Don't Let BANT Downgrade Good Leads

Qualifying criteria is important when it comes to ranking leads, for a number of reasons. A couple of those reasons are that having defined criteria surfaces the short-term opportunities and avoids wasted effort and resources being deployed on the wrong prospects at the wrong time, to name a couple.

Something to be careful of though is downgrading something that would be a strategic entry into an account or discounting access to decision makers and influencers in key accounts. Many times, vendor preferences are established well before the budget or timing is clear, and to miss that early window of entry sometimes means missing the deal altogether. I have known of situations where a prospect's willingness to talk to a vendor wasn't pursued because it didn't meet BANT criteria (BUDGET AUTHORITY NEED TIMELINE) and later when the account was revisited it was only to discover another vendor got the business. What happened? Many times it was because the investment was made in the relationship at an early stage, and when the deal materialized, the other vendor was well established in the account.

So before downgrading a lead, ask yourself if this is worth investing some time in to get the business and have a more long-term view of the opportunity.

Use BANT to help understand a prospect, but don't let it downgrade something unnecessarily you should be pursuing and actively engaged with. Good opportunities are valuable in today's market, so examining multiple areas of prospect information will help you make intelligent decisions on how to build your pipeline.

Leads With Limited Information, How to Approach Them

Many times leads that are sent to the sales team from marketing have limited information attached. Maybe it's names in a spreadsheet, or a list of people that filled out a webform. Because no one likes to call someone blind without any background on "why", those leads sometimes never get a follow up. In fact, the CMO Council released a study a couple of years back that said up to 70% of leads never get a follow up at all from sales. Leads with limited information would be represented in that number.

This contributes to marketing getting the reputation of delivering bad leads and to the sales team their reputation of not following up on leads that cost a lot of money to generate. It's an ongoing problem that has exhaustive discussion around it, but what are some practical ways to narrow the chance of potential breakdown?

• When your team calls a prospect with limited information attached, have an approach so they aren't doing all the talking. As an example of what not to do, a few weeks back I met a sales rep at an event. I had mentioned I had a customer that worked in his industry and he proceeded to pitch me on what his company does and how my client would benefit and spoke for about 10 minutes (at least) about the great potential for us all. The problem was that what he was working on was so far removed from anything my client or myself would be involved with. With a couple of questions, he could have saved himself a lot of time and maybe got a referral out of me instead. So it's important to resist the urge to start "pitching" or "qualifying" right away. The goal needs to be to understand what they are working on and see where it makes to have any discussion or who it would make sense to have it with.
• Understand the source of the leads to put some context around the information you have. Sometimes it's just a matter of asking a couple of questions about the event, who comprises the list you received, or what they were responding to.

Having more information empowers speaking to the right topics. Seek out information from both your internal marketing team, and from your prospects. The result will be time spent more effectively and insure that sales is getting the most out of any leads that are sent.

Why Bother Leaving a Voicemail?

Only a small percentage of prospects will return their sales calls, so how can you use it to your benefit? Some reps feel that, because prospects often do not call back, leaving a voicemail is a waste of time. But think of voicemail as a form of communication similar to email or text messages. Don't let the one-way aspect of voicemail keep you from exploiting its benefits. People do listen to voicemail, and you can use it to your advantage.

One advantage of voicemail is that it helps you let prospects know that you're attempting to reach them. You can also remind them of your company name and business, keeping it fresh in their minds along with the solutions that you want to discuss. It sets the connection in motion; your prospects might forward them to others in the company, who, in turn, save them for later, or they look up your company on the Internet, etc. Prospects who don't return calls are, nevertheless, often considering what you have to offer. It's not unusual for a prospect, once you get them on the phone, to say something like, “I listened to your voicemail and looked at your website.” It is also not unusual for prospects to be prepared to talk when you call because they've researched your company.

Remember that the ball is always in your court, and you must leave a compelling voicemail if you want a call back. I initially script and test voicemails to avoid drawn-out or ineffective messages. It allows one to concentrate on the content that will work.

