Sales Chump

At first glance this question seems kind of silly.  But really think about this.  How many times do you get a return call from a voice mail you leave?  What percentage are you getting?  Do you find most times you have to call and catch the prospect next time on the phone?

Chances are if you’re being honest, your % of returned calls from voice mails are low.  If they’re not, then this isn’t necessarily for you and you should share your tips.  When I first started in sales, my ratio of returned calls from voice mails or messages left with the gatekeeper or assistant was probably 1 out of 25.  I thought it should be higher so I listened to old calls (luckily my company records calls).

I listened to them as if I was the prospect.  Few things I found:

1. My messages were rather long and I found myself fast forwarding (which means they were probably deleted)
2. My messages were vague or gave too much info
3. My messages weren’t personal enough

I saw most of my messages were around 45 to 90 seconds which is long for a voice mail.  When talking live with a prospect you don’t have that long to talk to gain interest.  A message is even harder because they can delete it without feeling like they’re being rude.  If I wouldn’t even listen to the full messages, why should I expect someone else too?  Most of you are saying “duh” right now but this was when I was brand new.  I found 30 seconds is the max time you want to have.

I also saw I was inconsistent with my message.  I was either very vague and didn’t give enough info to get the person interested enough to call me back or I gave too much info where they didn’t need to call me back.  You want to find a balance that gives them just enough info to get them interested but not your whole pitch to where they feel calling would serve no benefit.  Also giving too much info without knowing your prospects needs can be harmful.

My early messages were also very impersonal.  It sounded like I left the same message 100’s times before and that I didn’t expect a response.  This seems crazy but if your message portrays that people would be missing out if they didn’t call you and that you have gotten responses before, they are more likely to call you back.  There’s a subconcious tone that you give that people pick up on.  If you walked around with a dollar bill in your hand with your head down mumbling asking if someone wanted a dollar you would be surprised at how many people wouldn’t accept it.

You want to make sure you mention your name, company, what it is you want to speak about and a number.  Make sure you describe a little about your services or products and give a benefit that speaking with you would give their company.  Otherwise if they don’t see why talking with you would help them, they won’t call you.  Using that format has moved my return calls into a 1 out of 4 or 5 range.  If you have their email, it’s always nice to mention you’ll follow up with an email as well.  Decision makers a lot of times find responding via email is easier as it doesn’t make them threatened or in a defensive mode as they can reply when they have time and they feel they can share true feelings rather than give false positives.

What if I’ve left several messages already?  This can be tricky but I’ve found showing a little frustration in your tone on your next voice mail while still being professional and respectful gets results.  You don’t want to do this on the first few because it will come off rude.  But if you’ve left 4 or 5 messages over a few months with no response it can be very effective if done right.  I like to use something like this:

Hi Mr Smith.  This is John Williams with ABC.  I’ve left you a few messages in the past and wanted to speak with you briefly.  I realize you’re busy and that this might not be a priority or it doesn’t make sense to talk right now but if you could find a minute to give me a call to tell me when it would make sense to speak about this, we can discuss further at that time.

What that message does is it shows that you care about their schedule and acknowledge you might not be calling at the right time.  But it also shows you are busy as well and that your time is valuable too.  This message has had over a 50% return for me when it gets to this point.

Hope those tips help you improve your return call rate.  Please feel free to chime in if you have a method that works well.

As we dive further into our FO’s (frequent objections) and after tackling the lack of a need existing objections or the knee jerk objections, we move on to the next set of objections likely to come up.  These objections you will run across will containe authority or responsibility issues.  They include but aren’t limited to:

• My boss isn’t going to authorize this
• I have to consult with…
• That’s not my area
• We have to use so and so
• That person isn’t here anymore

Most of them all group into one category and can all be handled the same way for the most part.  The biggest concern here if you’re getting some of these objections, you need to ask yourself: Why did I think this was the person who handles this?

Did you assume they handled this for the business?  Did you ask enough questions?  Chances are you assumed they handled and didn’t ask enough questions.  We want to try and not have these objections come up at all.  We can do this by asking the right questions at the right time.

I have to consult with… or My boss isn’t going to authorize this

All three of these mean you aren’t talking with the decision maker.  This could have been prevented by asking more questions in the beginning.  Don’t get me wrong… I work with large national accounts for big companies and run into this time to time regardless of how well I asked questions as some people will keep things hidden until it’s go time.  Nonetheless there are questions that you can ask before you get these objections that are much more effective before rather than after:

• Who else is involved in the decision making process?
• What do you think your boss would have a problem with?
• I understand you have to consult with other people and sometimes they will come up with some other questions, what time would be good to speak with all of the decision makers at the same time?
• Where do you see the other people involved getting hung up on this?

