Insights Into Cold Calling

Are Your Prospects Apologizing? They Should...

2012-01-25T11:39:00.000-08:00

I was talking with a VP Sales at a tech company today and the topic came up of how difficult it can be to reach prospects. We were on the same page as he realized it takes numerous attempts to reach a prospect and he gave me an example of how he had to call one prospect in particular 4-5 times. Most reps would have given up by then we agreed. I said I bet the prospect apologized when you connected with him finally didn't he? He said YES. We have that happen all the time, it's an indicator of doing something right.

Do you often hear your prospects apologize?

You might ask...why would a prospect apologize? What could they do to me that they need to? Or why would I confront them and put them in a position where they needed to apologize? Hmmm....

Prospects often apologize very early in discussions. What does this mean to you? It means you now have their attention.

But the question of WHY they would apologize is still out there. ANSWER: They apologize because a client called them ranting about a problem and they had to put out a fire, or one of their staff had to leave on a family emergency, or they had a key team member quit, or because they get 300 emails and 15 vendor calls a day, or because an enterprise platform they just bought crashed, or they have 200 sites offline right now because an application went down....the reasons are innumerable.

But why would they apologize to YOU about how busy they are?

Because they DO have an active requirement and they ARE interested, they know they asked for information or even had a great call with you already--there IS an opportunity, they just got so crazy busy they couldn't call you back. The fact you had to call them 4x is kind of embarrassing for them, and they really apologize they weren't available. You have their attention now...

If you aren't hearing a lot of apologies--are you connecting with a lot of your prospects? A traditional approach is to call prospects 1x o 3x and then give up. I have even heard reps say "if they were interested they would call me back."

Wendy Weiss quotes from a recent study in her Cold Calling Bootcamp: The National Sales Executive Association did that discovered:

2% of sales are closed from a single attempt,
3% from two attempts,
5% after 3 attempts,
10% after 4 attempts,
but here is the whopper--
80% of deals closed after making from 5-12 attempts.

Companies often do a "Did They Buy" Study on past leads that typically reveal that from 50%-70% of your prospects ended up buying something, but did they buy it from you? Prospects tend to take the path of least resistance, so if someone is making it easy to buy from them, by being available and persistent--they have increased their chances of getting the deal.

Jill Konrath's book, SNAP Selling, goes into great detail about the "crazy busy" world our prospects are working in. Today's sales reps need to navigate their prospects busy lives to connect, it's well worth the effort since the percentage of closed deals skyrockets after 5 attempts.

If you hear a lot of apologies from your prospects, you are doing a great job keeping them engaged and making it easy for them to buy from you. If you aren't, then take a look at your process for follow up and ask if you might be giving up too early?

When was the last time a prospect told you they were sorry they didn't call you back sooner?

Are Your Beliefs About Prospects Costing You Deals?

2012-01-16T14:03:00.000-08:00

The last mile of any lead generation program is that stage where the rep needs to connect with prospects and close the deal.

Over the years, research organizations like The Aberdeen Group, SiriusDecisions, and CSO Insights have all reported that a high percentage of leads never receive a follow up from sales--why is that?

With all the sales enablement systems, processes, automation tools, and training--reps still have a hard time connecting with prospects. I had a great discussion with sales transformation expert Aaron Ross this week, and he made an excellent point that reps do things for reasons they think are valid, or for reasons they may not even realize are costing them results.

Why would reps do things that are counter productive? Part of it stems from their belief system about prospects. The top 7 of those beliefs are:

If the prospect was really interested, they would have called me back

I don't send email as a follow up

If they were interested they would schedule a meeting

Prospects don't return voicemails

Prospects don't like getting sales calls

Cold calling is a waste of time

You can't reach executives over the phone

If these beliefs were true, we would all be out of business--I would certainly be since my business is cold calling executives! Let's look at these one at a time:

#1--The truth is, prospects can be super interested and are just too busy to call back. Executives depend on the tenaciousness of reps to keep connecting with them to keep the dialog going. The Bridge Group's study on this showed reps often need to call in excess of 7 times to reach executives! Executives get hundreds of emails and dozens of calls a day--that is a lot of noise. Reps that realize this and change their belief to something along the lines of "I need to call them several times to reach them--they are super busy and I understand that" see a much higher % of connects, and deals.