When crafting your voicemail message think about the prospect's time and attention span. The formula is:

• Introduce yourself.
• Give the name of your company.
• Mention some referenceable customer names.
• Briefly state the purpose of your call- brief being the operative word here.

You can test the effectiveness of your voicemail by using your voicemail script to call your own phone number and leave yourself a message. Listen carefully to it and then ask yourself the question, “Would you call you back?” You can test if you lose interest in it, if it is too long, if it is unclear, or it is otherwise awkward. Put yourself in your prospects' shoes—consider how they might respond to such a message if they don't know who you are or what your company does. Testing your messages gives you the opportunity to fix any problems with wording, intonation, or style. Keep making changes until the answer to, “Would you call back?” becomes an unqualified yes. If the number of callbacks you receive declines, do this exercise again, leaving yourself a message and then listening to it from the prospect's perspective. You may discover that you sometimes talk too long and take too much time in getting to the point.

Use voicemail to throw a wider net out to prospects, even if they aren't calling back it still is working for you.

Caring Makes All the Difference

I had a conversation this week about what is it that makes me and other people successful at calling people and engaging them on a cold call and those that are not; those that get a lot of push back and sales resistance and refusal to answer any questions.

One of the areas that matters most is just caring about your prospects. Doing that makes the difference in how you engage, how you lead the discussion, how you connect with them. It comes across on so many levels, many non-verbal. We have had discussions with prospects where they volunteer so much information, and are eager to continue a discussion because we (the solution) may be a fit they are willing to explore. Then others have discussions with those very same people, and they are unwilling to disclose anywhere near the amount of information they did to us, why is that?

A number of years ago I was on a follow up call with a sales rep, the previous call was with a sales development rep that really sought to understand what was going on in the account, and what they would be looking for in a provider- it was clear the conversation was refreshing to the prospect because they cared what they were working on enough to really let them articulate the problem. So the next step was the call with the Account Executive and we get on the phone and within the first few minutes the rep is asking about their budget (they already had that information), asking when they plan on making a decision, and sizing up the opportunity. Nothing about what the prospect was expecting to talk about which was discussing industry experience, and explaining why this would be the right fit for this particular client. The message that sent was "are you worth my time".

The "what's in it for ME" cooled off the prospect substantially. While we are all obviously working to make money, an investment in caring about your prospects pays off.

Someone might say, of course we would ask about budget! I get so many cold calling scripts to review from companies that ask about budget right out of the gate. So what is wrong with that? It's the same principle as dating. A guy takes a girl out on a date, and within the first 30 minutes she is asking about his job, his car, does he own a house, does he want to get married....you know where I am going with this. What kind of response is she going to get? Is he going to eagerly be qualified before he even knows anything about her?

Your prospects are people just like you, they have challenges in their organization they are trying to solve and are looking for solutions. Something that will set you far above your competition is if you invest the time to understand what your prospect is working on, what they are challenged with, what have they looked at so far, why hasn't it worked out, etc.

Doing this accomplishes these things:

1. You know how to speak to their requirements effectively.
2. You develop a relationship with the prospect, people still buy stuff from people they like.
3. Even if it isn't a fit, whoever you spoke with knows other people in their industry- if you took the time to understand their requirement and challenge, they remember that and could refer you in the future. I get referrals all the time from that exact scenario.
4. You know how to nurture the account. If they say they are working on this in 6 months, it will be here before you know it. Stay engaged.
5. You become more informed on what your prospects are challenged with so you can speak more effectively to other prospects. What they tell you adds value to you in future for other companies because you have expanded your knowledge base of their unique challenges.

It results in nothing but good results to care about your prospects, the difference speaks for itself.

Happy selling....

