The bit about cold calls working better than anticipated rings true. I advised a company I help out with not to bother cold calling, because it never works, and was embarrassed to learn a few months later that it had been extremely effective just to have the founder ring random people up.
The bit about remembering names, deploying kids names, and talking about football --- that part does not ring true. I've done sales work for my last startup, and before that a as a product manager had a sales-support role where most of the people I talked to every day were account managers, and even though I know this "talk about football" stuff is what salespeople are supposedly doing, I never saw that happen.
Taking people out to dinner? Obviously, different story. But on the phone, especially early on? All business.
The most important thing I think salespeople do that ordinary people don't do is Ask For The Sale.
Cold calling is great! Well, because it's never absolutely cold--you do know that the person you're calling is at least a little interested in what you're selling. It's not random.
As for remembering names, kids' names, etc., you're right, it's hokey to just try and build up a memorandum on a person and play-act at being a friend. What happens, though, when you spend a while talking with someone, is they do mention their wife's trip, or their brother coming to town, or whatever, and after a while, you end up developing a bit of a friendship. Not a "let's go hiking on the weekends" relationship, but a small friendship all the same. You remember their kids' names simply because you take an interest in who they are as people, and in my experience, they do the same for you.
>>Cold calling is great! Well, because it's never absolutely cold--you do know that the person you're calling is at least a little interested in what you're selling. It's not random.
No, that's not cold-calling. Cold-calling refers to picking up the phone and calling people you have never spoken to before and will most likely not be interested -- at least initially -- in what you are selling. But if it's people you have spoken to briefly at a trade show, then you aren't cold-calling. You're following up.
Note that cold-calling doesn't have to be "random". In fact, calling companies and people randomly almost never works. You need to have a strategy in place and need to have done what's called "prospecting". For instance, if a construction company just became your client, then calling other construction companies and talking about how that company is using your product or service has a much higher chance of getting you at least one in-person meeting.
To clarify, I agree, if it's not the first they've heard from you, it's not cold calling. I do mean, though, that when you pick up the phone to cold call someone, you aren't calling at random- you're already calling someone who's in the right industry or whatever to have a chance of being interested in your product.
The kids and football thing is about building a rapport so the next time that you call they remember you, or will at least take your call. This is important when for example someone may not be buying right now. If they say we will be looking in 6 months time and you only call back in 6 months time they will be unlikely to remember you. If you call them every month by the time the 6 month marl comes around you are speaking to them regularly and may pick up some other business in the intervening period.
I love college sports and I always tried to talk to my interviewers about their schools' teams. I distinctly remember two women interviewers from Oregon, a football powerhouse, who did not appreciate the conversation. Now I just talk about restaurants. Everyone likes food.
I'm not formally in sales but I do the same thing. There's nothing like "Oh, I was there a couple years ago and found this great little burger place near..." or "I've always heard they have the best X there. Where do you recommend?"
Are women not supposed to like football? I actually went to the University of Oregon and found women both attending the U of O and those who lived in greater Oregon to be more passionate about the game then many of my male friends/colleagues/classmates.
It's a risk whenever you try to connect with someone over what you think might be a shared passion. Sports can be risky because not everyone like sports, but if you guess correctly and can form a deeper relationship then any other topic.
Trying football with people from Oregon is absolutely a reasonable decision.
It absolutely happens (as in I've seen it happen in lots of places) and serves an important value.
When cold calling the big thing that's missing in the communication is trust, why should the lead trust some guy who's phoned her up ? - building a personal rapport helps establish a feeling that "this person is like me and I can trust them" which is a key part of cold sales.
For account managers it serves a very different purpose, it serves to reduce churn (and enable upselling). It's much easier to switch away from a company that you have a purely professional relationship with than from your buddy at Acme corp who you always look forward to catching up with.
I work at place that deals with leads and the sales people almost sit right next to us. And they definitely get into the names big time like the post said. Talking about sports, from what I hear, they don't usually direct the conversation that way but if the client does bring it up then they will go with it. But remembering the names are a really big deal and they utilize that heavily.
