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By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca
Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of discussing sales and selling with Charles Adler, Canada’s Boss of Talk. Charles had read my piece in the Globe and Mail on the difference between a blue-collar approach to selling and the white-collar approach. We explored other aspects of sales and successful people, take a listen, and let me know or Charles (@charlesadler), know what you think.
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto
By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca
There was a good post this week at Funnelholic blog, looking at “Best practices for getting in the door”. In the piece there was a statistic attributed to the Harvard Business Review that stated:
“Harvard Business Review: 90% of C-level executives say that they never respond to cold calls or email blasts”
Now I can’t speak for the e-mail blast part, but as for the responding to cold calls part – “Horse manure! That’s for sure!”
I can tell you from personal experience, mine that of my clients, and other sellers, that the percentage of executives who respond is much greater than 10%, and even if they wanted to reframe the statistics and limit it to those who have made a purchase from a cold call, the number is still much higher than 10%.
There could be a number of explanations for this misrepresentation of the facts. One can be the way the question was asked, because it is true that in the wrong hands, cold calls can be painful for both parties; maybe they specifically asked executives predisposed to not taking cold calls or want to be politically correct in a social age; or they relied on data from the “never cold call” crowd, whose bias would taint the survey, after all it is hard to sell DVD’s, books, and ab machines if cold calling was shown to be working.
I suspect that this is the sales world version of the Bradley Effect, where voters told pollsters one thing about how they will vote, while doing opposite when they actually went to cast their vote.
As I have stated here before, there are no absolutes in selling, if your job is to engage with potential buyers, you will need to try all resources available to you, including cold calling. The post on Funnelholic highlights this in a clear way. While in certain markets you can get away with little cold calling, in other segments, you will never hit quota without picking up the phone and making some well-placed cold calls.
Another cause is the fact that many organizations spend a lot of money training their people on “selling” or managing accounts or relationships, but very little on proper prospecting. While lately there have been some programs focus on the use of social media or LinkedIn, again they ignore cold calling, after all, if you don’t do it, you can’t teach it.
Some of the referral based programs overlook the fact that while someone may give you a great referral, but unless the person making the referral calls in advance or introduces you, not always the case, and your call to the target is unscheduled, guess what, it’s a cold call, doesn’t matter what you want to call it to make you feel better. Unless you have mapped out the call, how you manage the likely objection, and turn it into engagement, you’re beat, and will become a statistic. Maybe the statistic was that 90% of cold calls are so bad that they would not buy from those callers. Which is reasonable given the fact that they have only been trained on the latter half the process.
What is interesting is that I have met executives leading sales force espousing alternate means to cold calling at conferences or webinars, who in a different setting lament their teams’ overdependence on their existing base, and the inability of their teams to prospect, including cold calling.
In the end, either both I and my clients are the luckiest sellers on the planet, or the 90% statistic is 90% politically correct BS.
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto
By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca
As you may know voice mail has been a hot topic in some circles lately, and an ongoing challenge for sales professionals. I recently got tangled in a flare up about e-mail, as a result of a piece I wrote for Radius, titled: Get More Call Backs: How To Increase Returned Voicemails By 50%. It got the usual support from those who have used it and engaged with prospects they have been seeking for a while; and the usual disbelief by sellers and pundits, I forgot to mention that you have to pick up the phone and try it for the technique to work.
This got me thinking, how many people actually leave voice mail, so I created the quick survey below, please take a minute to answer four easy voice mail related questions.
http://www.instant.ly/s/OrKVt
Thank you in advance!
Tibor Shanto
By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca
A few years ago I did a three day program in California, the first day one of the participants, a very likable fellow, kept repeating a common phrase used by sellers – “buyers are liars”. I told him I did not agree and moved on. The next day, same guy, had switched phrases slightly, and he was reminding me of another popular falsehood that “sellers are liars”; again I questioned the accuracy of the statement. By the third morning I was a bit worried because the only one left in the equation who had not been accused of lying was me, the trainer, all day I waited for him to state “trainers are liars”, while he didn’t, I am sure he thought about it.
