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How not to make a prospecting call

Written by: Sue Barrett

Article Overview: I've been selling for more than 20 years and have learnt many things by trial and error, common sense and staying aware of market conditions and how customers like to buy. There is no shortage of information out there about prospecting, sales, etc. However, I am still amazed at how people don't know how to prospect successfully, given the plethora of calls we receive at home in the evenings, with very much similar outcomes to my experience. So why do many businesses still get this part so wrong?

How not to make a prospecting call

I was working from home when the phone rang. No sooner had I finished getting the greeting out of my mouth than the distant monologue began. I somehow worked out that the woman on the other end of the line was calling from a charity. At the 30-second mark I interrupted her and asked her what the purpose of her call was, but she did not respond and just kept going. Sound familiar?

At the one-minute mark I again interrupted, and asked her what the purpose of the call was. Guess what she said? "I'm getting to it love!" She wasn't rude and her attitude was generally bright.

The reason for her failure to engage me from the outset was her management team. They set this woman and others like her up to fail in the first place. What were they thinking?

Why does this problem occur?

I've been selling for more than 20 years and have learnt many things by trial and error, common sense and staying aware of market conditions and how customers like to buy. There is no shortage of information out there about prospecting, sales, etc.

However, I am still amazed at how people don't know how to prospect successfully, given the plethora of calls we receive at home in the evenings, with very much similar outcomes to my experience. So why do many businesses still get this part so wrong?

Many companies still adopt a "tell and sell" approach! Which is all about "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!" or the "Talking brochure syndrome", with their call scripts structured around information that is all about their company and not centred on gaining an understanding of the customer.

Sales people are relegated to reading from a "one size fits all" script that leaves the customer feeling disengaged and disinterested. Surprise surprise!

• Sadly most salespeople have never been taught how to make effective customer-focused, out-bound prospecting sales calls that take into account the situation and needs of the customer.
• Many telesales consultants and direct sales people usually launch into telling the customer about their product/service without investigating whether or not the customer might have a genuine need for their product/service. This approach is outdated and doesn't work anyway.
• Their sales training is really only training in the product or service's features and benefits, not in how to position themselves to investigate and understand customers' needs from the customers' perspective, and then being able to take that information and provide a relevant solution
• Over 90% of telesales consultants and sales people have no formal solution sales process to follow (how can anyone learn to follow something that doesn't exist?).

Here are some sales prospecting tips:

• Establish what a viable prospect or contact looks like.
• Determine who you are going to target.
• Establish the purpose(s) of your call. These will vary depending on who you are calling, which can include; an existing customer, a lapsed customer, a referral lead, a cold call (contact off a list), a referral source, or other.

Make the call and state your name and your company.

Ask: "Do you have a moment to speak?" (Even if they say no, you can arrange another time to call back or the prospect can say no with the correct perspective, as they don't have a need yet).

State the purpose of your call, which is positioned from the client's perspective in language they understand (you've got 10 seconds to say it).

Let prospective customers make an informed decision about how to proceed with you.

Develop a script outline to guide you with targeted, tailored questions.

Set aside a block of time each day to make sales calls. Always follow up. JUST DO IT.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Related Articles
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  Keep Prospecting Simple©
  Prospecting it is simple only DOING counts
  Maximize Revenues©
  Prospecting For New Business - Cold Calling

Article Tags: attitude, brochure, charity, common sense, evenings, failure, li li, management team, many things, monologue, outset, plethora, prospecting sales, salespeople, scripts, surprise surprise, teles, trial and error, ul, working from home



Related Forum Posts
How much time during the week do you devote to prospecting? - How much time during the week do you devote to prospecting?
Complete Marketing System? - I am just planning to start a new sales job as a commercial lender in a bank in a couple of days where I will be in 100% business development role for the first year I would guess. What I mean by that is, I am starting with no customers. I've been in this industry for a few years but have always worked my customers and referrals sources to get new business. My question is that I'd really like to take the chance to get a lead generation/marketing/follow-up system in place early on. I'd love to hear of any resources which talks about the entire process. I'd really love something step by step using a lot of different mediums. Something that combines direct mail, email, walk-in prospecting, phone prospecting. I started thinking more and more about directmail when I was constantly getting a real estate agents postcard mailer in my mailbox and then started seeing her signs appearing everywhere in my neighborhood.
Re: Cold Calling - In my experience the problem with hiring cold callers is that many of the successful candidates already realize that they have a talent for sales and are already working for themselves. Most of the candidates that would take a job cold calling most likely do not have solid selling or client service skills. I used to work for a brokerage firm in Victoria and we hired co-op students to cold call. In my opinion that was a mistake. Potential clients can sense inexperience very quickly and without a seasoned cold caller on your team prospecting will be very challenging.....the key is to find someone with skills that isn't already doing there own selling....tricky. Good luck Phil
Re: Business Query....HElp me out! - Hi Sandeep, Welcome to the forum. There are many reasons why you are failing to get to the next step. Do you own a website? Is it appealing? Do you have a "killer" sales page? What do you write in your email? Maybe it goes directly to their spam folder? If you do get to talk to someone, try to close the deal at this one phone call, each call you make is getting you away from your target.
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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