I make it a point to try to remember the names of everyone around the office and instead of just saying, "Hi" or "How's it going?" as we pass in the hall say, "Hey, Mary" and "How are you doing, Mark?"
It hasn't changed anyone's life but it seems to make a difference. I've noticed they'll perk up a little when I include their name, start to address by my name when I wasn't even sure if they knew it before, and maybe even start a conversation at the coffee machine or water cooler.
Like the old Woody Allen line, "90% of success is just showing up," I suspect 90% of success in engaging people is just remembering their name.
This is what I was thinking when I read this post - pretty much anything you read online about marketing seems to just be stuff that was already said 80 years ago in that book.
These tactics work. I purchase technology for an "enterprisey" type company and these definitely help make sales to me.
However, they do not work on their own. There still needs to be a strong value proposition, good fit between the product and the need, lots of technical info to satisfy suspicion and curiosity, a reasonable contract, etc.
What these tactics do is help get the conversation to a place where it can be substantive. I'm busy, you're busy, we're all busy. I'm going to say no, reflexively, to any conversation I'm not initiating or continuing--to anyone I don't recognize.
If someone sounds tentative or scared, if they don't seem to know a thing about me or my employer, if they can't just hold a normal human conversation, I don't know why I would want to talk to them.
Any product or service that is sold by a person is going to involve a relationship. Services and products need training, support, and improvements. The sales person is almost always going to be my champion in that relationship, because they want an easy renewal or upgrade. So if I don't trust the salesperson, it's hard to trust that I will get the support and service I'm sure I will need at some point.
At this point I don't answer a call that isn't in my contacts. I sign up for a trial of some cloud service and it is like clockwork, 2-3 days afterwards I get a cold call from someone in sales. It's like they are all following the same playbook at this point and it's ruined the effectiveness of the strategy, at least on me...
One of the hard parts about sales is understanding that people don't like to be pitched, or intruded on, and balancing that with the fact that the product or service may well be to their benefit!
If you had a good friend struggling somehow, and you knew you could save them a lot of money, time and effort would you not strongly desire to communicate that to them?
And when you are struggling, don't you want answers?
What about when you don't know you are struggling?
That's why the strategy works. Good people will not make the call painful. I have similar experiences to yours with cloud services. Honestly, I'm not sure they always have the best people attempting those phone calls...
One thing highlighted in the article, but not completely expressed is the concept of adding value to the phone call. All the charm and basic human communication is needed to get somebody talking. From there, being able to help them, or give them something of value can often make the phone call higher value. This could be a stat or metric they can consider, or a qualifier. "Are you... ?"
Doing this is important as a few "check in" calls over an extended period of time are actually welcome things in more cases, and when that's true, the sales person experiences a much higher close rate and more happy customers and better relationships. In the example of the qualifier, they make think on it, and realize "Yes! That's us." When you call back, they share it, and a sale begins.
They (better sales people) get that, because they took the time to understand something of who they are talking to and that gives them the ability to make good use of that understanding, which is seen by the person being talked to as a reasonable, valuable thing.
I did this in my past, and reached a point where I would make a quick call, and they were nearly always, "catch up" calls. Take 5 minutes and find out what is new on both sides, exchange some news, etc... and then get to it, whatever it is. Over time, increasing numbers of those people would actually call me when it became time for them to buy. They remembered the nice person who didn't just pitch them, instead expressing meaningful interest and understanding.
Begin the week, "catching up on the people who seem like they could benefit from whatever it is", follow up on anything resulting from that, and contact "new" or "cold" people to fill in gaps. This kind of cadence brings you a growing list of familiar and increasingly well qualified people, which is what you need to build sales. Some people flip it too. Begin the week with all the follow ups, do new calls, interleave with familiar "catch up" or "check in" type calls to ease the pain of new calls, etc... Doesn't matter. What does is the regular, meaningful and consistent contact.
Done well, that interest and understanding IS THE PITCH, because the product of it is a rational conclusion that a purchase, or no purchase makes sense. That bit is missing from this quick write up.
I get a ton of sales emails each month. Almost no sales calls because I go to lengths to avoid having my number get out there.
In my space, the ad network sales people and ad tech reps almost never add any value to the conversation. I would be better served getting technical documentation as to what actually differentiates them from all of their competitors (usually nothing).
