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How to handle the ‘I’m too busy’ response on a cold call. Part 1 of 2.

Barry Caponi — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:38:15 +0000

I was sitting at a business luncheon the other day and we were all telling each other at the table what we did for a living and I mentioned that I was a sales trainer with a focus on appointment setting. The young woman sitting next to me was in sales and she asked me for a ‘free’ tip.

After passing on the old line of “Don’t bet on the horses”, I asked her what objection she heard most often when calling for an appointment. (We call them Conditioned Responses because people generally use the same one all the time to get us pesky sales people off the phone.) She told me it was, “I don’t have time to talk right now”. I asked her how she handled that and she said that she politely asked what would be a good time for her to call back.

I told her before I would give her my approach; I wanted to know why she thought the person was being honest with her and that they really didn’t have time to talk. It stopped her dead in her tracks. She told me she never thought about it that way, so I asked her what she said when people cold called her. Was she always honest? She laughed and said she always said the same thing; “I’m in good shape on (whatever they were selling).”

“Always?” I asked.

“Pretty much” she answered.

“So what makes you believe everyone else doesn’t use their own favorite Conditioned Response just like you do?” Mine is the too busy to talk one she hears most often as well, by the way.

So here’s how I told her to handle it next time:

“Hey, I totally understand. As a matter of fact the only reason I called was to set an appointment. How is Tuesday at 2:00?” (Assuming that’s what you asked for the first time.) You’ll more than likely hear them ask you what you were calling about again because they really weren’t listening any more once they realized it was a sales call. They were trying to figure out which of their old stand by excuses would work the best on you – proving my point that it was a conditioned or knee jerk response.
Don’t believe it’s true until they tell you a second time – then it’s okay to ask when would be a good time to call back and take your chances. If you can though, pin them down to a specific day and time and call back at that time

Next week I’ll share with you how to handle the other flavor of ‘Too Busy’ – when they are tied up for some period of time, not just at the moment you called.

Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.

After an appointment is set on a cold call, what should be sent along with a confirmation email?

Barry Caponi — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:49:10 +0000

How can we subtly reconfirm the value of the meeting in a confirmation email?

Last week we addressed reducing the chance of being stood up after setting an Initial Appointment. One of the tips to reduce that risk we discussed was sending an email confirmation of the Initial Appointment along with three things:

1. The key reason for the meeting;

2. Our contact information in case the Target legitimately needs to reschedule, and;

3. A third party testimonial or credibility piece.

This week, I’m going to explore some ideas for that third party testimonial.

First let me address what not to send as we see this tendency all the time. Do not send a data sheet describing the solution. Why? Two reasons:

1. The Target most likely doesn’t believe they are ‘in the market’ yet, so we actually don’t want them to read it without us there. Doing so without us there to discus may very well lead to the decision that they don’t need to meet with us because they now have all the information they need, and;

2. They won’t read it most likely anyway.

Instead, we like to employ one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion, the Principle of Authority and Credibility (see my article published in March of 2007). Send something that was published by someone else (or at least said by someone else) that establishes our credibility and authority as an expert.

Cialdini believes (and so do I) that once in front of the Target, it comes across as braggadocios to ‘toot our own horn’ as the old expression goes. But it is actually appropriate to do so before we arrive.

So what are some examples? Industry awards, articles about us, and testimonials from customers are some great examples.

Three quick tips to decrease the chance of getting stood up after setting an Initial Appointment through a cold call.

Barry Caponi — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:43:29 +0000

Ever set an Initial Appointment on a cold call and then worried that the Target might not show? Ever actually been stood up?

Sell long enough and we all get stood up every once and a while after we’ve set an Initial Appointment. The cost of that in face-to-face selling can be very high, particularly when we’ve not got additional appointments in the area adjacent to the one we’re being stood up on. It’s one of the reasons we recommend sending a confirmation email after setting an appointment (see March 8, 2008 blog), as legitimate reasons for postponement do come up.

