Sales Gladiator

Converting Cold Calls to Sales

Those who have followed my columns or blogs or listened to my sales seminars or resulting tapes and videos, realize that I am old school in some ways. For example, I believe that effective cold-calling results in more tangible leads than do the now-standard morning gazillion phone calls routine. Your sales manager won't want to hear that, but if the sales are blowing everyone out, I guaranteed that you won't get fired (unless you may be threatening his job by then--so be humble and respectful--no matter what. I never was, but I changed jobs a few times.)

First let me review why I think that cold calls are more effective than are phone calls, and in the same breath admit that good phone skills are also an integral part of your prospecting mix. I have always subscribed to a "System of Tens". This may become a "System of Six's, or "System of Thirties", all depending upon the geography of your territory, products, ability, knowledge and other variables. The point is that you should make equal numbers of different sales activities: phone, personal calls, hand-addressed mail pieces, and what have you. In many products a balanced number of demonstrations (or the equivalent presentation in the case of intangibles--are the most important part of the mix. Often the goal of the latter is to schedule the former--but in fewer numbers necessarily.)

Okay, I guess it is actually second; cold calls cannot be replaced with any other technique because during a physical call:

1. You can use all of your senses and powers of deduction in sizing up needs and likelihood of buying upon which you learn to develop an approach strategy on the spot. My specialty was primarily office automation, and particularly high-end copiers and other print technologies back int the day. BTW, did you know that the first copiers that I sold came with a mandatory resident fire-extinguisher, others used electro-statically charged special paper which had to be imaged and then bathed in a mixture of kerosene, iron filings, and carbon--which leaked on the carpet and could not be removed. But the alternative was wither mimeograph, spirit duplicators (spelled great, like fine liquor--well liquor anyway) , stencil duplicators, or offset presses.) Count your blessings.
2. You gain both a lot more information (usually), and you make a greater impact in terms of memorability. Hopefully rapport can begin to be made with at least the receptionist, office manager, and often the primary decision maker, and sometimes the entire buying team.
3. In departmentalized businesses, you can treat each department as a separate entity with separate, and often internally competing needs, using names and referrals from each entity and using this information to strengthen your approach for the next department. Your reconnoitering is infinitely more effective than a mere phone-call, which most often which gains you very little for your effort.
4. You often get to snoop around and see needs (you see the antiquated monster Xerox in the back mail-room that no one thinks to tell you about), competitive equipment, leasing agreements and expirations dates, unsupposed applications, which you can possibly convert into a sale of a myriad of related products, pretty girls (or guys), and all of this before you ever even approach the purchasing agents--who most often are merely acquirers of requested products.
5. I have actually spent entire days roaming around large firms, going from department to department without ever being called on who I was and what I was doing there. I guess they all just assumed that I was a quality control consultant (or some kind of consultant), or visiting from the home office to determine whether there location should be shut down. Then I met everyone a the local watering hole while they got wasted and spilled their guts about everything (I only drink seltzer water.)
6. You are able to ask questions to learn how their paperwork flows (copiers, office equipment), so that you can better understand how you, the consummate professional paper-flow expert, can provide solutions to bottle necks and other complaint areas, as well as how much is being spent to help you justify why they should buy your "stuff", to solve their problems. Good salesmen look for problems and ways to solve the problems. If you can save money in the process, it becomes a no-brainer (sometimes they actually have no brains and don't buy your products, but mostly they do.)
7. You are able to learn personal commonalities that you can file back literally, or mentally if you are good at that, and have grounds for breaking the ice during this and follow-up visits with the movers who can make decisions to buy..
8. Cold calls having fallen out of favor and being supplanted largely by phone-calls, become more effective and you gain a leg up compared to your phone-calling fool competitors (never assume this, however.)
9. Even if you get thrown out upon entry, which happens less often as you develop a style. It never happens to me, and hasn't in a long time; this partly just comes with the innate respectability of age, appearance, presence,confidence and persona of wisdom of authority, but not entirely. Style and method is the main thing. But if you do, you still have a better sense of the relative prosperity of the business, the age and progressiveness or lack of, the business. Usually you can get a name. If they require an appointment, ask if you can make one right then, for later.  If they still blow you off, and say make an appointment, ask whom to do this with, and go outside and call on your cell phone and try to get through to this person and make an appoint ment saying, "I happen to be right outside of your business at the moment and just wanted to stick my head in and introduce myself and share ways that we might mutually benefit one another's business."
10. As you develop your style you will learn how to play the game and charm the gate-keepers into softening up. On a true cold cold call, there is a power struggle that begins the moment the gate-keepers catch sight of you whether outside the building are upon entering the door. You are being sized up from the git-go. You eventually learn techniques to win this power struggle in a non-offensive way, so that your body language, how you handle yourself, how you approach, speak, and the content of what you say, and even a curiosity factor into increase your chances of "winning". Innocent banter akin to flirting (but not flirting), is often part of the game. It is called charm, I think, if a label must be applied. sometimes you nail it, sometimes you fail. But you get better with each call, especially if you have an objective and review what went right or wrong, at least mentally, after the attempt or success.