#2--The truth is that email isn't a follow-up in of itself. But what it does do is act as a vehicle to keep your name and your company name in front of them until you reach them. Use the power of that mental imprint to build momentum in your connection effort. A belief like "Sending them a note helps them to remember me when I call--just because they didn't respond doesn't mean they didn't see it" will see good results.

#3--Some prospects perceive meetings as sales pressure. The depth of discussion executives are willing to disclose on informal calls is huge. A belief that "prospects don't need a meeting to have an in-depth discussion" frees you up to have a productive, unplanned discussion.

#4--The truth is prospects do listen to voicemails. They can't call you back if they didn't know you called, and even if they get too busy to call you back your voicemail will often prompt them to look at your site, note your info, talk about it to their peers, and get visibility for you that you didn't know you had. Believing "voicemail makes a difference" helps build momentum in you connection effort.

#5, 6--A more accurate way to say this is prospects don't like getting bad cold calls. The thing reps forget it part of being an executive is making and taking calls. They call people constantly, and they fully expect to be called by people they don't know. What is irritating is to get a call from a rep that is pushy, gimmicky, assumptive, or some other unproductive trait is going to get cut short. Believe "executives are open to get calls that are peer-to-peer, open discussions that get to the point and have substance" will help reps have a whole different dynamic in their discussions.

#7--Applying #1-6 thought transformations can overturn this belief that executives can't be reached, or persistent lead follow-up is a waste of time. Prospects do in fact take calls, we have literally hundreds of thousands of examples that they do. It takes more calls, more effort, more thought about what you will say. But when you do that--you'll see that the negative beliefs did nothing but hold you back.

Do you need help to transform your reps beliefs about prospects?

2012--The Ingredient For Success, Hindsight

2012-01-02T14:02:00.001-08:00

Over the last few years, marketing and sales teams have experienced a lot of changes--some great, some challenging, some worked beyond what was hoped for, and some we aren't seeing in many marketing roadmaps for 2012. Now that companies better know who and where their prospect are, they can focus on reaching a higher concentration of them with their demand generation efforts.

The great thing about the last few years is hindsight is 20/20. The experiences you've already had, and results available through recent studies can help you to achieve a new level of success THIS year by focusing on those high-return activities.

A recent report on sales intelligence showed reps are performing at a 11%+ higher quota attainment by using sales and marketing enablement tools to prospect accounts. The challenge is getting reps to use them, or even for management to block out the time to train them. We have been able to help our clients get the benefit of social media, demographic sales intelligence, and optimized lead management by providing an outbound teleprospecting solutionthat utilizes all of those as part of a high return teleprospecting effort. So for teams that internally are still at the early stages of defining how to best utilize those, we can give them the advantage as though they were using them internally without any adoption resistance.

The result? One client told us that 80% of the last 5 large deals that closed were from our lead generation program. Again and again we see that by staying on top of where sales and marketing enablement is going and bringing best-practices to our clients, they get the benefit without the pain of any learning curve or resistance to adopting new ways to prospect.

Are you leveraging best practices of the current marketing and sales landscape that has proven itself? Are you looking at these solutions or onboarding partners that use them effectively for your campaigns?

InsideView, Data.com, Marketo, Salesforce, and solid practices around lead lifecycle management and sales intelligence all contribute to increased revenue.

Onboarding partners with a plug-and-play infrastructure and optimized environment that leverages the above solutions gives you immediate ability to still bump your pipeline to that 11% increased performance result.

Hindsight shows what is working for teams today and how they are meeting aggressive revenue goals--what that means for you is you can quickly leverage those practices that work for your own teams.

Happy Selling!

Sales-Ready Leads vs. Engagement-Ready

2011-10-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

One of the ongoing topics in the struggle of sales and marketing alignment maps to the definition of timing for sales to engage with a prospect and what is a "sales-ready" lead. The answer to that question has a direct bearing on the success of any particular campaign. It also represents a component of the measurement criteria any organization would use as definition of sales-ready opportunities.

How can you figure out the answer to this question for your organization?

First, you have to look at 5 areas:

1) Your sales cycle and methodology
2) Average deal size
3) Your position in the competitive environment
4) Objectives around pipeline building
5) Prospect behavior

One of the many areas marketing automation serves is developing the relationship in the white space between identifying a prospect and when they are ready to engage. This has clearly paid off for the companies making this investment.

However, the answer to when the rep engages truly will vary depending on the answers to the 5 areas above.

