Batten down the hatches!—Is there a better strategy?

By Michael Caron   

It’s hard to catch the news on the radio, TV or the web without being exposed to the disturbing economy. Another company laying off; investments plummeting; housing slumping. In the sales world, we have our own unique set of problems brought on by the worst recession in over 3 decades—dropping margins, sinking closing rates, customers not calling us back. What can we do? As sales leaders we clearly have two primary paths to choose from: 1) Wait for the economy to recover (and it will!) or 2) Increase our sales efficiency to help compensate for the downturn. Naturally, option 2 is preferable so the next question becomes “How?”

World famous business author, Tom Peters, has this to say about running a business in this time of disarray:

“Instant, mindless cutting of R&D or training or salesforce travel in the face of a downturn is often counterproductive-or, rather, downright stupid. Tough times are in fact golden opportunities to get the drop, and the longterm drop at that, on those who respond to bad news by panicky across-the-board slash and burn tactics and moves that de-motivate and alienate the workforce at exactly the wrong moment.”

The natural tendency of sales leaders is to “hunker down” and ride out the storm with their existing team and maybe even make some cuts. This leads to predictable bleeding and casualties.

A smarter, more profitable strategy is to invest in your team through creativity and skills development. Because the last recession was over a decade ago, many companies have some salespeople who have never sold in anything but “good times” and lack the skills to weather some rough water. In today’s environment, the number one priority is to connect better than ever to your existing customers. Get to understand their challenges and ensure that your sales force is very well trained in a consultative selling approach—that is, all focus should be on providing solutions to help the customer meet their specific challenges.

Sales leaders must think about their organization on the other side of the economic downturn. If you can equip your team with sharper skills so that they prospect better, use their time more carefully and close stronger, not only will it stack the odds in your favour in the short run but also pay heavy dividends once the storm has cleared. Sales leaders with foresight will also look to this period to recruit sales talent who might have been untouchable or unaffordable in high times.

We are all powerless to change the economy. How we react and focusing on what we can change will separate the sales leading organizations from ones that languish.

Prospect every day. Block some time in your calendar daily and devote it exclusively to making introductory calls to uncover new leads. Generally, you ought to be able to make 10-15 calls per hour on the phone and 5-7 per hour in person. If your personal goals require that you make 25 calls daily to hit your revenue objectives, it means you need to set aside two hours every day. A recent study by M.I.T. shows that the best time to make calls to prospects is at the beginning and at the end of the day but I recommend starting by blocking this time for first thing in the morning. That's when you're at your sharpest, and are least likely to have other issues or tasks competing for your time.

Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese (Part 2)

By Michael Caron   

Last time, we discussed part one of a strategy for connecting to high level decision makers, or who we affectionately call, Mr. Big Cheese.  In this section, we’ll pick up at the point where Mr. Big Cheese has received your carefully written, benefits-oriented letter and you’re ready to make the phone call on precisely the date and time you promised in the letter.

Making the call

You are probably a little nervous and that’s good as it keeps you on your toes.  When you call, one of two things will happen: you will be put through to Mr. Big Cheese live or you will reach his voicemail.  We will cover what to do in each case.  Before you get put through to Mr. Big Cheese, however, you may be faced with a gatekeeper.  Because of your letter which clearly stated that you would be calling at this precise time, you can honestly and confidently state to the gatekeeper that Mr. Big Cheese is expecting your call.

He answered.  What now?

If you do get through to Mr. Big Cheese, what next?  At this point, say something like, “Mr. Big Cheese?  It’s Michael calling from Northbound Learning.  Is this a bad time?”  If there’s one area that I receive push back on when teaching the Mr. Big Cheese program to salespeople, it’s the use of the question “Is this a bad time”.  People say, “Why would you ask that?  That’s giving them a perfect opportunity to say ‘Yes, it’s a bad time!’”  The fact is that in the life of a busy executive, any sales call that takes them away from their endless to-do list is probably a bad time.  That being said, asking them if it’s a bad time shows consideration for their time and most often, invokes a positive response.  In my own personal experience and the experience of Northbound clients, you will usually be met with something like, “No, it’s OK but try to be quick” or “It depends. What is this about?”.  Frequently, the question will produce a chuckle from the prospect with something like, “It’s always a bad time but go ahead!”  Try it and I know you will be surprised with how well it works.  Follow this up with “Thanks.  I’ll try to be brief,” which also shows respect for Mr. Cheese’s valuable time.

