CHAPTER 27
Being Worth a Second Call
Very early in my sales career, I made a cold call on the CEO of a large homebuilder in my territory. I was selling construction management systems for a major computer company. Freshly trained in sales and computers, shoes shined, and red power tie straightened, I was a newly minted sales rep ready to go out and conquer. I marched into the lobby and up to the receptionist’s desk and asked to see the CEO, fully expecting to be rebuffed. So I was completely taken aback when the CEO, Bill, came into the lobby, shook my hand, and escorted me back to his office.
Bill was very polite and completely old-school, with silver hair, a nice tan, and an expensive three-piece suit. His office was empty except for his massive wooden desk with a phone on it. He motioned for me to sit down opposite him and asked for my business card. He took it, slowly turning it in his hands, examining it back and front, and laid it on the desk in front of him. “So, Andy, what can I do for you?”
I took a deep breath and launched into my pitch, just as I’d been trained to do. He let me talk for a minute, and then he raised his hand for me to stop. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a two-inch high stack of business cards bound with a rubber band. “These are all the computer salespeople that have been by my office in the last year.” He spread the cards across the top of his desk. There were dozens of cards from nearly every competitor I could think of. “Tell me, how are you different or better than any of those folks?”
The answer was that I wasn’t.
When you’re prospecting for new customers, getting the first calls are relatively simple. Once your plan and process are in place, following them is simply a matter of execution. The hard part is getting the second call (which in reality is oftentimes the first sales call), which signifies that the customer is preparing to initiate his buying process. Compare self-developed sales leads with marketing-developed sales leads: Marketing-developed prospects have invested in the buying process prior to contacting your company. They have identified a need for change in their business. They have developed at least a broad set of requirements for the change. They have investigated potential solutions and have used the Internet and social media to research your product and others like it. And, they have made some preliminary decisions about which suppliers to talk to and which to exclude. With this type of sales lead, the first call with a salesperson is very different from an initial prospecting call. Preeducated marketing leads have questions that need to be answered and expectations for the information they need to receive in order to move forward with their buying process.
The first call with self-developed leads is very different: Usually the customers have little to no developed need or interest in a change. Nor have they initiated a buying process or researched potential vendors. When you contact those customers for the first time, they may answer the phone or spend a few minutes with you for no other reason than a little natural curiosity. Good businesspeople want to keep abreast of what is happening in their fields. So this customer may be willing to invest a couple of minutes in you with no expectation of a return, just on the off chance they can learn something.
This is the perfect illustration of the time exchange that is at the heart of all selling. Customers give you some of their time, and what are you giving them in return? How are you going to earn more selling time, in the form of a second call, with the customer?
I recommend a method I call “Story-Question-Listen.” In a prospecting call, you are going to use a story, a question, and your ears to earn the all-important second call with a customer.
I learned later that Bill talked to nearly 50 salespeople just like me every year. Fifty salespeople were given an opportunity to speak directly with the CEO on their first calls. Bill had simplified the task for every salesperson. There were no layers to go through, no BANT (budget, authority, need, time frame) qualification to process because they were talking to the ultimate decision maker. And yet, no seller had ever gotten past the first call with Bill.
Why? Because Bill was simply waiting for someone to give him a compelling reason to consider making a change. That reason was not going to be a new feature or its associated benefits. He was patiently waiting for a salesperson to deliver value in the form of a compelling question or a unique business insight that would move him to invest his time and money in a new system. In short, he was waiting for a salesperson to step up and differentiate himself from the crowd of companies selling similar products.
Story-Question-Listen. Customers can talk to a hundred salespeople whose products can do exactly what yours does. Why should they spend more time with you?
Here are five easy steps to catch fire using the Story-Question-Listen method with potential leads while prospecting:
1. Warm up your cold calls. There is little reason for a salesperson to make a completely cold call. Whenever possible, before your first personal interaction, use a warm-up touch to engage the customer. For example, if you have a list of names that you are planning to call, first send them an introductory e-mail that contains a single insight about their business. This insight should be brief but of sufficient value to pique the customer’s interest. It could be your killer question. It could be summary research findings about the value customers realized from using products like yours, the abstract of a case study about a customer, or even a customer testimonial. It could simply be an, “Are you aware…?” question. “Are you aware that independent research has found that companies like yours that use products like mine are growing 25 percent faster than those who don’t?” And then end the warm-up touch by stating that you are going to contact them at a specific date and time.
