Prospecting Today: A Difficult Adventure
Today, connecting is a difficult proposition. It is even tougher when you prospect.
There is no doubt that people are overly busy with their day to day personal and business tasks- and even worse, they are being “contacted” in more ways than ever: email, SMS, social media, and by phone (by “pesky” telemarketers to say the least).
It is a virtual flood out there.
How to prospect today? Differentiate in your approach
Even with all the technology and distractions today, people appreciate a real person and voice behind the attempts to connect. It just has to be done right. When was the last time you got a call from a bank with an un-targeted, sloppy approach? I got one the other day.
“Sir we can arrange a loan for you.”
“I don’t need a loan. And how can you make a promise like that- I might not even qualify?”
I challenged the caller with those questions- she had no response. Yes, I know it is her job. She is not to blame- it is management. She is following orders.
This is a great example as to why people are being “bothered” by prospectors today, as this is an untargeted, “spray and pray” technique. There were also a lot of assumptions in this approach.
What really works? In order for the conversation to be successful, it needs to:
Achieve a goal
Satisfy a need
Solve a problem
What tools/skills does one need? The caller needs to:
Use the right opening statements, vocal techniques and rapport building skills to create interest and capture attention
Utilise conversational bridging statements to keep the customer engaged during the call
Ask effective questions in a logical order to discover the customers current situation, their stated needs and their hidden needs
Listen actively and accurately to capture relevant information first time and recognise the input and contributions received from the customer
Pick up on and respond to customer buying signals and clues that indicate the interest level of customer
Explain and link the benefits of a product or service to meet customer needs, create interest and secure commitment versus relying on product features
Handle common customer objections by using the APART approach to keep the customer involved in the conversation and focused on the value the product will bring
Use a conversational close to ask for permission to proceed
Professionally close the call to leave a positive, lasting impression in both successful call outcome situations and when the customer declines to proceed
Yes prospecting is difficult…but it can be done. It is all about the approach.
For more, see Connect Through High Impact Sales Conversations
Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore
Tags: Communication Skills, Financial Services Sales, Learning and Development Strategy, People Skills, Sales Success, Selling Skills
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Andrew, thanks for sharing your exchange with the “voice spammer” and your insight that she was just following orders. I think that we are in a deeply ironic point in business history. During the Industrial Economy, we subjugated ourselves to the machine, and it was a good trade-off: humanity for wealth. However, digital peer to peer communications are enabling us to interact with each other, which is raising the bar for firms. I regularly get superior “service” [some kind of help] from strangers online than from firm [paid] “service.” For the last couple generations, we accepted “I’m sorry, Mr. Rollyson, that’s not my department,” and being transferred around the firm for over 30 minutes! Now we hop on Twitter and get real help quickly.
Social networks drive down the cost of specific communication, so the spray and pray approach is that much more intolerable. Firms continue to do it because they lack the will or imagination to change. Increasingly, I refuse to take calls from people I don’t know; 1 ot 1 communication is very expensive, so I only spend those cycles with people who demonstrate that they know me enough to care; that means being considerate and doing their homework or getting a referral.
Voice spam is way past diminishing returns. Similarly true for direct mail (killing trees for spam). I think the only reason that we don’t have a paper do not spam list (as for telecoms) in the U.S. is the federal post would literally go out of business overnight; that’s how wasteful it is.
Lastly, I work with firms to use social networks to improve the value of their “discovery” phase of busdev (I see cold calling as part of discovery, historically). The calls are very expensive for people to make, too. Better to prospect online and pre-qualify, so you can approach people who really need your service *and* know why; then it’s not spam. In case this is interesting, here’s a post I wrote on social networks’ impact on each stage of the relationship life cycle. http://bit.ly/snrship1
Cheers-