I did a post a while back about not letting BANT downgrade good leads. The point of that is if you don't redefine when you should engage, you will lose opportunities. If you have a more transactional-based sale, and it really is being in the right place at the right time, then traditional BANT may apply to you. But in large enterprise deals, buyers engage with vendors early in their project cycle, they are willing to bring you in, socialize you to the key members on their team, let you influence their requirements planning, and will develop a preference for vendors long before BANT criteria all comes together.

BANT shouldn't be the marker for when you engage, it should be the marker for when you engage differently. Your behavior as a company may change to align with the timing and budget, but you should be engaged with them before it gets to that stage if you are looking at a large opportunity. Buyer behavior has defined that requirement as they clearly are willing and want to talk with vendors early. If you wait too long, you are already entering an environment where you are displaced by relationships your competitors have already forged.

By looking at opportunities as being "engagement-ready" builds a stronger pipeline and will achieve greater revenue. Buyer behavior is a critical consideration of an engagement-ready opportunity in large enterprise sales. If a company is at an early stage of a project and they want to talk to you now, then you are investing in their eagerly maintaining the relationship all the way to getting the business!

Engagement 101

2011-09-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

All marketing and sales teams look for the silver bullet to get prospects to talk to them. It is the subject of countless blogs, articles, and LinkedIn Groups. Is there something everyone is missing? Is there a blind spot reps and marketers have that will solve this?

The answer isnt a secret—it’s just factoring “real life” into the picture. It isn’t a certain phrase or time of day or trick to get prospectsto agree to listen, it is just being a peer. Peers understand how to connect with their peers. Approaching a conversation with understanding makes all the difference.

Your prospects get up to 20 calls a day from vendors, not to mention dealing with their internal teams and many responsibilities they have. Demands on their time and attention is constant. A vendor call is the first thing to fall off their radar; a vendor call is the very lowest priority on their list. Keeping that in mind helps reps adapt to their selling environment. It isn’t that there is no opportunity, even an active one—just initiating a discussion about something new isn’t something everything will stop for.

A way to illustrate this principle, let’s say a reporter has a very exclusive interview with a very hard to reach individual—getting this interview will advance their credibility and their career, and the individual told the reporter “okay you can talk to me on my morning run, but I won’t stop running—but if you can keep up I’ll talk.” Does the reporter say “no, I will call you once and you call me later that day--that is how I normally do this.” The opportunity will have come and gone before that happens and the story becomes old news, and likely another reporter will hacve got the story. A smart reporter will take the opportunity on the interviewee’s terms, put on some running shoes and get out there and get their story. Adapt to the environment.

Reps have their proverbial running shoes they need to put on, and that is persistence and agility. Your prospects are running all day, and you have to run alongside them to connect. They will talk to you but it’s on their terms. Even sales ready leads out of automation platforms need reps to adapt when it comes to the actual discussion. This takes it to the next level and offers up new challenges. What are your prospects terms?

1. You have to keep trying to catch me, I am busy and have a lot going on.

2. Vendors are low priority until I make a connection and see the value.

3. Don’t waste my time with trying to schedule a meeting before I know if there’s an opportunity, you got me on the phone—tell me something that keeps me interested.

But what if you say “They should call me back—I sent them an email and left them a voicemail.” You can certainly take that position, and reps do that every day. And their prospects still don’t call back and they are buying from competitors all the time. It creates a vicious circle of no one getting what they need; the prospect still has a requirement and the rep still doesn’t connect.

Staying at the speed your prospects are at is the single most important change you can make to your outreach effort—don’t wait for a call back.

Happy Selling!

What Social Media Brings to Cold Calling

2011-03-09T10:33:00.000-08:00

The Sales 2.0 Conference this last week drove home excellent points for sales reps and managers alike about utilizing social media in the selling process. One of the data points discussed was from CSO Insights recent study how 92% of sales teams have raised quotas in 2011. One of the ways reps can meet the challenge is to better utilize the available data in social media sites to develop and maintain more active opportunities.

It's interesting most companies use social media as part of their overall marketing strategy with Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. But sales organizations often utilize (or not) social media quite differently as an internal resource. Some sales teams are still struggling to find contacts in accounts or don't know how to leverage free data out on the web to help them access and understand their prospects.

