Do you answer personal and private questions from complete strangers? Of course not. Why do we think we can call prospects, machine-gun them with open-ended questions and expect to get oceans of information from them?

This approach may have been somewhat successful for sales professionals in the past, but we live in a world that is increasingly more apprehensive about revealing information.

That’s Right, It’s A Catch-22
Axiom 1: People share information with people they know.
Axiom 2: Relationships form when two people share information.

We can’t get information from prospects because we don’t have a relationship with them, and we can’t create a relationship because they are unwilling to share information.

The “Smiler And Dialer” Crowd
This reality is something the “smiler and dialer” crowd doesn’t get at all.

The “smiler and dialer” crowd chooses to pound the phone until someone finally talks with them. The efficacy of this technique is rather poor. Prospects return only 3 to 4% of voicemails. Only about 1 out of 100 direct contacts turns into a customer using this brute force style of prospecting.

I think the phone pounders actually have even more dismal results than the numbers indicate. What they define as a “customer” is for another sales blog post (i.e. one order does not a customer make).

Stop Being A Phone Pounder And Start Selling
There are two simple things we can do to extricate ourselves from this circle of non-results (i.e. trying to get people to open up to us when we don’t know them, while simultaneously needing to know them in order for them to open up).

1. Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Spend 60 seconds to look at prospects’ websites in order to learn something about them before you call. Google their company name. Check them out on LinkedIn. Set up Google Alerts and let Google collect information.

2. Specific Questions. Specfic Questions. Specfic Questions. Don’t greet the prospect with an open-ended question like, “Karen, how is your department organized and how have you historically procured your products and services?” What prospect would feel comfortable answering that question?

Ask questions specific to the prospect (this is where that earlier research is going to pay off and is absolutely mandatory).

Greet the prospect with something that sounds more like, “Karen, I’m Scott Sheaffer with the XYZ Company and I’m your assigned account manager. You don’t know me. I’m cold calling your business because my research indicates you might benefit from our products and services. To help establish that, I need to ask you just a couple of specific questions. Do you have time to answer two questions?”

Virtually Everyone Has Time For Two Specific Questions
Example: “Karen, my research shows that you are the person responsible for purchasing training services for your company. Is that correct?”

Example: “I see you are opening a new training facility in Dayton, Ohio in March. What is the status of that new facility?”

The Magic
These mostly closed-ended questions open the door to conversation. They show that we know something about the prospect. The prospect views the time investment as minimal. From these early questions we can easily move into more substantive open-ended questions when the time is right.

This same technique works very well when leaving voicemail messages too. Take 20 seconds to leave a voicemail message introducing yourself and asking if they will call you back to answer a couple of specific questions.

Our first call to a prospect can realistically start a relationship that will provide a basis for information sharing down the road.  This requires that we have some knowledge of the prospect prior to the call, and have realistic expectations as to how much information they will provide.

Sales Blog Epilogue
This model does not fit with the old-school model of prospecting where the quantity of prospecting was much more revered than the results.

This technique takes into account the current realities of available information on prospects via the web, prospects’ need for privacy, and prospects’ busy schedules. Cold calling when viewed only as a numbers game merely serves to keep sales professionals busy. The real objective when prospecting is to create more business.

©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

Related posts:

1. The Incredible Importance of Open Ended Questions
2. A Question That Gets Even The Grouchiest Prospect Talking
3. 6 Thoughts On The Fickle Nature Of Prospecting

Tags: habits, Prospecting, prospects

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