It is an annoyance and an intrusion on my non-existent free time. The worst is when I receive unsolicited swag in the mail that they then feel obligates me to talk to them.
I'd be much happier speaking directly with a sales engineer. At least they can often answer the technical questions I have and not spout some BS answer from a benefits/features matrix.
Interestingly, I have gotten some good calls and emails related to traditional print and media advertising. They actually do have information and can add some value it seems.
It's almost as if being able to supposedly target better, and I write that because I do question some of the methods and their real value, they feel they no longer have to work with you to maximize the AD. Doing that almost always makes more sense, and it's an easy, up front conversation too. If that conversation qualifies me in, I'm likely to buy an AD! But I'm not so likely to qualify myself, as there are just too many choices, etc...
I'm actually skilled in both, sales and engineering / tech and have held sales, pre-sales, and tech roles. (gotta roll with the punches sometimes, and I'm game.)
When I do make cold calls, I generally get good response rates as well as qualified lead rates. Helps to actually know stuff they may find relevant, or answer that quick question off the cuff. As for the relationship?
The big advantage is the relationship is often implied. Having shared domain knowledge almost always means a dialog that is worth having. All it really takes is a quick read on the other person, then just talk with them as one would a peer.
Some of these firms could really do themselves a great service by taking their callers and salespeople on a few tours, or through some education that can add that value. It's not specific domain knowledge, but it's pretty good. And their calls suddenly aren't quite so mind numbing too.
Had a vendor send me a (branded) speaker and phone charger. Got the inevitable follow-up pestering for a phone call in an expectant manner. Politely declined stating that I still had zero interest and kept the gift.
Oh I believe it still works. I can feel the psychological effects when someone is persistently trying to sell me. It may manifest as guilt, annoyance, or for the genial ones a desire to help them out.
My favorite failure though was when one sales guy sent me an email asking for another colleague's contact info because maybe I wasn't "in the position to make the decision." Ballsy but boy did that backfire on him.
Training over 1,000s of sales people of SaaS Start-ups by sitting next to them making the call, I like to share some insights on this topic:
This is a great story BUT:
+ This was a professional, there are few of them left, also there are fewer and fewer people who like to "talk to a stranger on the phone"
+ This does not scale for many reasons, you simply can't train this
+ This only applies to a certain kind of sale
So how do you cold call in a scalable and trainable way - in todays always on economy:
COLD
+ Never make it COLD - but you can do plenty of other things before you call, visit their LI profile, retweet something, share their post, etc.
CALL
+ There are many ways to CALL - make it based on their behavior/role, calling an IT manager on the phone is not going to be appreciated, but calling an HR person may be. When you call make sure you do something along the following lines - this can be copied:
1) Make this about them
2) Show them you have done the research (have LI profile open)
3) Give straight answers if they ask straight questions
4) Do NOT pitch, instead share how others have benefited
5) Offer them value...
6) Follow the conversation, ask, listen, summarize what they said...
7) Try to ask a handful of questions to diagnose their problem, NOT to sell them something
I really don't like the small talk bit. I don't want to chat about football, the weather, or necessarily my kid. I love him to death and I think he's awesome, but I'm usually busy at work. I want to get information, find out what's actionable, and get back to work.
I get a lot of recruiters insisting on calling me instead of e-mailing their vacancies. I figure they aim for the same effect as with sales techniques described in this article. However, I am not a native English speaker and these calls end even faster than an e-mail conversation.
It's much easier to decline in a foreign language than in your own. All the emotional cues get filtered through the language barrier and even if I understand them perfectly they do not bear any direct impact.
I suspect I am not the only one so I'd advise people to adjust their cold calling strategies accordingly. It might be worth to have sales calls in your target's native tongue even if you are not fluent or switch to e-mail in such a case.
I know some great commercial real estate brokers. The very successful ones are the ones that you want to talk with when they call because they are extremely funny and entertaining. That's the mark of a great salesman. They are so much fun to be around that you want to take their calls, drive around and look at property with them, etc.