It is even still frowned upon in some sales teams to spend time on social media sites researching prospects. The thing to realize is social media has a multi-faceted application, both business and personal, and if sales organizations don't know the value for B2B, the positive impact can be hidden. Also, unless a rep understands what they are looking for, they can spend time looking in the wrong places. Some companies have invested in sales intelligence sites such as InsideView which is a great investment for teams to have access to all relevant information on social media sites, the web, and available sales intelligence on companies/prospects.

Two areas contribute to success in researching prospects:

1. Understanding HOW to use social media sites for B2B research

2. Knowing what information lives in which sites.

Here is a starter model any B2B rep can use.

Look up prospects on LinkedIn before you call them for the first time. You will learn something about their role, their history, their "brand." You may have contacts and groups in common and discover you aren't so out of their circle of contacts as you may have thought.

Also look up the company profile on LinkedIn, understand their offers and how they communicate to the world. You don't have to read everything you find, just get a feel for who they are. It also helps reps understand what is important to organizations. For example, if they have a "green" initiative, how can you speak to that? Like an individual profile, it is also a centralized point of info for other things such as press releases.

It is also important to know what not to research that may be a time waster. No need to spend large amounts of time finding your prospects' personal interests on Facebook, view photo galleries, personal tweets, or anything that has no bearing on your interaction. Doing that much of a deep dive takes time that impacts productivity. Most people monitor their privacy settings and don't make everything available, but more isn't better in terms of research.

Your prospects will appreciate you have done your research and it will help you mold your discussion to the right topics.

If companies see the value in leveraging social media for prospect information and build a best practice for using it, they will definitely achieve positive impact on their pipeline and productivity!

Happy Selling!

Impact of Marketing Automation, CEO's from Marketo and Eloqua at Dreamforce

2010-12-22T13:38:00.000-08:00

Marketers have become much more bottom-line oriented over the last several years with great success. In the enterprise selling environment though, there are still some core challenges. A few of the big ones are providing long-term reporting on programs, maximum utilization and coverage of leads, and how to track revenue.

Back in 2008, the CMO Council released a report that stated over 45% of B2B marketers were unable to measure the return of their programs--it's a real multi-dimensional challenge since sales cycles can exceed 12 months or more in enterprise sales environments.

Understanding the potential impact within YOUR organization will help map out objectives and create a reasonable roadmap to implement the many features and see long-term results. Over the last couple of years, our clients that are using automation platforms along with our own reporting have been able to see the huge impact their telemarketing programs alone make--so we are a big fan of the visibility analytics and reporting provide.

At Dreamforce this year, marketing automation was a hot topic. Below are a couple of great interviews with Marketo's CEO Phil Fernandez, and Eloqua's Joe Payne. The interview, conducted by Marketing Automation Software Guide, discusses many topics, some of the highlights are marked below.

Phil Fernandez, Marketo:

1:13 Revenue Performance Management helps companies generate more revenue
1:40 The way marketing and sales have worked in the past has changed completely, Buyer 2.0
2:50 Revenue Performance Management is about helping sales be more effective

Joe Payne, Eloqua:

0:55 How marketing automation ties sales and marketing together
2:23 How marketing automation affects the funnel
7:27 Marketing is key to driving revenue

8:07 The process of selling has to change

13:44 The importance of revenue to CEO's

2011 will be here in a SNAP

2010-11-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

I don't usually do book reviews, but I read one lately I just had to comment on! Before I do, I want to comment on why this is the book that stands out to me.

Over the last 20 years, I have personally witnessed the change in the sales landscape. The changes happened more rapidly as we became more technology-enabled multi taskers. The last 2 years has seen even more change as our prospects are more loaded with tasks and demands on their time than ever with less resources to get it done. This impacted buyer behavior significantly. Relationships became less reciprocal, prospects are less responsive, and less accessible. But rest assured, they are still buying...you just have to work harder for it now, and not just harder but different. Doing more of the same isn't true in this case, you have to adapt.

Jill Konrath has the formula with SNAP Selling. She is right on with how prospects are perceiving you, and how to adapt to the environment of today's prospects. It's important to understand your prospect and what their world is like to reach them. She has it all covered, and it will definitely help reps to sharpen up their approach and make sure things don't break down in the sales process.

Sales teams that implement her methodology will see more success all around, with new and existing customers, with their lead generation ROI, and seeing more leads progress more effectively through the pipeline.

I highly recommend this as a must-read for sales teams.

Great job Jill!