Yet there are some appointment making methodologies that suggest we should ‘just get the appointment’ and don’t worry about whether the Target is yet convinced of our value. We’ll take care of that once we get there is the thought. The problem with that mentality is that if the Target isn’t convinced that there is value in the investment of their time to see us, yet our slick techniques get them to agree to see us, buyer’s remorse sets in quickly after the Initial Appointment is set.

The Formula™ is built to reduce the risk of being stood up by providing a platform for the Target to ‘buy’ the value for the appointment on their own terms.

Here are three tips to reduce the risk of that happening.

1. Ask a good Bridge Question™ (see November 19, 2008 blog for definition) that gets the Target into a short, but open minded conversation which provides us with that platform to sell our value and qualify a bit.

2. When appropriate, and when the time comes to actually set the appointment, ask the question, “Do you have your calendar handy?” This technique takes advantage of one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s six principals of persuasion, Commitment and Consistency. (For a deeper explanation of this principle see my article published in April of 2007.)

3. If we’ve been able to get into that discussion that convinces the Target to ‘buy’ the meeting, we encourage asking for an email address to send a confirmation of the Initial Appointment. In that email, we can reiterate the key reason for the meeting, provide a third party testimonial of us or our solution if we’ve got any, and provide our contact information in case the meeting needs to be moved.

How to determine whether a Target might respond better to a cold call via email or phone.

Barry Caponi — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:50:17 +0000

In today’s world, a few decision makers respond better to email than to voicemail, but how do we figure out which ones?

First things first; in most selling environments, email does not work very well to set an actual Initial Appointment unless we’ve already had a conversation or gotten into a game of phone tag with our Target (see February 10, 2010 blog).

It can, however, be occasionally effective to set up an Initial Appointment or to set up the appointment setting call itself when our Target prefers written communication. Because of this, we encourage using automatically generated email along with the voicemails we leave. (We also cover this in the aforementioned blog.)

For most of us though, we either don’t have automation that supports the efficient sending of email (see www.contactscience.com for the best solution for that), or don’t have the email address to begin with. So here’s a good way to find out whether our Target responds better to email communications.

This tip will work best with decision makers that have administrative assistants. If we haven’t already engaged with the Target’s administrative assistant, it’s time. When we determine to do this is basically a personal style decision, but one recommendation would be upon the second cycle of attempts. In other words, I went through my first set of attempts leaving voicemails which weren’t returned and put the Target aside for a predetermined period of time. The second time the name pops up in my system; I might try to find the administrative assistant on the second or third attempt in this cycle if I once again am not getting a return call.

When I do try to find the admin, I’ll simply ask him/her what is the best way to have a five minute conversation with the Target. (See Gatekeeper blog for ideas on how to engage the admin.)

Quit trying to ‘perfect’ the opening script of a cold call.

Barry Caponi — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:34:15 +0000

What we say in our opening is important, but not as important as we might think!

At the end of many of our Prospector’s Academies, Sales Professionals will say they still aren’t quite happy with their opening script. (So they’re not making calls yet.) The following may sound like heresy, but it really doesn’t matter that the opening is not perfect for two reasons.

In an earlier blog, I’ve mentioned that according to a UCLA study on effective communications; only 7% of effective communication comes from what we say. So our opening message is not the largest component anyway. However, because it is why someone will agree to meet with us, why is it not critical to get that opening value proposition just perfect?

Here’s why. Our methodology (The Formula™) is based on the thought that the conversation really doesn’t begin until the Target initially says no to our request for an appointment. That’s because as soon as they realize this is a sales call (like, right away), they begin to concentrate on how they’re going to get rid of us, not listen to our ‘message’. Ergo, they’re not yet listening closely to what we’re saying at this point anyway.

The key part of the call comes when we ask a Bridge Question™ which gets them to stop thinking about how to get us off the phone and into a short conversation where we can apply our selling skills and our value proposition.

I would prefer that Sales Professionals have a good opening that can easily be repeated (so that the responses we hear are consistent) and then get really good at delivering Bridge Questions™ to provide the platform for good old fashioned selling.

Once that occurs, then it’s good old fashioned selling.