There are too many sales people who believe and will tell you that buyers are indeed liars; sadly there are some sales leaders who will reinforce this myth. Buyers are people, and in general people are not liars (can’t speak for politicians), therefore buyers in general are not liars.
The reality is that prospects who do not buy, who lead you on, who go radio silent at a point, and fail to tell you why, are often lying. Not in the evil way that many sales people in the heat of the moment believe, it is more the case of these prospects seeking a merciful way letting a seller down, while they have less than zero intentions of buying, they find it hard to come right out and tell you and break your heart. If they did buy from you, you would overlook a white fib or two, after all you closed the deal, you got the “right” result, they bought. It’s when they don’t buy that you get all out of sorts and resort to calling them liars; so if we’re going to resort names and labels, let’s get it right: prospects sometimes lie.
Most of the time they are not lying, they may be confused or undecided, or again, not sure how to let us down, but in any case the problem is ours, something many in sales do not want to face.
Did we ask the right questions? A common occurrence is a seller going down the path with a buyer only to discover that the person is not empowered to make a decision. Sure I can tell myself they lied, or I can ask myself how I could have discovered it earlier, and moved to engage the right people.
Another is when you “know” they need your product, or “know” they are looking, hey after all you were referred to them, yet they insist that they are “all set”. Are they lying or are we not fully engaged, and conducting an effective discovery process? Just because we are not getting the answers we want does not mean we are being lied to, I think it is more often the case of the wrong or bad question, rather than a bad answer.
As stated above, buyers are people, and people generally do not lie, unless they feel they have no other option in the situation, lying is easier than the alternative. It is up to us as sellers to offer the alternative, and leave the buyer with lying as the only option to stop our assault. Takes work, but pays off too.
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto
Guest Post – Megan Totka
When thinking about writing a blog for a business, most people are not thinking about the blog itself bringing in revenue. The objective is usually to draw people in to the website with a good story, where they will then click around and perhaps make a purchase.
But why shouldn’t the blog itself try to make money and connections? The answer is of course, that it should! There are several ways to get a blog to make money.
Blog sponsorships – consider having blog sponsors who purchase space on your blog. This is an advertisement for a person or company that is permanent on your site. Most ads that you would find on a blog would be constantly changing based on the reader’s browsing history. Having a sponsorship allows the ad-buyer to guarantee a spot on your blog. Typically these are paid for up front, for a particular time period. You may want to consider sponsorships from companies that are in a related field. This way, your sponsor actually has some hope of people clicking on their ad.
Google AdSense or other ad companies – as I referenced above, most ads are ever-changing, based on the user who is browsing the blog. Google Ads target-markets to specific users by using their browsing history. For example, if someone who is reading your blog was also searching for colleges to attend, then they will likely see ads for colleges. This is good for you, the blog/business owner, because they are more likely to click on that ad, and thus make you money. The more readers that you have and the more your web pages help you customers, the more effective Google Ads will be. There are other similar ad companies, as well. If you want to put this type of ad on your blog, it’s good to research all of the companies that offer the service first.
Affiliate marketing – affiliate marketing is where you endorse or advertise a certain company, product, or service in exchange for a percent of the profit from the sales made from this particular company/product/service. There are many affiliate marketing opportunities. One that is popular is Amazon’s affiliate program.
A blog is a great way to give customers an insight into your company. Drawing new readers and keeping current readers interested is the most important factor in getting your company blog to make money. The more people who read your content, the more that can potentially click on your ad. Having strong content that people want to read and share is the cornerstone of a good blog.
About Megan Totka
Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.
By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca
As some of you may know, last week was have fun with voice mail on LinkedIn, with people taking different reactions to a voice mail technique that gets me a 50% rate of returned calls. In response to comments on an LinkedIn group, I posted on Friday about a specific dynamic that makes the technique in question successful. The piece resulted in more comments, so I wanted to take another view that may help some understand what’s behind it, why it resembles something almost every critic of the technique already does without feel they are unethical, misleading and so on.