That’s not my area or That person isn’t here anymore

The “that’s not my area” and “that person isn’t here anymore” is simple.  You just need to figure out who you should talk to.  There are simple questions you can ask to get where you need to:

• My apologies, who’s area would that be?
• Who took over [person]’s position?

Those are simple enough and shouldn’t deter you away from proceeding.

We have to use so and so

This is a hard one.  Depending on the situation they might have to.  I have run into prospects that require you to do a ridiculous amount of advertising with them in order for them to use your services or they have a relationship with a competitor.  Use common sense and caution with these.  It can be tricky to not look cocky or arrogant with your response.

• When did you set up that kind of exclusive agreement? (chances are it’s not exclusive and this will open it up)
• What would allow you to be able to use someone else?

As you can see these questions answer why they have to use someone else without asking directly “why do you have to use them?”  That comes off rude a bit even if there’s no intention to be rude.

As in my other blog, don’t fear objections, welcome them.  Objections are good.  These are just a couple common objections or FO’s as I like to call them. Don’t give up on the first objection but use judgment.  There’s a difference between no and NO!.  Prospects have it in their gut reaction to reject you.  You have to fight through these false objections and work through them.

I’m not going to beat around the bush or try to make cold calls out to be better than they are… cold calling sucks.  There I said it.  I’m a sales rep and I hate to cold call.  How many of you enjoy it?  If more than 1 of 10 people said yes, I would say there’s something wrong.  It’s not that as sales people we don’t like making new contacts, it’s more of a psychological thing.

I know as a sales rep myself I fear rejection.  This is something I’ve worked out of my system and no longer fear it.  If you complete a good sales process, you will know whether or not a deal will go through.  But I digress from the point of this blog/rant…. cold calls suck.

While cold calling leads isn’t fun, sometimes we find ourselves having to do it to generate new prospects.  Referrals and being an “order taker” is nice but it doesn’t always work out that way.  At some point in your sales career you will cold call. While after a while you can use your customers to generate hot leads and give you referrals, a cold call at some point in time is going to be required.

For example, the other day one of my customers (which was a complete cold call right out of the phone book) referred another franchisee who owned several more locations.  While I get a lot of referral business now, my referrals all started from a cold call at some point when I look back at it.

So what is the point of this rant you ask? I’m getting there…

When you are cold calling, you most likely don’t have much information about the decision maker or the business.  You will find yourself having to work on bypassing the gatekeeper and various other things.  There are some things that can make your cold call easier:

1. Goal for Sales Call - Have a goal in mind for your cold call… what do you want to accomplish on this call?
2. Know the Business You’re Calling - Have an idea of what this business does and what is important to them.
3. They Aren’t Expecting Your Call - Remember they weren’t expecting your call today, that you are interrupting their day.

There are many other things that will help you on your cold call.  For me I have these goals in mind when making my first cold call to a lead:

1. Get Decision Maker name and email
2. How High of a Priority This Decision Is
3. Time to go further in depth about the product

While cold calls aren’t the best thing in the world.  Good things do come from them when the right approach is taken.  If you have to make cold calls, make sure you have clear goals laid out for the call, know the business you’re calling, and realize you are interrupting their day to talk to them.

As always, please chime in with tips that you may have for cold calls.

Selling around the holidays can be a hard proposition.  A lot of people ake off time during November and December and can be very hard to track down.  If you can get a hold your decision maker, other key people in their organization like legal, accounting or other executives may be out, and make you unable to get a deal done before January. 

So, what is the best approach to keep sales coming in even when prospects aren’t?  I like to work on smaller accounts, specifically mom and pop and owner/operator operations.  Why?  Because these small business owners usually never get a vacation.  Their bottom line and income depend on it.  They don’t have money to give to someone else or even the trust to let someone else run their company while they are out.  Because of this, they are still around even when your large commercial or key accounts are out on vacation.  Who knows, this could even lead to bigger things if they are a franchise or affiliated with another larger company.

If you don’t deal with smaller prospects, the holiday’s provide an excellent opportunity to get organized and build up your potential prospect list for the new year.  If you can get caught up, organized, spruce up your sales material and find good qualified leads, by the first of the year you can hit the ground running.  Many times you can still call a larger account and get someone on the line.  That person may be in a good mood due to the holiday’s and may be more likely to give you the decision makers name and extension or direct number.  Again, this will allow you to build up your potential prospect list for 2009. 

The worst thing to do is nothing.  Sales for the 4th quarter and the 1st quarter will reflect this time, for the good or bad.