There are other reasons but a good list of ten is usually compelling enough. You get the idea. Now, How do you actually implement this phenomenon? As a young (and terrified) beginning salesman. I would provide my huge list of forty or fifty or more cold calls and my sales manager would say, as if dubious of my report, "How could you have made this many calls?" It was not an office building environment, and this number was unheard of.

I simply said, "It doesn't take long to hear NO! and get kicked out." I wasn't joking. We were not trained then. We were given a price-list and maybe a few brochures and said go sell . As I learned more about what I was doing, My call volume went down and my closing ratios went up. I found myself getting in front of decision-makers and having meaningful conversations about their needs, problems, and my potential solutions. I started scheduling more demos.

Back then, it was not uncommon to leave at 8:15 in the morning with a Sales Maker gurney-type cart with a copier on it, and go around trying to show it to as many people as would look. Having a station wagon was mandatory to go to work. If the prospect/suspect liked it, you tried to close the deal. If you failed, you tried to leave it on a day long or more trial. This was called "puppy-dogging", and it was pretty effective. It was hard work too. This was especially done with mechanical and then the first electronic calculators and "computers", if you could really call them computers by today's standards. "Funny" stories about this process abound, but I will leave those for another less urgent post.

My point is that the demo/test drive,/presentation-making-the -intangible-tangible, or whatever equivalent action, is the bridge that may turn the suspect into a prospect and then a buyer.

Please read that again. Wake up and read. This is crucial. But let me qualify a bit. This process becomes less important in a replacement market, that is a "flat" market, not indicating anything negative, but the flattening of the bell curve on a graph of the acceptance of a product or technology, as the buyers become more educated, sophisticated, and familiar with the available technologies.

A new salesperson will find that many of his customers are actually better-informed than the salesperson. In this case, although you seldom get away without at least a quick look-see the product, it is not unheard of. It becomes a matter or other factors such as service, response time, and proofs of such, and cost-justification--also known as pencil selling. Not selling pencils, but using numbers and a feature here and there, presumably "penciled -out", to justify the purchase.

This happens only in a flattened part of the bell-curve representing the life-cycle of a product or technology. Still, the agreement to see a demo, or accept a trial, or attend a "seminar, or what-not--will still indicate a level of interest and generally will expedite the sales cycle. This is often also a matter of "churning" the current install base for upgrades and piggy-back product sales to existing customers.

The equivalent BRIDGE such as a demonstration, will virtually always be necessary in the beginning or steep upward incline in the graphed bell-curve of the beginning stages of marketing new product new technology acceptance.  This may involve new customers or old customers being introduced to new technologies and products.

This is where you must be a salesman in the sense of convincing a targeted suspect that they need something that they may never have even considered.  Or better yet, uncovering through your understanding and adeptness of your product and applications thereof, new uses which may solve problems and thereby enlighten the customer that she/he truly needs this product. In this case you become a true consultant bearing good tidings and you are regarded as the hero to the customer. Great customer loyalty comes from this type of evolution.

Proof in the form of demo or what-not is always required in this case and it is absolutely necessary to convert a suspect into a prospect and then nurse them along into becoming a buyer and overcoming the RC factor. Resistance to Change, quite often keeps a person or group from acting on a perfectly plausible solution.

So how do you transition from a cold call to a sales dialog? By gaining information until you have a problem with a solution to solve this problem and then demonstrating that solution effectively and powerfully. This is magic. It is the "thing" that has caused me to declare on many occasions that,

"It is much easier to find potential buyers who don't know that they have a need (read that again carefully), than it is to find people who are sitting on the edge of their chairs just waiting for someone to call them to sell them a copier--in other words, those who call everyone in the yellow pages and have dueling demos and a drop-pants price stand-off.

Salespeople have often complained to me that they were up against forty or so other competitors. You can't make a living that way. But what it means is that they are relying of call-ins and leads generated by other people usually than on their own creativity and hard work. The early sales-bird gets the juicy worm and the respect and allegiance (often reverence) and loyalty of their buying clientele. They are clients ion such cases, not mere customers. And you are a document specialist, not a mere also-ran salesperson.