This storm reminded me of a similar reaction three or four years ago when I suggested that sales people should use text (SMS) as a prospecting tool. People saw the suggestion as being unethical, underhanded, and just not professional. This despite the fact that an executive, a prospect, was the one that suggested that I would have connected with him a lot sooner had I not limited my use of his cell number on his card to strictly voice. But the overwhelming reaction at the time was that text to prospect was déclassé. But now four years later it is a mainstream techniques acceptable to all. Maybe time does not heal all wounds, but it does seem to wipe memory.
So I would suggest that when something seems uncomfortable you have two choices, try it and see, or pass an uninformed opinion. So lets take a different look at the technique in question and see if we can get you to try.
The technique, (summarized here), is very much like a mini resume. Much the same way we use resumes to create the opportunity to entice a potential employer to call us back and invite us in for an interview that we hope will lead to employment and a mutually profitable relationship.
Let’s look at resumes, they exist to communicate in a concise way you capabilities vis-à-vis the position, anchored in our history in similar positions with similar company. If you have been an A/R manager with one distributor, and a position opens up with another company you want to work for, you submit your resume featuring your experience with their competitor. The potential employer, like most, will begin to begin to sort the hundreds of resumes they receive based on who they think will fit their requirement; and one of the most common means of selecting those that make the consideration list is their experience with similar companies.
As we all have been told, it is important to keep resumes short, using highlights, and then expanding once in the interview. Depending on the source, some will tell you to keep it to two pages or less, a small amount of space to include past experience as well as other attributes we may have that would make us a suitable candidate.
It is also often a topic of discussion, that many resumes are the stuff of fiction and or embellishment. Very different than the technique in question, which repeatedly emphasizes the need for honesty and ethical use of past experience.
It seems interesting that in the age where people are actively participating in micro-blogging, they would find problems with micro messaging when it comes to engaging with prospect. I suspect the reality is one that is all too familiar in sales; sales people complaining that clients hang onto the Status Quo irrationally, while they do that very same things when it comes to embracing new or alternate – non-middle of the road – sales approaches. Almost ironic as the group professes to be the home of fresh sales ideas.
Oddly, one very vocal opponent, using words like misleading, deceiving, and so on, has held IT sales related positions with four or more different companies in the last 10 years, I bet if we looked at his resume, we would see all the previous companies he worked for, his related capabilities, and his accomplishments prominently listed in his resume. Where is the difference? Why is it OK to dangle past companies in one form, but not another? We know the answer.
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto
By Tibor Shanto –tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca
Yesterday I got a call about a piece I wrote for Radius titled: Get More Call Backs: How To Increase Returned Voicemails By 50%. Seems it has stirred up a discussion in one the LinkedIn groups, one I did not belong to, (since joined).
Whenever I do a piece on effective voice mail techniques, three things happen:
The real difference between the two is the latter is committed to continues improvement, willing to invest time, effort and practice to integrating new techniques to their selling tool kit. They understand it takes work to fill the pipeline, and if the state of their pipeline is going to change, it requires change in their approach and habits.
The first group, the doubters, fail to take into account and understand the dynamics involved in leaving effective voice mails. Let’s look at one specific factor.
Most people these days are jammed, need to pack 16 hours into a ten hour day, they don’t have time to listen to your rambling voice mail, telling them about how great your something is when they already have that something. Since at any given time, about 5% – 10% of your market is actively looking for your something, that’s the total potential of people who may have an interest in calling you back. By leaving a conventional voice mail, chances are less than 5% – 10% may call you back, unless they already have a vendor in mind, in which case no call back.
Let’s face it, the reason most people want you to “leave a detailed message”, is so they can know exactly why not to call you back, and they don’t. So no matter how polished your message is, the more content it has the less your chances of getting a call back. So despite what one of my most recent critics suggested in the LinkedIn discussion, saying I “should spend some time doing research on the buyer so they can leave a message that’s in line with their expectations.” There is an idea, waste time researching to not talk to anyone, hmm? The most effective voice mails are those that are counter intuitive.
