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Another thought on the cumulative effect of prospecting.

March 25th, 2009 by Barry Caponi

 

They say that numbers can be made to support just about any position. They say figures lie and liars figure. But here’s a set of numbers you should pay attention to. They are statistics about how often we sales reps follow up.
 
In my last blog, I gave you an example of the cumulative value of prospecting and how a ‘Dialogue Bond’ develops over time with a suspect that has yet to grant us an appointment. It’s a simple case of being persistent about following up, applying the appropriate ‘Art’ professionally on each call which allows us to qualify a little more on each call, and having an enabling technology that allows us to do so efficiently. (Don’t let those follow up calls fall through the cracks – they’re more valuable than we think.) Here’s some sales ‘statistics’ to back that up:
 
·         48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
·         25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
·         12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop
·         Only 10% of sales people make more than three attempts
 
And
 
·         2% of sales are made on the first contact
·         3%of sales are made on the second contact
·         5% of sales are made on the third contact
·         10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
·         80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
 
What makes us think that a first call to someone else will be more effective than a subsequent call to someone we’ve tried before? We must have a plan (we call them Ideal Pursuit Plans). How many times will we attempt to reach someone, how often will we make those attempts and then what kind of time period will we allow to elapse before putting them through another cycle. The activity itself (the planning, the calling, the recording, reporting, etc.) can be time consuming and fraught with opportunities for us to lose track of our progress, follow-up timelines. 
 
If you haven’t thought this through, I encourage you to do so. We’ve even got a free Activity Calculator that will help you do so. We’ve also a tool called Klpz that will double or better your productivity on the phone. 
 
Call us if we can help!

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An example of the cumulative effect of prospecting.

March 23rd, 2009 by Barry Caponi

 

Be in it for the long run. Have a well defined cycle for calling and stick with it because appointment making has a cumulative affect over time.
 
Back in November of ’07 I wrote four blogs about the cumulative effect of prospecting. Let me tell you a little story that just happened to me last week that illustrates this.
 
When I do not get an appointment (and unless I believe the suspect will never be a prospect), I always ask if it’s okay if I call back again in six months to see if anything has changed. Never had a single person say no to that. 
 
This past week, I called a sales manager that I have been calling for four years, every six months (my Klpz appointment setting tool shows 32 steps during that time – that’s only four a year, by the way). As a matter of fact, when I introduced myself, you would have thought I was talking to an old friend. That’s an example of what I call the Dialogue Bond. (See January 30, 2008 blog.) We had a ‘how you doing’ or ‘how you doin’ (for my New Jersey friends) type conversation just like friends would prior to him starting the business portion of the call with, “I’m glad you called. Things have changed and I need you.”
 
Worse case, I interject some of these follow-up calls into my regular cold calling and it certainly doesn’t hurt the confidence level to listen to a voice that is open to the conversation. 
 
For more information on this topic, check out my blogs of November, 2007 (there are four of them) and January 30, 2008 (always disengage professionally).

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Continuously finding new names of targets to call.

March 11th, 2009 by Barry Caponi

 

One of the most critical tasks we face if we are responsible for finding the targets and then setting our own appointments is the continuous challenge of finding the names to call. It is a never ending task as targets are continuously removed from the calling list because we determine they are non-qualified or they buy from us.
 
There are three sources for the names that become Initial Meetings; lead generation programs (usually done by marketing), referrals and/or networking and good old fashioned cold calling. In two of the three, coming up with the ‘list’ to use is key. 
 
We all know about list brokers, Jigsaw, Hoovers, InfoUSA, Sales Genie, etc. But here’s one most of us miss.
 
Google and the other search engines have a concept called ‘alerts’. We define the search criteria and then the search engine reports back on some predetermined frequency we set. Our targets are looking to get publicity just like we are so their name will show up wrapped in something that will help us qualify them. 
 

One caveat, it does take some trial and error to get the search criteria honed. Don’t give up if the first attempt either gets you a million hits or none. Keep playing with it until it works! It is well worth the effort. 

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The tone of our voice is more important than the content of our message.

March 4th, 2009 by Barry Caponi

 

Many times we run into sales reps that are insistent on getting their message ‘perfect’ before making any calls at all. We disagree.
 
UCLA did a study a number of years ago called the Law of Effective Communications. They found there are three components to effective communications:
 
•            55% – non verbal
•            38% – tonality
•            7% – content
 
On a phone call, non-verbal communications (facial expressions, body language, etc.) is non-existent. The next most effective component is our tonality. Content is a very small component, although it’s got to be there.
 
That means we need to have internalized our scripts so that we can concentrate on how we deliver the content. Be upbeat, professional, and passionate. If we believe in what we sell, we need to make sure that comes across in our voice.
 
We’ll get appointments based on our belief if that comes through on the phone! Try it. You’ll like the results!

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