Sales 2.0 in 2010

2010-03-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

The Sales 2.0 Conference this week was a huge success! Being a sponsor for the third year, we can see the impact of Sales 2.0 in a number of ways:

1. Attendance went from just over 100 back in 2007 to over 500 this year. Executives clearly see they need to modernize their sales operations and are seeking out the right way to model their sales and marketing operations.

2. What were more conceptual models in 2007 are now in use with real ROI numbers to support them. Companies like VMware, Blue Coat, Appriro, ShoreTel, and Intuit were all there with incredible success stories.

3. Sales 2.0 was a "nice to have" a few years back, but now with 1.0 sales models causing revenue loss, sales and marketing executives have to abandon practices that keep them behind their competition.

4. It isn't just about automation. It is a deliberate architecture of technology, training, communication, and interdepartmental processes that make a Sales 2.0 organization work.

5. The companies that add value have survived the recent lean times and now have the use models to share. Marketo, Jigsaw, Oracle, Hoovers, Salesforce, and many others bring enormous value with time tested solutions.

We have had numerous companies reach out to us since the conference looking for Sales 2.0 models for their organizations. We are so excited to see so many organizations ready to step up to the challenge and get in the front of the pack.

It's clear that Sales 2.0 isn't just a concept anymore.

The Greatness of Nurturing + Telemarketing

2010-02-02T10:54:00.000-08:00

The below post is courtesy of Sheila Baker, Principle of Opine Consulting

The Greatness of Nurturing + Telemarketing

I’ve now had the experience of running email nurturing programs for over five years with multiple high tech companies. An effective nurturing program regularly touches leads with quality content. With the proper mix and tone in the emails, you can build your brand, be perceived as a market leader and educate so your solution is top-of-mind to potential customers.

The question with nurturing is, how do you know when a lead is ready? All of the major marketing automation products (Marketo, Eloqua, Vtrenz/Silverpop, eTrigue, etc.) include lead scoring as part of the process. In theory, it’s all automated so as the lead responds (or not) to your emails and hits your website, you can track what they do, allocate positive and negative increments to their score and then out the other end pops a fully qualified lead.

For complex technology sales, forwarding a lead directly to your sales team when that magic score is reached without some additional human touch may not be the best way to go. Finding out whether it really is the right time for sales to engage can be extremely important. And yes, there is certainly much that can be done through low-touch marketing programs, but having humans with intelligence to work an account before there’s an active sales cycle can make the difference in longer term success. You may be turning over fewer leads but they are the ones that sales will eagerly engage with.

The Vanella Group, Inc. uses a direct B2B telemarketing formula that reaches out and touches potential leads through cold calling and recycled lead follow-up. The result provides a multi-dimensional understanding of the account with greater depth and sales intelligence. Leads are only turned over to sales when they are in an active buy cycle. Doing both the outbound telemarketing to gain real intelligence and the automated nurturing to educate over a period of time provides for major efficiency in the processes and greater coverage of the market.

The bottom line? Use the greatness of nurturing and telemarketing together to deliver real opportunities to your sales team.

Put Your Best Foot Forward

2010-01-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

The importance of first impressions is undisputed. Whether it’s a job interview, a new boss, a new acquaintance, a new client, the list goes on—and on a cold call the principle applies to an even higher degree because you only have your voice to make the impression.

The impression that first call gives will stick with the prospect and set the tone for building the relationship. That being said, why would companies want to put the least skilled, lowest paid, less knowledgeable people on cold calls to new prospects?

Companies invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into building their direct sales team. Harvard Business Review published a study that revealed companies value presentation skill as one of the top 3 desired abilities for sales reps. But so many times those same companies will put the weakest link in front to introduce the company. That same quality of presence the direct team has needs to be on the initial call as well for the biggest impact. Choosing low cost providers that deliver volume or low cost services vs. quality can do more damage in the long run.

Using high level resources to introduce your solution allows you to reason through any misconceptions the prospect has, understand requirements, establish trust, and bridge effectively an opportunity out to your direct team.

I have mentioned in the past, it isn’t that prospects don’t want to take cold calls; they don’t want to take a bad call that isn’t a good use of their time.

Putting your best foot forward will pay off throughout the relationship you build with prospects.

Screening Sales Leads for More Productive Reps

2009-10-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

The below blog post is courtesy of Maria Ross, President of Red Slice. You can reach Maria at maria@red-slice.com and check out her blog here.

