SalesTool Talk Newsletter: Aug 13 Issue
What if all your time was spent TALKING to your new prospects instead of attempting to connect with them?
All Salespeople are burdened with activities that don't have a direct impact on revenue. Forecasting sales, researching prospects, compiling expense reports, scheduling meetings, producing proposals, composing follow-up emails, and the list goes on. These are all necessary activities but they don’t have a direct impact on revenue.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, attempts to cut down the time required for these activities. But there are other tools that go beyond CRM to zero-in on specific non-selling tasks.
One such example is Connect and Sell. How much time do you spend attempting to connect with a prospect vs. actually talking with a prospect? 50/50? 40/60? Leaving voice-mails in the absence of connecting with a prospect is so prevalent there are classes on using voicemail effectively.
You Can’t Sell if You Don’t Connect
Connect and Sell
Sales Productivity is a factor of two things: Available time and effective use of that time.
To increase a Sales Rep's productivity we can:
- Decrease time spent on non-selling activities
- Increase time spent on selling activities
- Make better use of selling-time
ConnectAndSell decreases the time spent on trying to reach a prospect (a non-selling activity) and it increases the time spent on interacting with a prospect (selling activity).
What is ConnectAndSell?
It’s a unique service for outsourcing the process of connecting with prospects.
If your rep doesn’t engage in 5 live conversations in one hour with contacts on their target list, the hour is free.
ConnectAndSell will demo their system with your rep/s so you can see how it works first hand. Contact them at www.connectandsell.com
The hottest topic in sales today is “Cold-Calling”. Does it work? Is it necessary? Are there alternatives? (the answer to all 3 is “yes”). With our product review on ConnectAndSell, we thought we’d take a look at cold-calling and offer up a method for making it more effective for both you and your prospect.
I’m a salesman. I sell sales training, management consulting, coaching and speaking presentations. My clients are companies, individual salespeople, business owners, and business and industry associations.
I prospect. I have to if I want to stay in business. I, like every other salesperson, am constantly looking for potential new business.
I also market my services and myself. I have to invest a significant amount of my time and effort in getting my message out to potential clients.
In other words, my business is exactly like yours. I engage in the same activities you do. I face the same obstacles, the same setbacks, the same disappointments, and enjoy the same victories.
Whether you sell insurance, parking lot maintenance, copiers, communication systems, or the most sophisticated computer networks, business-to-business selling is in its essence the same for all of us. The details are different. The process may be vastly different. The sales cycle may be months or even years apart. But the basic essence is the same. And the most basic is you have to have a prospect that will accept your efforts to connect with them.
Like almost every other salesperson, I must use the phone to connect with some of those prospects. Nevertheless, I refuse to make cold calls. In my opinion, there is hardly a more worthless use of time and energy than cold calling. Cold calling is time consuming for the salesperson and it immediately signifies to the recipient of the call that the person making the call isn’t an expert in their field because most prospects assume that true experts aren’t sitting at a desk pounding the phone.
Yet, that creates a dilemma for me—there are prospects I can’t reach without picking up the phone and calling them. Despite being a strong advocate of referral selling, networking, and developing referral partnerships, those methods, no matter how expertly I implement them, just can’t get me to every possible prospect that I’m interested in reaching.
Not having a way to connect through other means and refusing to cold call presents a bit of a problem.
Fortunately, there is a solution that allows me to NEVER make a cold call. In fact, it almost always allows me to begin establishing a relationship with the prospect that I can expand and nurture over time.
In addition, this simple method allows me to gather a wealth of information about the company, their needs, their plans, and in many cases, key information about the person I’m about to speak to before I ever make the call. Before I call I know whom I’m calling, why I’m calling, and I have a very good idea of where the conversation will be going.
Moreover, seldom do I have a voice mail message go unreturned.
What is the incredible system I use?
Once I’ve identified a company to approach, I call three or four of the company’s salespeople. When I speak to these individuals, I am upfront with the purpose of my call. I let them know who I am, why I’m calling them, what my intentions are regarding calling the company about my services, and request their permission to ask them some questions about the company and their experience with the company.
I ask a number of information gathering questions such as:
• what type of sales training the company provides
• what training needs do they see aren’t being met
• who in their opinion I should speak to about training
• if there is anything else I should know prior to calling that person
• prior to ending the call, I ask for permission to use their name
These quick discussion give me a tremendous amount of information about the company and potential opportunities for me. Often I learn a little bit of personal information about the person I’m about to call that helps me connect with them. Typically, at least one and often two or three of the individuals will not only give me permission to mention their name but will encourage me to call, giving me a referral into the company.
Now, I’ve not only upgraded the call from a cold call to a warm call, but I’ve upgraded the warm call to a referral. The call is now a conversation about their needs and observations rather than a sales pitch.
If I am directed to voice mail, I don’t panic. I don’t hang up. I leave a very brief factual message that introduces myself and mentions that salesperson X and salesperson Y encouraged me to call about some issues that concern them. I almost always get a return call.
I tell them I did some homework prior to making my call to them. So unusual is it to have someone call who is fully prepared, the impression is not only positive but also deep and lasting.
No, I don’t turn every call into a sale. I do, however, begin building a positive and trusting relationship. Two necessary precursors to a sale.
No matter your product, you too can find individuals within your target companies who can give you the information you need—and a possible endorsement. Investing a little time before calling your prospect opens doors, eliminates resistance, and begins the relationship building process.
Before I go further, let me tell you what Connect and Sell ISN’T.
- It’s not a cold-calling service
- They don’t talk directly to your prospects
- It’s not outsourced telemarketing
Using a combination of patented switching technology and virtual sales agents your sales reps are connected to the prospect in such a way that the prospect believes the sales rep has made the call.
It’s an excellent system for cold-calling to trade-show leads, or incoming web-leads. But it’s also good for follow-up calls. Users can upload their follow-up call list from their CRM system, log-in to ConnectAndSell, and work through their call list in a fraction of the time.
The way it works is simple: Your rep sets aside a one-hour time period to call prospects, signs into ConnectAndSell, uploads the call list to use, and tells the system "I'm ready."
A group of ConnectAndSell reps immediately starts making calls. Within two-tenths of a second from the time the first one reaches a live person on the list, the call is transferred to your rep. The contact information for the person being called pops up simultaneously on the rep's PC, and the dialogue can start immediately.
At $275/hour, it might seem expensive.
However, consider the time spent on un-productive calling and subtract that from the fixed amount of time reps have in one day.
And if that’s still too conceptual, then consider this.
Paul McCord trains sales teams, managers, and individual sellers strategies and techniques to find and connect with quality prospects in ways prospects will respect, accept, and respond to. Site offers information on training, consulting and coaching services; extensive free resources; and numerous products.
For more information, visit his web-site at: http://www.dynamicsalesgrowth.com
Read his Sales Blog at: http://salesandmanagementblog.com
Joanne Black has written a step-by-step guide on how to get all the prospects you need without cold-calling.
