Day after the Buzz

I got cold called yet again today and I felt sorry for the salesperson. There is a big belief in the sales industry out there about cold-calling techniques that is completely wrong.  That believe is that you need to emphasise your product with your elevator pitch. The truth though is that cold calling is about demonstrating that you have great potential to bring value to the person on the other end, show your knowledge and have a real conversation. Forget scripted robotic phone conversations, think friend to friend chats. Chats that are informal, relaxed and open. Here is how the call went today:

Salesman (robotic voice): “Hello Tim, my name is X I am calling from XYZ Company. We Specialise in A, B and C and I was wondering if you want to purchase XYZ services”

My heart goes out to this guy, we have all been there. I am going to suggest an alternate to this approach, lets call it a value based approach

The approach uses the structure: Establish Credibility, Pique Curiosity, Engage in Dialogue, Extend Discussion and Close Gently.

1. Establish Credibility

Cite the triggering event (why you called!) or Mention Research.  You could even demonstrate knowledge about their company or cite work you have done with a similar business. e.g:

Hello Tim. John calling from from JobBoard Company. I have been researching your company for several months now and noticed that you have a job advertised for a Sales Person for some time.  I have some ideas on how you can significantly increase the rate in which you fill that position.  Would you be open to discussing these?

2. Next, Pique Curiosity

Never mention your product, service or solution as this just sounds like a sales pitch.  People have very sensitive sales alarms.  You could talk abou the business results your previous customers have realised or bring up a critical issues and challenges that similar customers have.

“We have  helped companies similar to yours inprove their placement rates by up to 30%”

3. Then Engage in dialogue

This cannot be scripted, its an open chat.  Don’t ask setup questions! Any of these questions are good:

• Is this of concern to your organisation?
• Are you experiencing similar changes?
• Is this something you are interested in learning more about?
• What is your organisation doing to address these issues?
• Have you analysed the impact on your organisation?

4. Extend the Discussion

Now you can explore the decision makers answers in more depth and learn about what they have tried to do to solve the problem.  You can determine the priority status of the issue and learn why they may think what they think.  Note: Don’t get into a product dump discussion, sales alarms will go off!

5. Close Gently

Gently advance the sales process by saying something like:

“It sounds like what we do could potentially make a difference for your organisation. Lets set up a time to get together to explore this in more depth. Is their anyone else you think should be included in this meeting?”

Remember: Executives buy ideas, not products.  As in (for the job board example): Executives buy how you can fill their position faster, not an advertising spot on a job board.

Executives buy Value.