CHAPTER 5
Setting Smart Call Objectives and Never Being Rejected Again
Unless you like to joyride, you usually don’t get in your vehicle and say, “I’m going to start driving and see what happens.” No, you have a specific destination in mind. Then you figure out what route you need to take to get there.
However, sales reps often take an impromptu, poorly prepared approach with their potential clients, beginning prospecting calls like an unfocused driver. They start talking about a given topic but meander around in circles, never reaching a destination because they didn’t establish one. Maybe you’ve had a call that left you shaking your head, thinking, “What just happened? I was all over the place.” Instead, remember Habit Two from Steven Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: “Begin with the end in mind.”
In individual coaching sessions with sales reps, I always ask for their objectives before calls. I hear such things as:
- “I want to see who they’re buying from now.”
- “I’d like to qualify and send out some info.”
- “I want to see if they have any needs.”
While those should be goals, none of them are primary objectives because none are the end result you’re 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 is to get them to buy at the end of the call. But the specific action will vary. 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 of their current 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 with the next exercise.
Smart Calling Exercise
Which of the following could be considered a primary objective?
- I want to find out what system they’re using now to track client time and billing for their legal work.
- I want to identify a compelling need that I can fill.
- I want to set an appointment with the prospect, assuming he is qualified, and get him to include other influencers in the meeting.
Answers
- Not a primary objective. The rep would want to find that out, but then what? That would be the do we want them to perform.
- Not. Again, while we do want to accomplish that, we also want the prospect to take some action as the result of the call.
- Yes! The prospect is agreeing to meet with the sales rep and bring other influencers to the meeting.
Primary Objectives: Thinking Big Gets Big Results
When establishing your primary objective, think big. One thing’s for sure: If you aim low, you’ll rarely hit above your target. 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?
So what expectations do you set as you prepare your prospecting calls? Some sales reps approach calls “just to see if there might be any interest there,” and are often surprised when someone actually stays on the phone with them. They become uneasy with their easy success and quickly jump off the call, saying, “Well, let me send you out some information, and I’ll call back again,” wasting the opportunity.
High achievers, on the other hand, expect to take the call as far as possible—and they do. They begin 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 sales made on prospecting calls. It is possible. So, 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.
What about the Sales Experts Who Say You Should Just Set the Appointment Quickly and End the Call?
One thing I’ve heard for years about prospecting is the general declaration, being stated as if it is the absolute truth in every situation: “Just sell the meeting. Nothing else. Just get the appointment set.” This is as wrong today as it has always been.
In my opinion that is only true in a small percentage of situations, industries, and types of calls. Usually they are lower-level, transactional prospecting attempts where everyone gets the same pitch—not a Smart Calling approach.
It is more common, and sometimes appropriate when a caller—for example a sales development rep (SDR) or a business development rep (BDR)—prospects for someone else. They typically work at the same company as the sales rep they are prospecting for, and then hand the qualified appointment over to the rep. In other situations, there are outsourced callers making calls and setting appointments. While there are hundreds of variations on the process, my personal feeling always has been that the first call ideally should not be to get the appointment as quickly as possible and get off the phone. It makes the call—and the appointment—forgettable, which sets up the sales rep for failure.
Why?
Just ask any sales rep who calls a supposed “qualified appointment,” or worse, shows up in person, and the prospect vaguely even remembers speaking with the initial caller. Oh, but an appointment was set. The number-one problem salespeople have is getting someone on the phone. So, if I have someone on the phone, engaged because I piqued their curiosity with a great value statement, why in the world would I suggest we stop talking, set up another time to speak, and get off the phone? It’s absurd.
Don’t worry about it being a bad time. If people are too busy to talk, they’ll tell you. Trust me.
The Benefits of Moving Further
Now, look at the benefits of taking the first call further. First, you can qualify them even more. This minimizes the chance you follow up with someone who can’t or won’t buy from you.
Second, you have the opportunity to get them more interested in what you have, enhancing the chance of a better outcome on the next call meeting. To use a football analogy, by taking the first call further, you move the ball downfield, closer to the endzone.
A stronger first call can help ensure a better meeting next time. You can ask them to get other stakeholders involved and even have them do some preselling for you.
Finally, you satisfy the buyer’s curiosity, need, and timing. If I am talking to a sales rep about something I’m interested in, I don’t want the rep to say, “Not so fast. We can’t go further now. You have to wait.” Forcing someone who is interested to wait is like watching a burning match go out.
In your Smart Calling Companion Course (SmartCallingBook.com), Chapter 5 contains even more on this, including what to say on that first call to ensure a better follow-up call, and opening ideas and tips for that next call.
Approach every call anticipating the fulfillment of the highest conceivable end result. You won’t get there every call, but your results over time will be better than they would be with low—or no—expectations.
Smart Calling Exercise
Write out your primary objective for the prospect you are working on.
Secondary Objectives: How to Never Be Rejected Again
Some of you undoubtedly purchased this book simply because the subtitle says “eliminating rejection.” 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 exactly did it sound like?
Oh, I know the answers:
- “We are happy with what we are using.”
- “We don’t need that.”
- “We’re all set.”
- “Not interested.”
- “No thanks.”
- “No.”
What’s interesting to ask about rejection is: Is it something that 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.
Smart Calling Tip
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” In sales, no one can reject you without your consent.
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. 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 because he feels like a victim. 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 find 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 contact them again in the future.”
This doesn’t need to be high-level stuff. It is for your attitude.
Smart Calling Tip
Don’t reject yourself. In Episode 4 of The Art of Sales Podcast, I addressed the topic of rejection. Smart Caller Adam Hammer wrote to me with some wisdom: “The way that I think about it is: If I don’t call, I’m rejecting myself. What reward do I get for doing nothing?”
A “no” itself is not rejection. Andrea Waltz and Richard Fenton wrote an entire book about it: Go for No: Yes is the Destination. No is How to Get There. I interviewed Andrea on my podcast (TheArtofSales.com, Episode 17) and she said, “You can achieve virtually anything you want—if you’re willing to hear ‘no’ often enough.”
Secondary Objectives Can 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 replied that I was not a prospect for him. He surprised me by responding, “Oh?” It was brilliant because it got me talking. I proceeded to tell him I was happy with my present agency and that I had used his agency before. The new agency was able to do things that his agency couldn’t 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.
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 a year or so.
Then, several months later, I was running late getting to the airport for a flight that I had to be on—it was the last one out that day. As I was running through the gate area, 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 told her that was impossible. 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, 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.
The next day I called my agent, ranting about how their mistake had cost me $600. I asked what they were going to do for me. She calmed me down, checked my record, and commented that I had worked with a trainee because my regular agent was gone.
“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 remembered what he said about their agency always having someone who would know me, and how doing business with them would never cost me money. They gained a new client because of what he said at the end of a “rejection” call more than a year ago.
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 have a software program that could help you reduce that number and save the printing and postage expense. I’ll send you my card. 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 info where 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 anywhere that they can easily access it when they need it. We’ve all had people we’ve written off call us and say, “Things have changed. Let’s talk.” This is a way to make that happen more often.
Your secondary objective has two major benefits:
- It ensures that you will never be rejected again, because you will always have some type of a win.
- It allows you to plant seeds that you might harvest later.
Smart Calling Exercise
Write out your secondary objective for your prospect.
Smart Calling Action Steps
What else will you commit to do as a result of this chapter?