Prospecting

In my last blog I talked about how crucial it is to have an opening statement that is compelling, that will engage your client or prospect. The open-ended question is a very effective tool for drawing out valuable information that helps you understand your existing or prospective clients.  A litany of closed questions will typically do the opposite. They result in ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers, which bring a hasty end to the conversation. Closed questions are not to be avoided. They are just as effective as open-ended questions but you have to know the right time and place to use them.

The experience I’m going to share in this article has got me thinking, as I often do, about the plight of sales people that are out there performing a difficult job without the proper training and tools. It troubles me that companies waste many millions of dollars each year because of poor training. It also troubles me that these same companies continue to raise the bar on their sales people and yet shortchange them on the tools to achieve these lofty goals.

You are in the middle of something important, the telephone rings, you have to drop what you’re doing, only to find that it’s a salesperson. This is one of those types that wedge their foot in the door and won’t give you a chance to push it back out. Some of you will be reluctantly patient with them and perhaps most will have little or no tolerance for being flogged.

I’m hearing more and more proponents these days of the belief that cold calling is dead. A host of modern-day teachers and guru’s are preaching that prospecting via the telephone is an old ‘technology’ and should be discarded in favor of email and other modes of more indirect, and perhaps safer, communication. The validity of their claims has yet to be proven.

I’ve focused recently on the importance of changing the legacy that the sales profession, in whatever form it has taken, has passed down to us. I was going to shift gears a bit this week but after a recent conversation with an upper level manager about training materials and sales philosophy, I’m going to give it one more shot. Keep in mind this person was not an employee of an obscure company holding onto the last of the old-school sales ideologies. He was in a promient and influencial position in a leading corporation. The teachings of the old school are alive and well. This corporation is propagating the same techniques and tactics to their producers that brought us the legacy I’ve spoken about in the last few articles. It is the one where sales people are some of the most avoided and disliked of all professional people. I’ve borrowed a piece from You Tube to illustrate my point. I’ve provided a link to it in this article. Someone once said a picture is worth a thousand words. This is so very true about this video as well.

The following story comes by way of a telephone call I received a few days ago. As annoyed as I was with this inexperienced stockbroker, I was troubled as well by the ‘tools’ and training his company had given him to be successful. It was a sad comment about how so many of you are sent out into the sales world. These techniques and tactics only serve to perpetuate the ‘salesman’ legacy I spoke about in ‘Their Perception is Their Reality’. It is no wonder why this legacy continues and why it is so difficult to forge out a different approach.

We live in a time that is increasingly impersonal. Much is said about customer service and many millions of dollars are spent on customer relations training. It is not difficult to see that corporations are playing lip service to the value and importance of good customer service. The airline industry, one that the world depends heavily on, is plagued by insensitivity to the people they serve. Their financial statements lately may very well reflect this attitude. Why has something so simple eluded us? Why has the fast pace of business, the pressure of quotas and sales statistics, and intense competition taken a front seat to the simple task of doing good things for your customers? This story of a small-time auto mechanic in rural Minnesota is a clear message that good, down-home, treating folks well is simple and it works.

Some of you have heard the following story before. It is an old story but a timeless one. It underscores the central theme of this web site. We’ve all been taught to judge people from the outside, from the cover of the book. From the perspective of this teaching, it makes sense to categorize people based on what we see on the surface.

There is a long list of components to the art of Sales. Preparation, product knowledge, technology, working with objections, overcoming customer reluctance and fear are just a few aspects of the sales process. In the end and most importantly, it is about seeing the people. We cannot solve people’s financial problems until we enter into a relationship with them. We cannot develop the mutual trust and respect that defines a long-lasting association with a customer without that crucial first step. It all begins with picking up the telephone.

My son Joshua has a 1974 bright orange VW bus. He was planning on traveling to Nashville to pursue his dream in music. I wanted to make sure everything was in working order for the trip. I was given a recommendation for a top-notch mechanic that works on classic VW’s. This guy was supposed to be one of the best in the city.