recognizing this can cause us to botch opportunities because we’re operating under erroneous assumptions.

Finally, we must continually keep our eye on the behavior of prospects in order to accurately assess their status once they take up residence in our funnel.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

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It seems as if prospects do everything they can to avoid us. Voicemail and email make it easy. Sometimes they can even be rude about it.

But at some level, this resistance can have a negative impact on our outlook. We’re made of flesh and blood; we’re not machines.

From Denial To Understanding
Many sales professionals routinely beat their chest and proclaim that the insensitivity thrown their way by prospects is “just part of their job.” I think this denial ends up hurting more than helping.

We’ve all heard sales managers doling out sales tips like: “They’re just words; ignore them. You gotta be tough. If this bothers you, you’re in the wrong business. Set your emotions aside.”

Denying our emotions serves no purpose. In fact, it’s counterproductive. Pretending you don’t feel something is always dysfunctional and a waste of energy.

Instead, we need to invest in understanding why prospects behave antagonistically toward us. This is empowering and makes us more effective.

When we do this, we take control.

So What’s Going On In The Buyer’s Head?
Decision makers have to do more with less; they have fewer resources. This cost cutting started long before the current recession – and will continue. It’s not that prospects are inhuman – they just don’t have time for us.

When we contact a prospect the first time, they quickly ask themselves the following questions:

• Does this person strike me as someone who is competent?
• Is this just another generic scripted sales call?
• What value does this person bring to me (“me” is more important at this point than “the organization”)?
• Is this person capable of helping me?
• What’s my time investment with this person – now and down the road? Is it worth it to me?

In short, prospects are asking themselves if they see enough WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) to give you a slice of their time.

Sales Tips For Avoiding Being Avoided
We’ve established that being rejected doesn’t exactly make us feel great if we’re honest with ourselves. We also know the reason prospects dodge us has more to do with their job and time pressures than it has to do with us.

But we are still tasked with getting through to decision makers. To do this we have to look and feel different from the sea of salespeople who are trying to contact them.

1. Quit dancing around. When you finally make contact with a decision maker, don’t spend your valuable seconds giving an encyclopedic history of your company and then ask for an appointment. Would you meet with yourself if you heard this same blather?

Get to the point. They’ve already figured out you’re a salesperson before you’ve uttered your third word. Let them quickly know you’re cold calling and want to talk to them about your products and services.

Doing this respects their time and intelligence.

2. Immediately establish your value. I’m not talking about running through a list of your company’s generic value propositions (boring, old school, scripted). Let them know how you might specifically help them. This, of course, is not possible unless you’ve done research on the prospect before calling.

3. Quit pushing. Don’t assume they’ve been waiting  all day for you to call. They haven’t. Ask them if they have a few minutes to talk. If now is not good, ask them if you could schedule a time to call.

You can’t force someone to talk to you.

4. Listen.

5. Lose the script. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, “But I don’t use a script.” Think about the last 10 prospecting calls you’ve made. You’re most likely using the same words repeatedly. When we use the same phrases habitually, we sound boring.

Your personality, energy and information about the prospect (from your research) should provide the ammo you need to create some charisma in the ears of the prospect.

6. Closed-ended questions get no respect in my opinion. Open-ended questions are good, at the right time. Your first question to a prospect can’t be a deep and wide open-ended question. You haven’t earned the right to ask them this kind of question.

Start with some simple closed-ended questions and move into open-ended questions. When you initially meet people personally would you ask them, “What is your life story?” Feels uncomfortable doesn’t it?

Takeaways
Getting the cold shoulder from prospects can make us feel bad. It’s okay to have that emotion.

Understanding the real reasons prospects want to avoid us is empowering and useful.

We can employ prospecting principles to minimize the chance we’ll be ignored.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

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