What not to do in a voicemail when cold calling.

Barry Caponi — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:22:10 +0000

There’s some incredibly bad advice out there regarding cold calling. No wonder our Targets react the way they do sometimes.

An example of a really bad approach on a voicemail that is actually being touted by a sales trainer out there on the world wide web as a good idea will blow your mind.

Ready? Here it goes… "Please leave a message–BEEEEEP"

"This is Joe Smith, my assistant said you were trying to contact me… what is this about? Were you trying to sell me something?

I’m very busy today, if you can give me a call back within an hour I might be able to fit you in…"

It’s hard to know where to begin describing why this is approach is a really bad idea. But let me begin with the one thought that is positive. (Always begin with a positive comment, my mother always taught me.) I’ve blogged numerous times on the topic that leaving a voicemail is a good idea. The biggest of those is that some get returned, so zero percent of calls made where no voicemail is left will be returned. Kind of like the old golf adage, zero percent of all putts left short of the hole will go in. (See blogs dated 1/23/08, 5/28/08, 11/26/08, 12/3/08, and 3/31/10.)

Now let’s talk about three really big reasons why this is approach is a really bad idea.

1. Would anybody really fall for this? I think I know when I call out and leave a voicemail, don’t you? On the other hand, I know there are some really stupid people in the world, but do we want to do business with them? Particularly over the long term?

2. Honesty and credibility. Dr. Robert Cialdini in his methodology called Influence (www.influenceatwork.com) talks about the six principles of influence and how they impact getting someone to comply with a request we make in the selling process. One of those six principles is credibility and another is reciprocity. Let’s take them one at a time.

a. Credibility – The first step in the establishment of a relationship with someone that generally precedes a sale is this call; and we’re going to begin it with a lie and subterfuge? And we complain when the Target lies to us about why they don’t want to meet with us? I’m incredulous. My mom also used to say, “Honesty is the best policy”. (Okay, she didn’t exactly write the line, but hey, moms generally are pretty sharp, right?)

b. Reciprocity – I believe this Biblical quote comes from Galatians “…for whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.” How about, “You get what you deserve”.

3. Think about what this does for the rest of us who must cold call in order to sell. Have we just given this Target another reason to think that Sales Professionals are anything but professional? Would you buy a used car from the guy who left that message?

Need I go on? Yikes!

For managers, what is the value of knowing our cold calling or appointment setting metrics?

Barry Caponi — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:17:56 +0000

Knowing the five key metrics of sales can keep us from setting our Sales Professionals up for failure without even knowing it.

First of all, what do I mean by metrics? There are only five metrics that can influence how well we bring home the bacon as the old saying goes. They are:

1. Average size of our sales – how do I measure it and what are the ways that I can influence it;

2. Closing Ratio – we measure it from Initial Appointment to closure;

3. Dials – the number of times I dial the phone to attempt to set an Initial Appointment;

4. Conversation Ratio – the percentage of those dials that result in an actual appointment setting conversation with the person I want to meet with; and

5. Appointment Ratio – the percentage of conversations with those Targets that result in an Initial Appointment;

What we do with each of these individual metrics is the subject for a future blog perhaps. But at a macro level, it is important to note that numbers 3 through 5 obviously relate directly to appointment setting. However, surprisingly enough though, so do numbers 1 and 2. Let me explain the importance to us managers of knowing these metrics.

The key is that when coupled with the revenue goal for the year, knowing all five metrics will provide me with the understanding of the daily or weekly activity necessary to hit that goal. Sometimes these numbers bring the cold reality of life to the forefront.

For instance, in the example below, let’s assume that our boss has handed down the new business goal for the year that we, as the head of sales, must meet. When we divide it by the number of new business Sales Professionals we have, we come up with an individual goal of $1,000,000. We also know historically the value of a new customer over a twelve month period (how we measure first year revenue for commission purposes) is $12,000. That means each of our intrepid Sales Professionals must close 83 new customers over the course of the year. To do that based on our other current metrics (see first column on the left), our metrics indicate that each Sales Professional needs to generate 105 appointment making dials per day. Not gonna happen for an outside selling person.