Next post I will, by request continue this line of thinking about cold calls with actual steps of making the cold call blow by blow and taking it through the steps to becoming a happily served buying client, let me retire for the morning and ponder while I sleep a case history or two to draw on for the next post.

Doug Wright

(Continued ) Cold Calling Steps to a Sale

(continuation)

I was surprised when my second son gave up his graphic arts career and took a gamble by following in his ole man's office automation sales foot-steps. I really shouldn't have been. My kids have been tutored in sales and negotiating since birth. They are all honest, smooth, charming, and charming. My youngest daughter sold vacuum cleaners door to door while in college. She is a petit, drop-dead gorgeous, young lady. She doesn't look the part, but she is a lion-heart. My oldest son and daughter are equally adept in sales and negotiating. As a pharmacist who manages other pharmacists for a national provider, he uses his sales skills daily and it has started him on a meteroritic rise on the fast tract.

But the son who is in the business, is the one I can both advise (whenever he asks) and commiserate with over shared experiences.This is his third full year, and he has blown it out each year. This year he is about 198% of budget and receiving all the accolades available from his company. There is an old adage that says,"If you have the sales, nothing else (much) MATTERS." His sales manager has given up on trying to enforce his morning phone calls. He truely tries, but he is more effective using my methods of prospecting. It obviously still works. He also sells so much and is picky about taking care of his accounts, so he does his own installs, which also takes a lot of time. 

As promised in my last post, I hope to herein detail the actual steps, including a couple of examples--true case histories--to illustrate these steps. My son's Sales Manager made a very quotable quote in order to explain to a new salesperson why my son has "earned the right" to use his own methods. He said that he and my son are experienced enough that they have developed a certain "aura", which customers can sense when they meet them. This easily explains a concept that struggled with last post.

A power struggle deveops the moment the guardians of the office, whether a receptionist or an office manager, or a whole troupe of gurandians conspiring, guessing on your profession, your motive, and how smoth you will be. In some cases this means parking around the corner or in an office building going to spiffy up a bit. In other cases it means parking your ride, whether a junker or a porche in the owners space. You know the one that says,"Don't even THINK of parking here." The latter is rare, but sometimes is called for.

During the trip to your account (or sometime), you need to get your best guess of an approach in your mind. I have always relied on a simple system of memory-pegs to organize my thoughts. You can find numerous books and web sites on memery peg methods that date back thousands of years. Once I sat quietly in a sales training meeting. I think ev eryone had written me off as a looser.
But I was pegging the sequence of proposed presentation steps. When it came up for my turn to use te proposed method to "mock sell", a product. I did it flawlessly and blew everyone away. they thought i was somekind of genius. Where they thought I was doodleing, I was pegging. If helps to use these memory crutches for many things.

The trick is to get past the gate-keepers and/or get information which can be used to further your aims at securing the account being called on. You must be different. I have always made a bit of a scientific game of trying different approaches, and analyzing their effectiveness. Nothing replaces experience.The apporach of a typical non-cold-call savvy saleperson is to burst into the door and rushing to the first person you see with brochures stuck out and spill their guts unintelligibly. Invariably, you get nowhere, or you have to back up and start over if the gate-keeper has time and is compassionate (rare).

I've tried pretty much everything--from begging, to acting lost, to flirting, joking, not identifying myself right away (or ever), to rushing in as if late looking at my watch and demanding to see the owner. I have warn three piece suits and heavily startched shirts, and Ihave slummed in jeans and a bomber-jacket. I have had misleading busniness cards printed. I have been the bearer of good news (won something?) and badnews (your copier is due to crash anytime). Or you are running three times the volume allowable for your current copier.

I have come in setting up demos because i am aleady going tohave several pieces of equipment in th building next Thursday for several other neighboring accounts. Food will be served from 10:00 to 3:00. How mnay tickets will they be needing. I have conducted surveys for a free permium or gift certificate. I have used made up fliers that featured whatever they might most likely need. I have gone in soliciting old, warnout and used office equipment at top dollars. I have posed as a customer or client seeking their service--sometimes I have even bought products or contracted their services--so it was never a lie.

Perhaps hte most effective method for new and seasoned reps alike is to stumble in dazed and confused looking and say something like, "I think I am lost--what do you guys do here--please, I KNOW I am lost--can you HELP ME??"

There seems to be something magic that I can only suppose is the appeal to the softer side of humanity to HELP you. Most people truely wnat to help someone. NOt always, but usually you can follow by explaining something--anything--like,

"I am not sure if I am at the right place, but I have been sent on mission impossible by my boss, to find out three things from every business on this block."