Make Your Call Count

As a sales professional, one of the things I thought when this financial crisis hit the fan was how it will change the responses prospects have to vendor calls. The answer depends on how you are looking at it. Companies did shelf some of the "nice to have" but non-critical projects, but are still moving forward with business critical initiatives. They are also getting a lot of sales calls because people need to close business, so it's imperative to make your call count in amongst all the noise.

I started The Vanella Group, Inc. in 2001 during a meltdown, my business grew during that time because my customers consistently see the return that makes the program clearly valuable. Cold calling is what we do, and we have to stay aligned with the marketplace in terms of buying behaviors to keep getting those results. A few of the core methods we are successful with are:

1. Take a soft approach to access prospects. Prospects and their admins are people just like you. Ask yourself, would you appreciate a call from you? I saw a really good post on Trish Bertuzzi's blog that said "Times have changed and where we used to think we had to "get past" the gatekeeper, now we should figure out how to "work with" the gatekeeper. " The whole dynamic of cold calling is making personal connections, not talking AT people.
2. Discovery based conversations work, pushy sales calls don't.Most people don't like getting "sales" calls, but they are perfectly willing to have a conversation to see if something would be a fit for them, especially if it is working for others in their industry. Use your first connection to have a discovery and find out where it even makes sense to have a more in-depth discussion.
3. Know who you're calling. I was just having a conversation yesterday about calls I get myself from people that don't know anything about my business and who they are calling. Take a few minutes to check the company and prospect out on the web so you have some basic information going into it (back to the Sales 2.0 model). Anyone appreciates when you know enough about them to speak to specific areas they might be challenged with.

As a take away - if your solution/product has different industries you are selling into, if you haven't already, create a spreadsheet with columns where you can list the industry and the specific pain points for that industry. Then list some questions you can ask that speak to the specific pain in that segment. Speaking to that kind of specific pain they have will show your prospects you do understand their business, and also will give you a reference tool to make your call count by having the data points in front of you to make your conversation stay on topic and stand out.

I'll post a chapter from my book next time about asking good questions. Stay tuned....

Freeing Yourself From a Sales 1.0 World

The Sales 2.0 Conference last year kicked off a buzzword that stuck. Sales 2.0 is here to stay. Some sales professionals still ask the question though- what is it?

To know what Sales 2.0 is means you know what Sales 1.0 WAS. In short, it is labor, it's added cycles of prospecting, meetings, writing, notes, missed opportunities, rejection, and frustration. It's how we all did it, we were all proud of our notes and Franklin Daytimers. But now we can cut to the chase and build pipeline faster for not only us, but less painful for our prospects- which results in less sales resistance. Our calls are more informed, we can leverage relationships we now can find easily on LinkedIn, Link Silicon Valley, and other networking sites, and most important, we can accomplish more in the same time.

What we don't want to do is miss the boat and in 6 months still ask "what is Jigsaw?" and have it pass us by while people with less experience pass you up in income just because they bought into the Sales 2.0 system.

How to free yourself from outdated Sales 1.0 methods?

1. Admit they are outdated methods.
2. Learn what is out there in 2008. LinkedIn, Hoovers, Link Silicon Valley, Jigsaw, all of those will save time and increase your effectiveness. How? With information- who are your prospects, where do they come from, how does that map to what you know, how can you find common ground.
3. It takes some time to automate, but once you do you'll save time and not miss opportunities. You won't miss sales cycles you know will start in Feb 09 because you'll get an automatic reminder! Put the tools your company invests in to work for you.
4. Pay attention to the buzz. SellingPower, CSO Insights, Jigsaw, Insights into Cold Calling Blog- blogs, sites, articles, all of these have data you can inform yourself with.
5. Recognize old methods will become a liability in time- make yourself an asset to any organization. Companies are bringing in fresh consultants and resources that have the newest take on things, be someone they see value in and become your champion when recommendations come down the pipe. Sales organzations are changing, you need to change with it. Remember Death of a Salesman?

I'll post article links and other resources you can use to get a bigger view on the importance of aligning methods with your selling landscape. In the meantime, happy selling!