In addition to giving customers a reason to invest their time to talk with you, there is another important reason why you should do a warm-up touch prior to contacting a potential lead. This is to give customers the impetus to start their research on you before you contact them. The extent to which they are motivated to prepare for your first call indicates something about their level of interest. It also means that more ground can be covered during that session. If you have carefully targeted the companies you are warming up, this should increase your odds of getting that second meeting.
2. Tell a very short sales story. When you’re prospecting, the customer is, at best, in the awareness stage of the buying process. At this point the customer—the potential lead—has one question for you: “What do you do?” Illustrate your answer with a succinct (30-second-or-less) sales story about one of your current customers, why the company chose you, and how it is using your product. (In Part VII, I get into detail about how to create these powerful stories.) The purpose of this story is to answer buyers’ questions in such a way that they can begin to envision themselves using your product. In essence, the customer will take a mental test drive of your product during your first interaction. They will also hear some third-party validation for your product, an indirect testimonial from your customer. This is a powerful step from which the lead can form a positive perception of you.
3. Ask buyers their most important question. In Chapter 23, I introduced you to the notion of the killer question. Every buyer has one or two top-of-mind business questions during the awareness and interest stages of the buying process. In the case of the sales-developed lead, chances are that the customer is just entering the awareness and interest stages of that process. The killer question is a trigger for customer concern. It suggests to customers that they could be missing some key information about their own business. This level of insight is a trust and credibility builder. You should know from your own experience what the killer questions are for the type of companies or individuals that you are prospecting. If not, ask your peers or your manager. Follow up on the story you told by asking one of these important questions. This will show the customer that you have some insight and understanding of his business.
4. Stop and listen. This is powerful. Now that you’ve told your story and asked a killer question, you are waiting for the lead to tell you something that is important to him. If his reply contains inside information about his business, then you’ve made real progress. For instance, suppose the lead responds to your killer question by saying, “Yes, we’re having a problem scaling this part of our production process, and we missed our forecast by 5 percent last year. How could your system help us fix that?” Now you are closer to having a lead that you can qualify.
5. Ask for one small commitment for immediate action.? The next step is getting a commitment from the buyer. It’s best to ask for a small commitment unless you are absolutely convinced that he is prepared to jump into a buying process after just one interaction with you. Make your request a small one—something the buyer can agree to without further thought. Perhaps you want to send him a case study about a problem he mentioned. Get a commitment for a phone call to review it with him. Build the interest and curiosity one step at a time.
What you just did in a very short time was (1) establish credibility with the customer by demonstrating a deep understanding of a main concern, (2) create more trust and credibility through the short story about the benefits that another firm received by working with you to answer the same question, and (3) gave the customer permission to open up and tell you his priorities.
These five simple steps will provide what you need to begin building a relationship with a potential customer. Building credibility and trust is not easy. Great salespeople make it look easy, but it often remains elusive even to the most experienced sales professionals. Practice makes perfect, however. The more you use this process or your own version of it, the more effective you will be in building a quick bond with your customers.
The lesson that I learned from Bill continues to grow in relevance for salespeople, both new and experienced. Today more than ever, how you sell is as important as what you sell to create value, build trust, and differentiate yourself from your competition. Bill had looked at the universe of product offerings that addressed his needs, and yet he had never gone past the first call with a seller. It isn’t enough to show up at prospects’ offices and expect them to fall in love with your product or service based solely on its features and benefits. Another thing about prospecting: It’s not just a numbers game. You could make a million cold calls, but if you don’t give your prospects a reason to invest their time in you, then you are never going to earn their business.
A little over a year later, I went to see Bill again. I was a bit wiser and more experienced. We began all over again, but this time there was a different outcome. Score!