How to turn that typical cold calling ‘no’ into ‘yes’ every time.

Barry Caponi — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:47:14 +0000

We know the majority of appointment setting calls end with a ‘no’. Here’s a way to turn the final response on those calls into a ‘yes’ and simultaneously increase the likelihood of an appointment in the future.

I’ve written about the topic of building territories over time before as I believe strongly in its concept from a strategic point of view. Therefore, I’ve written about a number of ways to accomplish that. Each of the following links has the tactical topic listed and will take you directly to those blogs. Some were written from the sales professional’s perspective and some from management’s view.

1/30/08	Disengaging Professionally
4/23/08	Is your territory more refined and defined today than it was…?
4/30/08	What is the value of a ‘Dialogue Bond’
11/11/09	Building the value of a territory
12/2/09	Few sales professionals take the long term view of their territories
2/17/10	Taking the long term view of building a territory

This blog is no exception. However, there is another issue at play with this one, and that is the impact on our psyche of hearing all those ‘nos’. All of us react differently to being told ‘no’ so many times. Whether you’re one who handles it easily or are one who gets disheartened by hearing ‘no’, here’s a way to end calls with a ‘yes’!

One of the most constant things in life is change. In many situations, it is the person who is not interested in talking with you, not the company. Additionally, it may very well be nothing more than a timing issue. We’ve all heard the old sales adage, “No doesn’t mean forever, it just means for now”. Projects are completed, relationships with current suppliers sour, promotions occur and people leave jobs.

When I get to the end of a call that obviously will end in one of those ‘nos’, here’s what I say. “I totally understand. Over the years however, one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is that one of the most constant things in life is change. May I check back with you in a few months to see if anything has changed in your situation?”

Everyone I have ever asked that question of has said ‘yes’. That means when I call back I can reference this call, their agreement for the check back, and begin to build that ‘Dialogue Bond’ I talked about in 4/30/08 blog. That begins to warm up and build my territory, but just as importantly to my psyche and the ability to pick up the phone and make another dial, that call has ended with a ‘yes’!

What do cold calling and sports teams have in common?

Barry Caponi — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:18:27 +0000

Why do sports teams (who profess to play for ‘fun’) concentrate on practicing basic fundamentals skills (Art) and then specific plays (Best Practices) until they are second nature, yet we, who profess to belong to the ‘profession’ of sales insist on ‘winging’ it?

Let’s take baseball or softball for an example. From a coaching perspective, we want our players to react instinctively (call it second nature) when certain things happen during a game. If our players have to stop and think about how to react, the play will have passed them by before they are able to react. For instance, a hard hit ground ball to a third baseman does not allow time for a lot of thought. We either are up on the balls of our feet when the ball meets the bat and are already moving forward to meet the ball or it will most likely eat us up for an error. When there is a runner on first and second with less than two outs and the batter hits a fly ball to the center fielder, we know that the center fielder’s first option is to throw to the cut-off man between second and third base to keep the runner on second from tagging up and going to third. We also know that the shortstop should be lining up on a direct line between third base and the center fielder, and that the third baseman should be verbally helping the shortstop accomplish that task. Ever watched a little league game and watch the throw come in behind the runner to second base…and how often the lead runner therefore winds up on third instead remaining on second?

Anyway, I digress. The point is that on that play there were several moving parts. During practice fielders learn the fundamental skills of how to catch and throw (what we call Art in appointment setting), and then learn how to execute plays (what we’d call Best Practices) when certain things happen. The way they learn? Drill after drill after drill. If you’ve ever played baseball or softball or watched your kids practice, you know exactly what I mean.

Now I will admit that practicing a sport that we love to play is somewhat more fun than practicing our appointment making skills. However, it does not change the fact that there are great similarities and that the task is necessary.

