Chapter 5

Setting Smart Call Objectives and Never Being Rejected Again

Unless you like to joyride in the countryside, you usually don’t get in your vehicle and say, “I’m going to start my car, and then just start driving. We’ll see what happens.” No, you get in your car because you have a very specific destination in mind. Then you figure out what route you need to take to get there. You follow that route, and usually, you arrive.

However, sales reps often take this type of impromptu, poorly prepared approach with their potential clients, and begin prospecting calls like an unfocused driver. They start talking about a given topic but meander around in circles, never ending at a desired destination since they didn’t establish one to begin with. Maybe you’ve had that feeling after a call—the one where you shake your head, thinking, “What just happened on that call? I was all over the place.”

Begin with the end in mind.

—Habit Two, from Steven Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

When sitting with sales reps on individual coaching sessions, I always ask for their objectives before calls. I hear such things as:

None of those are primary objectives. Granted, they should all be accomplished, but none are the end result you’re ideally looking for on a call. That is your primary objective.

In order to maximize your chances for success on your calls, you need to begin by setting and focusing on the end result you desire. I define your primary objective as what you want the person on the other end to do as a result of the call—emphasis on the do. It must be action-oriented.

The ultimate primary objective, of course, is to get them to buy at the end of this call. But this can vary in terms of the specific action taken. Perhaps your objective is to “get agreement that the customer will take your proposal to the board meeting and recommend its approval.” Maybe you want to qualify, generate interest, and get the prospect to agree to do a side-by-side comparison between his existing product and yours. Or maybe you want to secure a promise that they will take part in a web demo.

Look at these again. They all involve your prospect doing something.

Let’s test your understanding of a primary objective. Look at each of these and determine if they are a suitable primary objective.

Thinking Big Gets Big Results

As long as you are thinking anyway, think big.

—Donald Trump

When establishing your primary objective, think big. One thing’s for sure: If you aim low, you’ll rarely hit above your target. When you aim high, you’ll sometimes reach it and, on average, will achieve greater results than if you start low.

I suggest that you adopt the attitude that all elite athletes have regarding your call objectives. Michael Phelps expected to win every time he dove into the pool. Why wouldn’t you do the same and expect to achieve the ultimate on every call you make?

So what expectations do you set as you prepare your prospecting calls? Some sales reps who approach calls “just to see if there might be any interest there” are often surprised when they stumble upon someone who actually stays on the phone with them. But they become uneasy with their brief success, not wanting to take the call too far, and quickly jump off the call, saying, “Well, let me send you out some information, and I’ll call back again”—wasting an opportunity in the process.

High achievers, on the other hand, expect to take the call as far as possible, and they do. They begin calls with a specific, ambitious objective, whether it is the sale or the appointment.

I often ask in my sales training seminars about the furthest anyone has ever gone on a prospecting call. Even in higher-ticket, more complex sales situations, there are extraordinary success stories about the guy who made a sale on a prospecting call. And for some of you, that is routine. So therefore, in those situations, it is possible. And if it’s possible, why not make that your objective on every call? Even if you don’t reach it—which might be most of the time—you’ll still consistently reach higher levels than you would have otherwise. And think about how much time you can save by moving prospects to a decision more quickly, regardless of what that decision ultimately is.

Approach every call anticipating the fulfillment of the highest conceivable end result. You won’t get there every call, but you know what? Your results over time will be much higher than they would be with low—or no—expectations.

So here’s your mission: For every call you place from here on out, simply ask: “What do I want this person to do as a result of this call?” That’s your primary objective.

How to Never Be Rejected Again: Accomplishing Your Secondary Objective

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Some of you undoubtedly purchased this book simply because of the subtitle and the part about “eliminating rejection” from your calls. Follow my advice, and you will not be disappointed or feel rejected ever again.

First, we need to put some things in perspective. If you have ever felt—or feared—rejection on a prospecting call, what is it exactly that you heard, or feared hearing?

Oh, I know the answers:

And there are more, of course.

What’s interesting, though, about most of what incites these feelings of rejection is that these are things that happen to you. This begs another question: Is rejection what happens to you, or is it the way you react to it?

Rejection, as it turns out, is always your reaction to the response that you receive.

Let’s look at two sales reps, both of whom just heard a no on a call. The first rep thinks, Geez, another no. This rejection is getting to me. Rejection sucks. What’s wrong with me? It’s depressing. I think I’ll go check what’s in the vending machine.

The second rep says, Oh, well. He wasn’t a prospect today. I did ask him if we could keep the door open for the future, and he agreed to receive our e-mail newsletter. Another small win—on to the next one!

While they both got a similar no, one sales rep salvaged something from the call. At the end of the prospecting day, the first rep feels beaten bloody because he tells himself that he has been the victim of constant rejection. The other rep says, Well, I accomplished my primary objective three times today, and the rest of the time I accomplished my secondary. Pretty good day!

Unless you proactively look for and achieve wins—regardless of how small—you will be pulled down by prospecting. Therefore, for your Smart Calling mental health, you need to set a secondary objective for every call, which is, What you can attempt, at minimum, on your calls.