Screening Sales Leads for More Productive Reps

Let me put my B2B marketing hat on here. I recently chimed in on a Linked In discussion about leveraging outside firms or inside sales teams to help set appointments/screen leads for experienced sales reps. I have used both methods to great success - and a few failures - and want to share them with you. Some of this could apply if you sell consumer products via direct sales reps as well.Many account execs these days have moved from a strict "feature-function-benefit" sale to a more "customer-centric selling" technique. This used to be called "solution selling" and there is a great book on this topic if you want to learn more. For those of you not familiar with this from enterprise software, this means that the rep acts more like a consultant and detective and less like a "hard sale" pusher - they take the time to get to know the person's business, ferret out their pain points, find ways to measure value and then build a solution/package that meets the person's needs. They have strategic business-level conversations, rather than getting down in the weeds on features and functions. This is a much more collaborative and consultative relationship that can yield future sales down the line, since the client sees you as a partner.

Many firms with dedicated, "high-touch" sales reps sometimes hire outside firms to either telemarket for leads or screen incoming leads for real opportunities. This allows the account execs to focus more on relationships, building value, strategic partnering and business solutions - rather than cold calling and wasting their time with "tire kickers' who will never buy.I've used both external firms and inside sales teams for this function. Aaron Ross is a great consultant who built a top-notch Inside Sales team at Salesforce.com and now helps organizations refine their sales processes to get results. I've worked with him in the past and he's great. Vanella Group is also a wonderful prospecting firm full of professionals who used to be big whig sales execs and know how to find real opportunities (she doesn't use people right out of college to do this kind of prospecting and screening).

Here's what I have learned are the keys to making it work:

1) Have buy in from Sales leadership: The key factor is aligning with sales and ensuring the Sales VP is on board, has a say in the selection of the firm/new hire, helps define which leads are "appt worthy" and actively enforces good follow-up behavior among his/her reps. If the Sales leader is not on board and enforcing the process but its all coming from marketing, you're dead in the water.

2) Nail Down a Clear Process: Sales needs to be well-informed about the initiative, know what the next steps need to be and how the whole process will be measured. Create a clear appointment-sales-rep handoff process so nothing falls through the cracks (put your operations hat on, create a process flow with decision points for all parties and ensure all reps know and agree)

3) Track and Measure. We had appointment setters who could enter the lead directly into our salesforce.com (SFDC) sales and marketing automation system. If a rep did not follow up or take the appt, we knew exactly when and who and could call them out. We also could track leads through to the sale from this initiative by using SFDC's analytics.

4) Agree on What Makes a Qualified Lead: Ensure the definitions of a "qualified lead" worthy of an appointment are clearly understood and agreed to between marketing and sales so no one wastes time or money. This misunderstanding is one of the biggest reasons such initiatives fail. Have clear criteria for both sides on what makes a lead appointment-worthy. For example, we had company size, level of the person, if they were going to spend on a solution within 6 months, etc. as part of this criteria.

5) Maintain Accountability: Track all your activity to generate the lead and appt, so that if sales drops the baton, misses the appointment or doesn't dollow up, you can know this and can remedy it quckly.

6) Make a Superstar That Others Will Follow: Celebrate success by enlisting the help of a well-respected, successful rep to "try the system out" and when he/she gets a win, promote it broadly. Reps will only spend time doing things that they know for a fact will yield commissions.

7) Put Communication Channels in Place: Ensure you have a process in place for the outside firm to make the appt and the rep to KEEP the appt. I've seen outside firms make appts and not clearly communicate time, date, etc to the rep (or not know which rep to send it to). There needs to be a mechanism to quickly check the rep's availability so the prospect is not left hanging. I allowed my outside firm to send emails directly to my reps, even though they would put the lead in the system, just to ensure the appt was kept.

8) You Need More than People Who Can Dial a Phone: You need experienced sales reps who can listen, overcome objections and ferret out opportunities and pain points. They need to know what to listen for, how to ask probing questions and how to get past gatekeepers and talk about value. Again, Vanella Group does a great job with this.

Don't Let BANT Downgrade Good Leads

2009-02-25T19:48:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-11-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

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:

You know how to speak to their requirements effectively.
You develop a relationship with the prospect, people still buy stuff from people they like.
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.
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.
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

2008-10-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
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.
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

2008-10-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

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?

Admit they are outdated methods.
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.
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.
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.
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!