I began coaching a student in
Next, we started our first call into the toll free customer service number since no other number was listed on the web site or in the information directory. For those of you who have done this, you know how much of a challenge this can be. The problem begins with the toll free customer service number.
Dialing this number led us into a call center where both the customer service representative or their supervisor either did not know, left us on hold for too long or could not give out the phone number to the executive offices.
After going through the phone system a few times, we finally reached a menu with four choices. We tried three of them with no luck. Now, this is where most sales reps would have given up. However, I teach a very polite yet respect persistent approach, which means you need to push yourself a little further than you are used to going when cold calling.
We went back, dialed the number again and finally reached a live person in the repair department (choice number four). We explained that we were trying to reach the executive offices and asked if she would provide us with the phone number and location to the executive headquarters. She said no but she said she would transfer us.
Now we were finally starting to make some progress. The woman in the executive offices was very friendly (as they usually are) and we first inquired what number did we reach (since the repair person did not provide it). The assistant provided both that number and the phone number to the second set of executive offices located in another province but unknown to us.
Next, we inquired who was responsible for technology. Did the phone company have a VP of IS or a CIO? She replied they did and provided not only his name, but also his extension, email address, location and to whom he reported.
Armed with this knowledge, we were transferred over to the CIO’s office and the CIO was not in. We could have left a voice mail (and we could still go back and do that and/or send him an email since we have received implicit permission from his assistant who provided his email address). The rep was ready to hang up and then I prodded him to go a little further and this was the result.
We continued our conversation with the CIO’s assistant. The CIO’s assistant was very nice when we asked who that reported to the CIO and who was responsible for certain areas of the technology organization.
To help her understand who we were looking for, we asked her to log onto our web site and she did. She noticed .NET and J2EE which prompted her to provide us with the names and contact details of two VPs and also suggested we get in contact with a certain director (she also provided his contact details) who worked for one of the VPs as she was sure that person would know the answers to our questions.
Of course, we could have kept going calling on each one of the individuals we found, however we needed to move onto to the next rep. I am positive the rep, given all this newfound intelligence will call each one of these people and end up with a face-to-face meeting if warranted.
After the call, the class was asked if we sold anything, talked all about our company and our solutions and of course the answer was no. We started out with a company whose policy was not to provide any information about the executives and we ended up with four high level contacts each of whom would probably have a say in whether or not to use our technology.
We also ended up with the names of my assistants who will prove useful in providing additional information in the future should the need arise. Did we set an appointment? Not this time. Did we find out whom to set an appointment with and begin to do our research on how to position our solutions when the time comes to speak with these individuals, yes!
After the call, I asked how many people would have stopped after the first set of rejections at the customer service level or after three menu choices did not provide results and almost every hand shot up. I asked the rep how it felt gathering all this valuable information since now he would be working with the officers and directors in the organization.
These would be the people responsible not only for handling the management of the evaluation, making a recommendation to upper management but also for making the final decision as to whether or not to acquire the type of technology this rep had to offer.
His response was “I always feel that I am making them uncomfortable by keeping them on the phone that long.” We were on the phone for about 30 minutes or more.
I said understood. Then I explained that as long as you are polite, confident and ask direct questions; most people would be more than happy to help you since people like helping other people especially if they do not feel they are being sold.
This is an underlying tenant of my sales philosophy, which is “Understanding Comes Before Selling”. To put it another way, how can I sell you anything unless first I understand if there is a need to sell something?
What this does is it puts you into information mode rather than sales mode. What I have found based upon on over 8 years of teaching and coaching people who make cold calls, is that it is much easier to ask for and get people to share information if you use a non-salesy approach.
This means “Let me tell you all about my solution and what my company does and how we’ve helped other companies like yours and we can help you too” does not work anymore.
Instead, when you are cold calling your focus needs to be on four objectives:
1. Finding the people who have the authority to evaluate, use and make decisions about your solution.
2. Understanding where they are now, where they want to be and what if any, are their plans to get there.
3. Establishing what is of value to them or what they think and feel is important to them right now (i.e. what are their top priorities).
4. Setting up time and date specific action steps such as a face-to-face appointment, web demo or phone appointment.
The lesson to remember is that your goals while cold calling is two fold:
1. Gather information and business sales intelligence about how the prospect operates their company, who gets involved in your area of expertise and what types of problems they are facing that relate to your solution.
2. Set up time and date specific action steps.
Does this mean you will not be selling? Of course not. However, do not start selling before you establish there is, in fact a need to sell. This means very little talking about you, your company and your solutions and quite a bit of curiosity and questioning to find areas of need, challenges problems or pains.
People do not like to be sold, they like to buy and our job is to help them buy the way they want to buy which may not be the way we want to sell. However, that is a topic for another issue.