They call third base the hot corner in baseball and softball because the ball gets there so quickly. When receiving a negative response when asking for an appointment, the action is no different. We’re all playing the hot corner. The ‘no’ comes at us like a Nolan Ryan fastball (I’m having so much fun with these baseball analogies). Unless we first know how to handle that hard hit ground ball, we’re doomed unless we get really lucky and the ball miraculously finds its way into our glove. And even if we know what to do, unless we’ve practiced that skill so that it is second nature, we’ll be depressed over the fact that one more target said no and we couldn’t counter it. On the cold call, unless our responses roll off the tongue like natural conversation, we’re going to be sitting on the bench (couldn’t resist).

And if we don’t get the appointment, we’re either making way more calls than necessary, or our paychecks are way smaller than we’d like. Or, in this economy, need I say we might be looking for a job.

So if we manage a sales team, how does this translate into what we should be doing to help our teams more efficiently and effectively prospect and specifically cold call? First, find a methodology (Art) that fits you (like The Formula™) and teach the team to use it. Then create a set of Best Practices that contain what we’ll say to the most common negative responses we hear) and then practice it and practice it (role play at each sales meeting) until it becomes second nature.

Until our sales professionals reach the place where they actually welcome those negative responses because they know they’re so good at turning them into conversations where they can deliver our value propositions, we need to be either working with them on improving those Best Practices or practicing them until they’re all making the minimum number of dials possible and investing more of their time in front of prospects actually selling!

If cold calling, how many targets can a sales rep pursue each year? (Part 3 of 3)

Barry Caponi — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:05:40 +0000

When cold calling for appointments, it is important to note that if we follow a ‘Best Practice’ that consists of a certain number of attempts to reach someone, there is a finite number of targets we can pursue in a year. Part 3 of 3.

In the first blog on this topic, we explored the concept that it was important to have a well designed ‘Best Practice’ for cold calling to leverage the limited resource our calling represents. In last week’s, we explored a few questions we need answers to in order to develop a good Cycle for pursuing a set of targets.

This week, we’ll tackle the topic of how to figure out how many targets is the ‘right’ number for a particular rep or territory.

Take a look at the chart below. It comes from our Activity Calculator (available for free – send me an email at barry@coldcalling101.com). The key fields are the number of steps (most likely calls) our sales professional will make per day, the number of times we’ll actually go through a ‘Cycle’ per year, and the estimate of how many targets will be replaced because they were unqualified or we sold them. Reasonably that number generally falls somewhere between 750 and 1200; much more than that and we’re into the drive by shooting approach of try a few times and give up.

How Many Targets Can You Persue A Year?
1-	Minutes Per Day on the Phone	60
2-	Average no. of steps taken in your Best Practice before a "pursuit" ends	3.5
3-	Average time per step (CRMs are typically 6 minutes; Klpz is less than 3 minutes)	3.0
Number of steps you can make a day		20
4-	Number of days per year you will telephone prospects	220
5-	Number of times a target will be "pursued" per year until you reach them	2.0
6-	Replancement targets, as percent of total, that are needed to keep your calling list at the right size	25%
You need a list with this many names		786

Let me explain a few of these for you.

No. 2 refers to the number of times we normally have to try to call before we get them. In this case, it takes 3 to 4 attempts before we generally get them. This number can actually be taken right out of Klpz reports if you’re using it. Otherwise, you’ll have to estimate it.

No. 3 refers to the average time of a call. This number can also be taken right out of a Klpz report. Otherwise, it also will need to be estimated.

No. 5 refers to how many ‘Cycles’ will be performed per year in pursuing the typical targets on this list. The more limited our universe of targets, the more times we’ll typically pursue them. If we are selling into a horizontal market with many, many targets, we may choose to touch more so we’ll reduce the number of times we’ll conduct a Cycle on a target. (Every six months is about the minimum I’d recommend. Any less frequently than that and we lose the memory of previous attempts.

No. 6 refers to the number of targets that will be thrown off the list either because we discover they were unqualified or we sold them.

The point of this series of blogs is simply this. By knowing the number of targets a rep or territory can support can help us when dividing up territories, setting quotas, and figuring budgets for acquiring target lists. Helpful information to have.