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Getting prospects to talk to you

Written by: Sue Barrett

Article Overview: Do you take time to really think about why you are calling a prospect or a client? Do you reflect on how effective you have been post the call? Making prospecting calls to new prospects and existing clients is still one of the most important sales and business development activities you can do on a daily basis. Even with all the electronic communication and marketing options at hand most businesses still need to have someone prospecting for them to build and forge real business relationships. Top performing sales people make sure prospecting is part of their daily repertoire. Like many things prospecting is a process and as a business development person, you will need to do over and over again approximately 500-1,000 times in a year at least! However most people do not prospect effectively and many find it a daunting experience.

Getting prospects to talk to you

Do you take time to really think about why you are calling a prospect or a client? Do you reflect on how effective you have been post the call? Making prospecting calls to new prospects and existing clients is still one of the most important sales and business development activities you can do on a daily basis. Even with all the electronic communication and marketing options at hand most businesses still need to have someone prospecting for them to build and forge real business relationships. Top performing sales people make sure prospecting is part of their daily repertoire.

Like many things prospecting is a process and as a business development person, you will need to do over and over again approximately 500-1,000 times in a year at least!

However most people do not prospect effectively and many find it a daunting experience. Much of the controversy about the ‘do not call' debate, in my opinion, is centred around the quality of calls being made. Most of the people who are being complained about are not prospecting effectively at all. They are usually calling and imposing themselves and their agenda on others with no regard for the other person and their wants or needs. Their prospecting calls are usually all about them not about you.

Prospecting Rule # 1: If you want to connect with another person and have them interested in you and what you have to offer you must first be interested in them.

By contrast, if a person rang you, explained (very briefly) who they were, showed some respect for your time commitments by asking you if you were in a position to speak to them now or later, and then quickly and respectfully stated why they made the effort to call you (all stated from your perspective and for your benefit of course) then you might give them a minute just to see if what they were calling about was worthwhile in engaging in a discussion or not.

From the customer or prospect's perspective there must be a Valid Reason for them to want to speak to you. Something that will make their lives better in some way. Sure you want to work with them because they may fit your target market or maybe a great client to get on board for revenue, reputation, etc. but these are all your reasons and are all directed at how you will benefit.

Instead think about why a customer or prospect would want to speak to you. Do some research into their business and think about why they would want to take the time to connect with you. In other words put yourself in their shoes first.

Yes you could be their savior, but if they don't know they need saving and you don't position yourself to find out if they want to be saved of not then you are in trouble.

From the first phone call, to the thank you after your first meeting and subsequent meetings, each contact must add value to the client. Each contact must have a valid reason behind it.

The phone call is typically the first point of contact with a potential client. In preparation for that prospecting call you need to have two things ready:

1. A Call Objective - Your call objective is your reason for wanting to make contact.

As yourself why you want to connect with this person/ division/ company? What do you hope to gain or achieve by making this contact? i.e. You have heard there is new project on the agenda and you would like to make contact with the key stakeholder who is the main decision maker to see if you can get an opportunity to be considered for that project. Or you want to connect with the influencer who may give you an introduction to the key decision maker, etc.

2. A Valid Business Reason (VBR) - A VBR must be meaningful and relevant to the prospect. It should be a reason why the prospect should want to speak to this person further. It must be of value and important to the prospect and answer the What's In It For Me (WII-FM) from your prospects' perspective.

VBR's are not usually static, they tend to be dynamic and current. They should be updated depending on the current business climate, market trends, etc. VBR's require sales people to get their heads out of their products and look at the markets and the broader world they operate in. There is not shortage of VBR's out there.

Here a few different categories that may help you generate VBR's:

• Competitor Reality
• Timing & seasonal fit
• Category Success
• New location/Expansion
• Broaden their market focus
• Referral - Personal intro
• Site visitor fit
• Events/opportunities
• New concept/idea

Listen to anyone of those annoying prospecting calls people complain about and they do not use VBR's.

Prospecting Rule # 2: To generate effective VBR's get your head out of your products and into the minds of your prospects and customers.

Look at your customer or prospect's business and see what's on their mind or what's happening in their market and you will have no shortage of VBR's. Role playing VBR's with your team is a great way to develop the ideas and skill of applying them effectively. This will have a dramatic impact on increasing your phone prospecting success.

An example of a powerful prospecting call that incorporates a VBR statement is as follows:

"Hello XXX, this is Sue calling from Company X, do you have a moment to speak?..."

If they say ‘yes' proceed

...."Thank you for taking my call. We specialise in helping businesses like yours find ways to increase their annual business profits upwards of 20% with our inventory management systems. Given the rapid changes in business management and procurement I was wanting to know if this was a priority for you at present. If so I would like to arrange a time to meet with you and understand more about your business and to see if we can be of any service."...

If they say ‘no' then say this

...."I understand you are busy at present the purpose of my call is to let you know that we specialise in helping businesses like yours find ways to increase their annual business profits upwards of 20% with our inventory management systems. Given the rapid changes in business management and procurement I was wanting to know if this was a priority for you at present and if so when would be a good time to call you back to arrange a meeting so I can and understand more about your business and to see if we can be of any service."...

Remember to position yourself favourably.

Before you can engage in any conversation with your customer or prospect, you have to give them a reason to want to talk you.

Don't forget everybody lives by selling something.

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Article Tags: benefit, business development activities, business relationships, controversy, daily basis, electronic communication, many things, marketing, perspective, prospects, regard, rule 1, time commitments



Related Forum Posts
Top sales skills - Qualifying Fast to Avoid Wasting Sales Time Do you chase after your prospects until they tell you yes or no? Do you ever tell your prospects "No", as in "No, I am not going to sell to you"? There are many things in selling that you do not and will not be able to control. The one thing that you do have control over is your time and how you choose to use it. Motivating Prospects Qualifying goes beyond budget, authority, and need. You want to sell to prospects who *want* to buy from you. Finding prospects that need our products usually is not difficult. Finding those who really want our products though can be very hard if we wait for them to come to us. Selling to People Outside Your Comfort Zone Most salespeople who are "people persons", already think that they are good at this. Let me ask you a question. When you last lost a sale, how was your rapport with the key person who decided against you?
General Guidelines to sale - Without knowing more about your market, company, products, etc. all I can do is provide a general answer. Determine who is your ideal prospects, craft an offer or two that you believe, based on information you have about your market, company, prospects, etc., these ideal prospects will respond favorably to and then deliver the message. Methods of message delivery might include telephone calls, in-person visits, mail/email, advertising, etc. Does that help?
What is "Good Advertising"? - Hi dominick Thank you for your tips, they are very useful. However I have a question for you, what do you define good advertising as and how do you work out the best ways of advertising? I am keen to perform your formula, but where is the best place to capture my prospects attention do you believe? It would depend on my type of business obviously, but do you have any thoughts on where to find your best prospects for as little advertising waste as possible?
Re: Email Marketing Benefits - Robert, Many lists consist of more prospects than customers. Customer lists are the best, but they are created because prospects successfully transform into customers.
How to develop sales contacts? - Unfortunately starting off there isn’t a whole lot of easy tricks. But when you get those 2 interested prospects from sales calls and turn them into customers, you need to develop a referral system that gets 3-4 good prospects from each of them. That's the key to prospecting in sales, referrals from satisfied customers. Sometimes they'll give you the business without having to ask, but normally you'll have to pry a little and ask them who they know that could use your service or product.


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