Notice that this does not have to be a do on their part; it can simply be an attempt that you make. In the event that you do not accomplish your primary objectives, possible secondary objectives could be:

“I want to leave them with a good feeling about my company.”

“I want to ask who they are now buying their supplies from.”

“I will ask if I could recontact them in the future.”

This is not high-level stuff; it doesn’t need to be. It is for your attitude.

Secondary Objectives Can also Pay Off in the Future

An extra bonus with a secondary objective is that it can be a seed that you harvest later. For example, a travel agency sales rep cold-called me, using the old alternate-choice close to try to set an appointment: “So I’d like to come out there and tell you what we do. Would Thursday or Friday be better?”

I quickly replied that I was not a prospect for him. He then surprised me by responding brilliantly: “Oh?” It was brilliant, because it got me talking. I proceeded to tell him I was happy with my present agency, that I had actually used his agency before, and that the new agency was able to do things that his agency couldn’t at the time because of their size. I even told him more, all as a result of that one word. He responded that he understood but asked that if anything ever happened with my present agency, could he be the first in line to be considered—especially given that I had worked with them before (prior to his arrival there).

Fair enough, I told him. As he was taking down my information to send me his card, he slipped in another question: “Kind of curious—what would have to happen that would be so severe that would cause you to even consider someone else?”

Now that was even more brilliant, and it got me thinking. I hadn’t really established those criteria before. After some pondering, I said that I would probably reconsider my patronage if they gave me a feeling of indifference, since I was a small deal compared to their big accounts. But the major reason would be if they did something that cost me money and would not fix it.

The rep ended by saying, “I understand. Let me just leave you with two thoughts. You would be a big account for us. We specialize in your size of account. In fact, not only would you have your own personal agent but also all of our agents are cross-trained on two other profiles, so you would always have someone here who knows you. And for the second point, well, it’s our president’s personal philosophy that doing business with us will never cost our clients money. So we will always make it right.”

Impressive, I thought. He sent me his card and I filed it, but I didn’t think much about him for about a year.

Then, several months later, I was running late getting to the airport for a flight from Phoenix to Omaha that I had to be on—it was the last one out that day. (This was pre 9/11, when you could pretty much show up at the gate anytime and still get on the plane without having to wait in lines and endure full body cavity searches, like today.) As I was running through the gate area—still two away from mine—I yelled to the still-distant gate agent before she closed the door to the Jetway, “Wait, I’m on that flight!”

Out of breath, I handed her my ticket and thanked her for holding the door. My heart dropped when she looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, this ticket was for yesterday. I’ll need to close the door.”

I told her that was impossible because I had bought a bunch of tickets the prior week, and I even pulled out my yellow legal pad showing all of the flight dates, times, and numbers I had given the agency. She was unimpressed with my notes, but I managed to convince her to let me on the flight—at an additional cost of $600 for the last seat they had on the plane. It was in first class—which I didn’t enjoy as much as I usually do.

The next day I called my agent, ranting about how they made a mistake, it cost me $600, and what were they going to do for me? She calmed me down, checked my record, and commented that I had called the prior week and didn’t speak with her, my regular agent, because she was gone. I worked with a trainee.

“Well, there’s your problem,” I announced.

“Actually, it’s not our problem. You know it’s your responsibility to check your tickets.”

She was right. But you know what? The next time I needed to buy a ticket—who do you think I called? I found the card of the guy who had called me a year earlier. I remember what he said about their agency always having someone who would know me, and how doing business with them would never cost me money. And they gained a new client in the process from something he said at the end of a call, during which he did not set an appointment—that had taken place a full year earlier!

You can have the same effect on potential clients that he did on me: You can plant seeds, many of which you might harvest later. And that also can be part of your secondary objective. Remind them of any future, unfavorable circumstances they should look out for—which just might happen to include any problems you could solve. For example:

“Matt, even though there is not a fit today, if you find that your volume gets to the point where it would make sense to outsource your peak-level jobs, keep in mind that we can turn those around quickly for you.”

“If more of your customers ask for the type of unit we produce and you have to refer them elsewhere, please remember that we can help you help those customers and realize those profits that you would be missing.”

“Okay, Shelley, it doesn’t look like I have a fit for what you need today. Here’s something to keep in mind, though. When you do notice more of your direct mailings being returned because of bad addresses, we do have a software program that could help you reduce that number and save the printing and postage expense. I’ll send you my card, and please keep it in the file you work from when you’re planning mailings, okay?”

Notice the last sentence in the final example. It asks, or tells, prospective clients to place the card (or literature) in a place they’ll see it when they’re most likely to need it. Do the same with your calls. Tell whomever you’re speaking with to put it in their Rolodex under Widgets, in their project file, in their contact management program—anywhere that they can easily access it when they need it. We’ve all had people we’ve long written off call us and say, “Things have changed. Let’s talk.” This is a way to make that happen more often.

So, your secondary objective has two major benefits:

Smart Calling Action Steps

What else will you commit to do as a result of this chapter?