Example of things: 1) Do you have copiers (printers, color, whatever? 2) If so, what brand and how old and are you happy with them? 3) Who makes the buying decisions and how can I get in to see them?" Puppy-dpog face. Innocenbce.

Example two: "I know this sound nuts, but I have been asked to get with someone who knows and graph your paperwork-flow. do you know what I mean? I don't either. But it is my job. Will you help me try?"

"Example three: " Who buys you office equipment????" A please look in you eye."

Ultimately it is up to you to develop your own style. don't waste your good accoutns while learning you style. Just pick a block or building and go door to door. I can trace my success and my style back to those 40 some odd phone calls I made initially.

After each call, write someting down or enter the info into a sales contact database. I firswt used index cards alphabetically arranged in a box, then I used ACT, contact software. i LATER USED A SIMPLE PROGRAM CALLED SIDEkiCK. ANY WILL DO. iT IS IMPORTANT TO BUILD THIS INFORMATION. DON'T EXPEXCT TO GET MUCH MORE THAN A TIDBIT OR TWO INITIALLYU, BUT THIS INFO WILL HELP YOU ON SUBSEQUENT CALLS. iT TAKES A GOOD YEAR TO DEVELOP YOUR TERRITORY THIS WAY.

sOMETIMES YOU GET IN AND HIT THE JACK-POT.  i HAVE TO BAIL OUT FOR NOW BUT i AM JUST GETTING STARTED SO RETURN SOON TO THIS SAME POST.

hOW TO SOFTEN YOUR COLD CALLS

BY DOING RESEARCH BEFOREHAND ABOUT YOUR TARGETS FOR APPROACHING VIA COLD CALLS CAN GREATLY IMPROVE YOU ABILITY TO CONNECT THE FIRST TIME IN. i HAVE SHARED A TECHNIQUE BEFORE THAT i WILL REINTRODUCE .  Thereaearch need not be too elaborate. An indudtrial guide, a company list, the Internet, or even a phonebook, can give you a leg up. my technique is simply to random picture color postcards to individuals who may be decision makers, gatekeepers, or influencers.

Write a brief note, introduce yourself, hand write in ink, and stamp, sign legibly. Tell him/her that you would mile to exchange some ideas of mutual interest. Mail it timed so that when you call on him/her, the card will have been read and hopefully setting on their desk. You weill get in nearly everytime.

Just tell the gatekeeper that you are there to see so and so, give her your name. When she asked what this is concerning. Say, "He's expecting me." Expound no more. Be firm but casual. Follow up your meeting with another Thankyou card--postcard or "PowerCard." A "PowerCard" is a card, perhaps of your own design, but which are available forom commercial sources, nice, expensive, and with a winning, often sports theme. Persistence, positive attitude, philosophy, famous quotes, power, stenthg, you get the idea.

Send a similar card quarterly or every birthday if you have that information. When you see an item of interest in the news--send a card to congratualte, and include a newsclip, CD, what not. I guranatee your competition won't be doing htis. This sets you apart and makes you memorabloe, creative, and professional in your style.

SO YOU GET IN TO SEE THE DECISION MAKER

Fisrt try to discretely determine if indeed she/he really does have purchase power. The immediate novice inclination is to dive in feeling under the gun to be brief. Even if you have pledged to take only ten minutes, forget it. Take your time, but respect hers/his. It is customary to have a few minutes of ice-breaking small talk. Cues about what to talk about will be on the wall land desk and all around you. Photos of family, A jumping Marlin, an award plaque, family indications, knick-nacs, golf clubs, framed photographs and sayings--the list is endless, just be aware of your surroundings to pick a cue that you can converse about. If you don't golf, you better not talk about golf, unless you have a golf story about meeting a gold great or whatever. Or are asking beginner's advice. Try to be conversent in order to build rappart. People form an instant bond with people who share something in common with them.

You target will make a gesture, clear his throat, or ask what is on your mind--providing a cue to get serious. Practice sound bites that you can use to bridge to your real goal. One way is to simply ask, "Exactly what do you guys do here. I know superficially, but I'd like to have a better insight befrore I propose some thoughts as to how we may help one another. " Most people will talk freely and proudly about their life's work.

Another approach or perhaps building on the last sound bite, another good thing to say is, "I find that if I know enough about a businesses processes, that I can save them money. Often lots of money. I can surely show you some new concepts and technologies that you may not be aware of. It is my job to be aware of these things just as it is your job to be an expert in zelwaking."

Try to ask questions that get the subject talking freely--open-ended questions--not ones that can be answered with a mere yes or no. Don't too obviously lead. But do lead, subtly, until you get to the topic of office automation and paperwork flow.