Aim for a two-way conversation

Once you’ve received permission to have some of Mr. Cheese’s time, you’re ready to get to the core of the matter.  Your goal is to get Mr. Big Cheese talking and have a two-way conversation.  Roll into something like, “I’m following up on the letter that I sent you last week.  Did you receive it?”  If they say that they did receive it, you simply ask, “What did you think?”  And then shut up, which is incredibly challenging for most salespeople as we are all programmed to talk endlessly.  I know this might be completely counter to what many of you have been taught in error over the years.  Most less effective sales professionals spend their time telling, telling and telling instead of asking and then selling.  Let the prospect explain fully what their thoughts are and go from there.

Remember, that your goal is to move Mr. Big Cheese to the next reasonable stage in your sales funnel, such as agreeing to a meeting or a demo.  Except in the case of very low transaction size sales, you goal is not to make the sale on this first call.

If Mr. Big Cheese hasn’t received the letter (or has it sitting in his in-box), don’t waste this opportunity to speak with him.  You can say something like, “Oh, that’s strange.  That’s OK though.  It states that we’ve had a lot of success in . . .  “ and give him your carefully rehearsed 15-20 opening statement.  Your opening statement should be natural, relaxed and friendly—similar to the way you would talk to a friend without being too casual.  Use the time to convey strong business reasons why he should want to continue the conversation with you.

In an upcoming post, we’ll cover what to do if you receive voicemail, which, in today’s digital world, will be over 75% of the time. We’ll discuss proven techniques to get Mr. Big Cheese to call you back.

Northbound Learning provides sales training and consulting to companies who want to improve their sales performance. The complete Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese is a one day customized, in-house program that will dramatically increase your prospecting results. Click Click here for a list of other Northbound programs.

Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese (Part 1)

By Michael Caron   

When determining an entry point when selling into an organization, it’s always better to start high and be “pushed down” than to start at a lower level and claw your way up to the ultimate decision maker. But how do you get your message through to, what we at Northbound Learning call, “Mr. Big Cheese”? Note: We call him Mr. Big Cheese but of course it could be Ms. Big Cheese as well!

Do you currently, or in the past, mostly rely on relentless cold calls placed at off times of the day, hoping to catch Mr. Big Cheese off guard on the other end of the phone? This technique often brings poor results. Why? Because it’s very time consuming and if or when you do reach Mr. Big Cheese, he is irritated by being interrupted with an unscheduled sales call that he considers to be a waste of his time. Further, it’s only you and your voice who have a few precious seconds to convince Mr. Big Cheese that he should give you a larger share of his valuable time. That’s quite a challenge.

Mr. Big Cheese hates to be interrupted—use this technique to prevent you from annoying your important decision maker.

We recommend (and use ourselves) a step-by-step process to connect to Mr. Big Cheese that is very different than the traditional cold call. In general, it goes like this:

A letter is mailed to Mr. Big Cheese in a plain white envelope without your company name and logo on it but rather just your name and address. In this day and age where e-mail is the way of communicating, why send a snail mail letter? Two reasons - one is that e-mail is too hard to deliver and far easier to delete and two, snail mail gets noticed because it is rare these days. The writing of this letter is worthy of an entire issue of North of Target so suffice to say at this stage, that it needs to be powerful, benefits oriented and concise. In the Mr. Big Cheese letter, you give him two options on the call to action. If he prefers, he can e-mail or send in the attached fax form to invite a call from you at a specific time and day or he can simply wait for your call at the precise date and time that you’ve noted in the letter. For instance, it might say, “I will call you at 9:15 on Thursday morning to organize some time to talk. If you will not be in at this time or you would prefer another time, could you kindly contact me with a better time?”

Is is considered interruptive to call Mr. Big Cheese at the time in the marketing letter? No way. You’ve told him when you were calling and gave an opportunity for him to change it.

One of our clients has recently used this technique to great results. This company sells enterprise software solutions and has been targeting large US universities. On the very first batch of 8 letters from one salesperson, they received two positive replies back even before the salesperson was scheduled to call them! With one of the universities, the salesperson was told that they have to go through a vendor application process which would take weeks even before they were allowed to call anyone. Instead, a Mr. Big Cheese letter was mailed out to the CIO and he e-mailed the salesperson with the name of the person in his department to contact right away. Try it. It works!

There is a technique for what we call the “Chase Calls” which take place at this stage that we will cover in the next issue.

Northbound Learning provides sales training and consulting to companies who want to improve their sales performance. The complete Connecting to Mr. Big Cheese is a one day customized, in-house program that will dramatically increase your prospecting results. Click here for a list of other Northbound programs.