The mistake many make is trying to sell or get an appointment via voice mail, WRONG! Good luck if you have never spoken to them in the past.
The only purpose to leaving a voice mail is to get a call back – again to get a call back. When that call comes, you can then proceed to getting the appointment or engagement if you are in inside sales. GET THE CALL BACK! THAT’S IT!
I would argue that the only way to do that is to create a bit of curiosity, one that would create an environment where with little effort, the person you are calling can make a call to resolve their curiosity, THE CALL BACK, once you have them on the line, then you bring your sales or appointment setting skills to play.
The technique in question results in me getting 50% of voice mails returned. That may piss off some people not willing to try, but really what’s the issue, the method is there, you don’t want to use it, don’t knock those who do, just because they have a healthy pipeline, and fat babies.
Read the article
Watch the video
Try it, and then talk!
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto
By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca
This is the second in a series of video prepared for BizTV dealing with objections, the first was an overview of sales objections; this one specifically those you encounter while prospecting.
In the video it references a link to download the Objection Handling Handbook, just in case you missed it above, it is: http://bit.ly/BizTV-OHH
If you have questions about objection handling in the course of prospecting, or just telephone prospecting, give me a call or schedule time by clicking here.
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto
Guest Post – Megan Totka
It’s that time of year – the time that many people enjoy even more than the holiday season. NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl have rolled back around, and they bring with them one of the greatest advertising displays of the year. The Super Bowl has always been known for being one of the most expensive advertising opportunities. Many people who care nothing about football, tune in to the game just to watch the commercials.
But how has online advertising impacted the more traditional world of television advertising? The answer is, quite a few different ways.
I’m interested to watch the Super Bowl this year, and not because I am invested in any of the teams that could potentially be playing. I am excited to see what the companies who pay a huge premium for ad space are getting for their money, and how they are going to continue to be creative in ways to draw in new customers and interact with them. While most small businesses don’t have the capital to advertise on such a large scale, there are other affordable marketing products they can take advantage of. And perhaps there are still some ideas to be drawn from the advertising event of the year.
About Megan Totka
Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips. ChamberofCommerce.com has over 7,500 listed Chambers.
As the euphoria of the new year beings to fade and the harsh reality of winter and the pipeline begin to set in, it is a great time to go to your Coma List.
What is a Coma List? It is a list containing two types of prospects:
Let’s look at the latter. I am not saying it is right or good, but the reality is that there are times when prospects do fall between the cracks, or maybe you had bigger fish to fry at the time, and you ran out of time. You get involved in other cycles and activities, the next thing you know several weeks of months have passed, and you did not follow up, some feel awkward reaching out given the time that has passed.
The start of the January is a great time to reach out to these people to see if there is an opportunity to reengage. Time has passed for them, as it has for you, their requirements may or may not have been satisfied, but statistics indicate that the status quo prevails, and they likely took no action. Either way it is a call worth making, if they “hate” you and don’t want to see you till the end of time, fine, it is a 30 second call.
But just as often the outcome of a “Coma Call” is surprisingly positive. If in fact the prospect falls into the majority and has not taken action, your call may be welcomed. It is the start of the year for them as well, they are reviewing objective for the coming year, and the issue that brought you together the first time may still be on that list, and you can be a familiar potential way to address it.
Don’t let pride or fear hold you back. Look at the percentages, the worst case is they say something negative and hang up, you’ll live! On the other hand they may welcome the call and reengage, and better, buy. I can tell you from firsthand experience that I regularly get business from Coma Calls, right through the year. Unless you were rude or abusive the first time round, chances are that they will reengage, and then it is up to you to go to work, rebuild your relationship, meet their requirements and deliver.
Yes, it was a mistake to let the sale slip into a coma, but that does not mean you should not take steps to revive the sale.
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto
