Just One More Time – Breaking Rocks to Make a Sale

Several years ago when we had our new home built in Las Vegas, we immediately put in a pool and hot tub. Of course the pool company convinced us that we needed a waterfall as an added design element for the pool. Several more thousands of dollars later, we agreed. When they got to the point when they started to build the waterfall, a very large crane showed up in the street adjacent to our house, along with a flatbed truck with these gigantic red boulders. I asked the project manager what that was all about, and he said, “That’s your waterfall.” I said, “No way do we want a giant pile of rocks,” in which he replied, “Just be patient and you’ll see.” So the crane lowered these small mountains into our yard and shortly afterward a crew of waterfall builders showed up.

The foreman, who spoke no English, walked around one of the rocks, studying it like a fine piece of jewelry. He furrowed his brow and scratched his chin several times until finally he placed his finger on an invisible mark and shouted something to his crew in a foreign language. Two workers quickly approached; one with a 2-foot long chisel-like tool and the other with a large sledge hammer. The first worker placed the chisel on the invisible mark and the other hit it as hard as he could. Nothing happened. He hit it a second time. Nothing happened. Third time. Nothing happened. Fourth, fifth, sixth, and even a seventh time, and still nothing happened.

I was quite amused at this point because I was thoroughly convinced these guys had no idea what they were doing. Hitting a small red mountain with hand tools was a total waste of time. Well, that’s what I thought until the eighth hit. Bingo! The boulder split into perfect halves. He just had to hit it one more time. The workers then moved each half into position by the edge of the pool, which formed the base of our new waterfall. I couldn’t believe my eyes. They then repeated the process. The foreman scratched his chin while pondering another boulder, and finally pointed to another invisible mark for his workers to start pounding on. Sure enough, after seven or eight hard blows, the boulder split in half and they positioned each piece on our new waterfall.

Was it that last blow that split the boulder, or was it the cumulative effect of all the blows? It didn’t take me long to realize that, of course, it was the cumulative effect of all the blows, even though it appeared that all the previous blows had no apparent effect on the rock. Naturally it took precision and strength to split these boulders. But it also took persistence and patience. They knew that all the previous strikes were making a difference. It was just a matter of time before there would be that one final blow that would make all of them worthwhile.

Is this any different in sales? Of course not. Persistence and patience are just as important when trying to reach a new prospect or even close a sale. Let me give you two examples of how this works when contacting new prospects; one having to do with the number of calls to make in any given amount of time (or what you might consider a call quota), and the other having to do with how many times to call the same prospect until you actually reach him.

In my first scenario, having to do with the number of calls to make in a given amount of time, I will give you a personal antidote. It was late on a Friday afternoon, the end of a very long and busy week for me. Because of my hectic schedule that week, I wasn’t able to finish my cold calling quota I established for myself. In case you were wondering, yes, I do cold call. And, yes, I do research every company I call, prior to calling, to make it a “warmer” call. I spend five to ten minutes browsing their web site and using TheSalesTrack.com to find out who’s who at their company as well as other relevant information (If you don’t use TheSalesTrack.com, give me a call and I’ll give you a free, live demo. This product is very good and quite affordable. You have to try it out.) Since I always strive to keep my pipeline full, I couldn’t ignore these calls staring at me on my calendar. I could have easily said, “Hey! It’s late Friday and no one’s going to be in. So I’ll wait till Monday.” However, I have enough self-discipline to resist such a temptation. So, at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon I began cold (or “warm”) calling the 15 names I had on my prospecting list for that day.

I figured that the worst that would happen is that no one will be in and I’ll just try again on Monday. But I could not let myself get lazy. I had to call at least one prospect. One more time! Well, I was right. The worst had happened. One call after another all I got was, “I’m sorry, but he’s not in,” or “I’m sorry, but she left for the day,” or even one time, “I’m sorry, but he’s on a conference call.” Yea, right, on a golf course. But I persisted and simply moved all these calls to my Monday calendar.

The more I called, however, the more I realized that my list was slowly dwindling. Fifteen soon became ten. So I told myself, just one more time. Just one more call. Soon there were only eight calls left. Just one more time. Soon there were only five left. I was determined to call everyone on my list, even though I was batting zero. Then there were only three. Then two. Every one a failed attempt that was re-scheduled to Monday. Finally, I called the last prospect on my list at 4:50 on a Friday afternoon. Just one more time. Hey, I was ready for cocktail hour at this point.

Guess what. I was put through to the President of this large printing company in town. I did my spiel, we had a nice chat, and we scheduled a personal visit for the following Tuesday. He told me my timing was perfect since he just completed a business planning review with a company in Oklahoma and was ready to start planning his implementations based on what was recommended from this plan. Improving his sales processes and sales effectiveness were high on the list. Perfect. Just one more time. Like breaking a boulder in half.

Let’s now talk about the number of times to keep trying to reach a prospect before giving up. Did you know that, on average, it takes from seven to nine times to get through to people these days? That includes leaving voice messages, messages with gatekeepers and email contacts. Unfortunately, most sales people give up after only two or three attempts. They give up not even halfway there. By the way, something what works well for me is to call two times, about one week apart, then send an email the third week. After that, I rotate with a call or email every week until I reach seven or eight tries. Then I give up. You’d be surprised how many times I get a response from my emails. This is typically because people are too busy to talk on the phone and they prefer responding to emails off-hours, when they have a bit more time to relax and process your messages.

But back to calling multiple times and leaving messages. I often think that there are two scenarios that can happen when I leave messages. First, the person I call has an executive assistant (the “Gatekeeper”) who deletes every message I leave and my prospect never even knows I called. I choose not to believe this scenario. Instead, I believe that this is what actually happens (and it does really work):

- First voice message: Prospect says, “I hate salesmen.” Deletes message.

- Second voice message: “Him again!” Delete.

- Third voice message: “This guy’s a real pain.” Delete.

- Fourth voice message: What’s with this guy anyway?” Delete.

- Fifth voice message: Geez! This guy is really persistent.” Delete.

- Sixth voice message: Wow! I gotta give this guy credit. He just won’t give up.” Delete.

- Seventh voice message: I wish my sales people were this persistent. If this guy works this hard just to talk with me, I can only imagine how well he’ll manage us as his customer. I better return his call.” Bingo!

Just one more time.

You never really know what’s going through the minds of the people you are leaving messages with. You cannot assume anything. You can’t imagine or guess what they are thinking or doing. You can only keep trying, one more time. Sales takes a lot of persistence and patience. Like breaking boulders into smaller rocks to build a waterfall, you have to keep on pounding and pounding until the accumulated effect makes something happen. Make that call, just one more time, and one more time again, and don’t give up. It will make a huge difference in your sales results.

Good luck and good selling!

Russ Lombardo

Just One More Time – Breaking Rocks to Make a Sale - To learn more about this author, visit Russ Lombardo's Website.

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