Ask, "from beinning to end, how does paper flow in your office. Like, what starts it, and where does itr end, and what steps does it go through in the coplete order cycle. "

"
Do you use color printing, cardstock, screen printing, ad specialties?"

Do you send out for a lot of offset or other types of printing? Do you order a lot of multi-part forms?

Do you find areas where the paperwork bottlenects? What do you think the problem is?"

Maske this a conversation, not a rapid barrage of questions. Take notes when you need to. Get volumes numbers of printers, copiers, types of computers, networks, satisfaction with various processies and products. Find lease expiration dates. Hve them call Mary in and look it up. Volumes too. Get her/him delving into their business, asking questions that he hasn't entertained before. Get him involving other departments and people under him. His ego may help in htis regard. He will also want to appear on top of his business.

Allthe while, you are building a custome strategy of how to solve one or more of his problems. Funnel it down a logical path and ask her if you can come back and propose an overall strategy beginning with various steps and details regarding the most immediate step you see. Pick an area that is really a problem. One that you can solve through your professional expertise, or the expertise of your support staff and sales managers.

Thank her. Leave and make sure everyone sees you. Send cards to everyone you talked to promptly. Send flowers, sometimes anonomously but with enough of a hint for the ladies to figure out. Send Mr./Ms. Bigshot golf tees, a fishing lure, a magazine or Internet report on a hobby or interest that you noted. Thes are you prospects of tommorrow. The average sales cycle is three months. You must constantly be balanced in closing sales ready to close and grooming sales to get there. Otherwise you'll have a decent month every 90 days. It is hard to mix these activiities but abolutely necessary to be a good or great performer.

Remember--demos sell.Sell demos. Get the office out of the office and to your place to see a bang-up presnetation. Or less-preferably place a three day trial. Make sure you baby sit it. Or better stillo, take them to a special showcase account that loves you.

I once called on a guy who more or less kicked me out due to a bad experience. I called on him faithfully with info pertinent to his business and handled him as above every quarter for two years. Finally, he needed something that I had that no one else had. I cracked the account and it became one of my mainsTAY ACCOUNTS. ALTHOUGH THEY MAY BE HAPPY WITH THE CURRENT VENDOR AT THAT MOMENT--THINGS CHANGE.

A business card on expensive stock and attorney-ish type that simply states your name, cell phone, and reads Business Consultant sometimes helps this process.

Once when I was in my slumming mode, wearing comfortable shoes, nice jeans, and polo shirt, and a brown supple leather bomber jacket, I walked iinto a travel agency. I was actually calling on doctors mostly that day, and have found that the non-business card/no information approach works best forthese guys--but since the travel agency was next door, I called on them as well. The gatekeeper read me, even in "disguise.

" She was semi-hateful to me and immediately said. "We don't want any and the owner is getting ready to go out the door for an important meeting. She won't have time for you." I guess it was the leather harman notebook I was carrying.But I was not going to let her know that she had pegged me. I don't recommend this, but I do always say, maintain your dignity, no matter what!

I looked annoyed and perplexed. I don't know who you think I am. And I sure don't know who you think YOU are--" the owner was indeed gathering up to leave and within earshot--"But I AM sure that you are the rudest person Ihave ever met, and I have no idea why you are in business--and obviously won't be for long. EXCUSE me for thinking I needed you services. I will see that everyone in our firm never uses you and will certainly dis-recommend you ever chance I get!"

The owner was hollering after me as I got in my car. I can only gues the conversation that followed inside afterwards. Mean.

In the same mode, I entered a new business, usualy a good suspect for office equipment. The guy dissd me right off the bat, and said he'd hadit with salesman and to get the heck out of his business. Obviously a new businessman too. He was young, and obviously ego-tripping about the fact that he finally had a business at all--probably at Daddy's expense.

"I said, excuse me sir, I a from the xyz newspaper. We had hoped to do a special page on your buiness in our New Business inseret--but with an attitude like that--you couldn't pay me enough to feature you now--and unfortunately for you, I am the sole editor of this insert."

The guy'sw face was crestfallen. I really do do freelance journalistic work, so it was believable--and I probably could have gotten his picture and q little write-up in the NP, so it wasn't totally off the wall.

As I was leaving, the young fellow had gathered enough composure for me to hear trailing off as the door closed, "What newspaper is tha . . .?"

I was younger then, and I was indulging my pride, as were these two examples. I don't recommend it. Pride procedeth the fall.

I have even done worse, but I better not tell. It could get you arrested. But for all the times you've wished you could just punch someone out for being rude, take heart in knowing that strangerthingsw have happened. But it USUALLY comes at a cost. And generally signifies a time for a long break.LOL.

doug wright

The problem is usually solutions.