“You can yell all you want!”

When the internet started to really catch on 10 yrs ago there was lots of excitement among sales and marketing professionals. All they used to do to make a living is yell at complete strangers all day and hope that someone would hear us and send us money. If you yelled at enough strangers someone would eventually buy your product, right?  

Then the internet came along and we all thought, “Great! Now we can yell even more.” Have a website and you can yell all day, and night. Except, the internet would prove to be the worst medium for yelling at people. People can ignore you much easier. “You can yell all you want, but unless I give you permission I won’t hear you.”  

What’s more is that if people like what they hear or see, they will go and tell all their friends about it, too. Do a search for “iPod” and see the number of pages talking about the iPod that were mostly created by people other than Apple. Isn’t that great?

But like all things, with this opportunity comes a threat as well. When customers are looking for you, how can you make sure that what they find is what you want them to find? This brings us to Search Engine Reputation Management. In my next post I will offer some insights on how to improve your results in search engines.

Cold Calling is Planting Seeds

Another great piece of advice from the Sales Academy, a Canadian blog by Shane Gibson. There he states that the cold call isn’t dead; it’s just grown up and has become more sophisticated. Today’s executive is busier than ever. E-mail inboxes are overflowing with messages. They’re overbooked, and getting pitched on the phone, fax and every communications tool imaginable.How do we get above the noise, and enter the prospects world with a different positioning than “another pitch artist telemarketer?” And cold calling is an art. Everything from tonality, and time of day to pre-call research and how you handle their first question is critical. Most cold call strategies focus on volume almost exclusively; focus on value and people instead.  Shane offers his advise to warm up your call:

1) Talk to the right person

This seems like its so common sense that I shouldn’t even mention it. It feels good to make a whole bunch of calls sometimes; but if they’re to non-decision makers just realize you’re just doing it for your own entertainment and self delusional reasons. It only looks good on your call sheet in month one. Instead, spend your time researching and finding real decision makers. Spend the time networking with people that connect you with, or at least, inform you about decision makers. Spend it servicing existing clients. Or just go and read a book. Non-decision makers drain our energy, and time. So stop calling non-decision makers!

2) Ask Permission

When your prospect answers the phone, introduce yourself briefly and then ask them if you’ve caught them in the middle of something. More often then not they’ll make the time for you right away or give you a time to talk to them later. The alternative is to launch immediately into a sales monologue where your prospect says hello. This usually results in them checking their e-mail and their watch until you stop to take a breath. When you stop to breath they politely interject and request that you send something by post or e-mail or more directly tell you they’re not interested. The reason? You forgot to ask permission.

3) Delete in advance

Prospects have a tendency to delete cliché’s when we call them. I once had a senior executive for a fortune 500 company tell me “If I have one more person call me and tell me they’re going to save me time and money I’m going to lose it.” Sales people, especially those selling in the same industry or region tend to use the same jargon and value proposition, often laden with useless terms and acronyms that prospects don’t care for anyway. We say we provide a “value-added”- “end to end” -“scalable” telecommunications solution, and that we have a “customer centric philosophy.” And all they hear is that we’re in “Telecommunications.” Get rid of the jargon, resist the temptation to pull buzz words off competitors web-sites or from the latest flavor of the month business book. Simplify, differentiate, hire a writer to help you expand your corporate vocabulary if need be.

4) Get into the long-term mind-set

In reference to point number 2, when we ask for permission to chat with them our real goal is not to close them in most cases. Our goal is to set the stage and begin the development of the relationship. Cold-calling is planting seeds, not harvesting a database. Close them, but not on the deal, on the next step and then get off the phone sooner than later.

5) Use a rifle not a shotgun

Simply put; know who wants and uses your stuff. Break down a set of criteria that can define your ideal client industries, regions, and behaviors. Know their core pains, history, needs, names, details, trends etc. before picking up the phone. Become an authority on your ideal customer. Use that information to find more ideal candidates and spend 80% of your time, energy, money, ability, and reputation calling those types of clients.

6) Know why

Before picking up the phone figure out why you are calling, from the clients perspective. Ask the question what benefit, insight, or value can I legitimately bring to this prospect today? If it’s just to flog products or services; don’t pick up the phone. Know why it’s important to them and what it can do for them. It can be anything from solving a critical business problem to just making them laugh. Remember, the more value you add today to the relationship the more receptive they will be to answering our call tomorrow. Again great information Shane! It may seem pretty basic to most seasoned sales professionals, but so is ‘Do-Re-Mi’ - still a daily practice for those seasoned opera singers.  

Shane Gibson is President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd, and can be reached at shane@kbitraining.com or 604-331-4471.