> I asked him after what it was about and he told me this dude’s kid was sick this week. Why would I care? Why would our salesman care?
This is the fundemental principle in a way. People naturally care about each other and want to be cared about. It doesn't always work out in practice because many things can get in the way: Time, stress, competing concerns, fear, etc. But we're social animals, down to the biological level. Understanding that about others and about yourself can help you with sales and with many more important human relations.
This is great advice for anyone working with people, period. Folks are a lot more willing to work with someone who respects them and appears interested in them as a human being.
And if you're interested in any kind of leadership position, these skills are absolutely vital, as they are the way you build a rapport with the people you're leading.
> Folks are a lot more willing to work with someone who respects them and appears interested in them as a human being.
I suspect you mean "someone who pretends to respect them". You have the "appears" qualifier correct.
At the end of the day, the Dale Carnegie routine is simply mimicry of the mores of friendship as a means to an end. Salespeople are charlatan middlemen social engineers, and do not add value except to organizations whose products cannot stand on their own merits, in which case they are not actually adding societal value at all.
Great advice for all start ups - from experience at many companies, quite a few career salespeople miss a number of the points mentioned here. The value is so easy to extract - we should all be able to let the grammar pass for a man that is taking the time to share - especially where his first language is not English.
If people can get past the poor English (and seriously, his English is much better than my Hebrew!), this is a great little article about salesmanship.
I particularly like the bit about concluding with something concrete. That's great advice
I think this pretty much applies to anyone who has to talk to people, and get things done.
I do tech support of complex software for a living, and if something is not solved on a call, then the best way to leave the call gracefully is to itemize and describe next steps.
I'm a Unix sysadmin and I describe my job as 50% public relations. Working with other people is a problem so hard we evolved a human brain to do it better.*
I stuck with it to the end, but man, the lack of proofreading almost had me closing the browser tab. I'm not talking mistakes only a grammar Nazi would care about, but the kind where I read the sentence three times and still ask "what the hell does this mean?" I don't mean to be snarky, but maybe that's why emails to leads wasn't working so well. Bad grammar is my first filter for spam.
Other than that, the article was okay. Good point about getting on the phone. Email is easy, but it also makes easy to say "no", or just delete it and say nothing.
Emails and everything sent to customers were always proofread by a native english speaker. I wrote this on my spare time but lesson learned for next time.
Here's a little bit of constructive advice. There are several places where you've made a "comma splice" error. That is, a comma (,) was used when a period (.) or semicolon (;) should have been used (or alternatively, a conjunction could be used). Example:
> We’ve interviewed a bunch, during one of the interviews after the candidate was done presenting, he looked at me, I looked at him, he did OK …
This should be instead:
> We’ve interviewed a bunch. During one of the interviews after the candidate was done presenting, he looked at me, and I looked at him. He did OK …
Sure, the grammar needs a little work but this sentence is the only glaring issue...
> He then asked this question “How is a typical call with a prospect looks like?”
Should be "How does a typical call with a prospect look?"
Also - great article! I've worked in sales and emails never worked, especially in this day and age of constant spam. Email is great for an info blast, but you will not close with an email.
My 2 cents: Fix the major issues on this article sooner than later. It is a great little post and if all goes well it will have a long tail of visitors or will get picked up again for a nice exposure spike. I think that makes it worth your time. Of course that is just my opinion.
You should absolutely be taking ohfunkyeah's advice, as in today. This is a great piece with some good ideas and good learning being shared, but the poor quality of delivery severely hampers their usefulness.
My problem with these tips is that there's some hidden underlying assumption baked in it that you think you are so smart and other people are so driven by their emotions that oh just because you mentioned them by name now they are going to behave so differently. I don't know about everyone but it sure as hell wont work on me.
The bit about remembering names, deploying kids names, and talking about football --- that part does not ring true. I've done sales work for my last startup, and before that a as a product manager had a sales-support role where most of the people I talked to every day were account managers, and even though I know this "talk about football" stuff is what salespeople are supposedly doing, I never saw that happen.
Taking people out to dinner? Obviously, different story. But on the phone, especially early on? All business.
The most important thing I think salespeople do that ordinary people don't do is Ask For The Sale.