In spite of the fact that in the past pushy salespeople and poorly trained marketers have tarnished the image of the phone, I still believe that reaching out via phone is a very effective lead generation tool.
Studies by leading marketing research firms like MarketingSherpa show that 92% of B2B buyers are open to cold calls if the sales person is relevant. However, to ensure success, cold-calling needs to be part of a holistic lead generation strategy.
How to Get Started:
To truly use phone calls as an effective lead generation strategy, I recommend you create a specialized sales development team within the sales or marketing group or hire a firm that specializes in teleprospecting. Make certain that your cold-calling is aligned with other ongoing marketing and reputation-building activities.Teleprospectors must be smart, articulate, engaging and organized. Their training should focus on making them a consistently productive and sustainable extension of the selling effort.
The phone is the human touch of your lead nurturing program and thus every opportunity including cold calling to a potential customer should be treated with great respect. Each time you pick up the phone, whether it be the first call or subsequent calls, it’s important to create value by giving your prospects useful information in digestible, bite-size chunks.
Steps for Improving “Teleprospecting” Performance:
Step 1: Sustain the calling – be in it for the long haul. Teleprospecting works best if it’s long term and consistent. Don’t pressure your prospects to make a decision on the first call. Take your time and follow-up with more information. Listen to what they’re asking and if you don’t know the answer, let them know that and follow up again with them to provide them the answer
Step 2: Make every call count - Teleprospectors should never terminate a call upon hearing the targeted individual is not available. Imagine taking time to be helpful to the assistant or updating and verifying your database by working to share information for this source. Always ask if there is an alternative decision maker available as well.
Step 3: Throw away the scripts: Telemarketers use scripts. Teleprospectors use call guides. Scripts leave little room for conversation. Call guides are strong outlines to perpetuate conversation with areas to be discussed and questions to be asked. They must be built with flexibility and assume variable outcomes while still staying on message and promoting key relevancies to the customer.
Step 4: Respect the Executive Assistants - Don’t view the EA as a barrier to initiating dialogue. Executive assistants can occupy a significant place in the sphere of influence, not to mention the boss’s ear. Don’t treat them as lesser and don’t be afraid to develop a relationship with people titled “assistant.”
Step 5: Always be relevant and über-informed - When you’re making a call the worst thing you can do is to call someone and know nothing about them. You must have a sound working knowledge of each potential customer and the company and most importantly, the issues they face and how your product can help solve them. This personal interest goes a long way in establishing meaningful dialogue.
Step 6: Gain opt-in - When you are speaking with a prospect it is proactive to request permission to e-mail subsequent helpful information. More often than not, the answer will be in the affirmative, which provides another building block for staying in touch.
Step 7: Always follow-up - It is crucial that you follow up in a way that is precise in terms of promptness and relevancy toward your prospect’s needs. Keep in mind when you follow up that you also need to ensure you do so in the manner requested. If they decline a follow up phone call, but ask you to email them then make certain you do so.
Teleprospecting is a much more rewarding way to reach out and initiate contact with prospective clients. By providing engaging and meaningful conversation you are also building the bridge to a much longer relationship. In sales, a bridge always enables taking another step toward a client/customer relationship.
Related post:
10 Lead Generation (Prospecting) Tips for Sales People
Here's some other blogs that focus on the using the phone to generate leads:
Art Sobczak's Telesales Blog
Inside Sales Experts Blog
Inside Sales Telesales Tips Blog
Life in the Telebusiness Trenches
Wendy Weiss ~ The Queen of Cold Calling
March 16, 2009
How to Keep Upbeat in Tough Times
I recently interviewed Rajesh Setty, author of the forthcoming book, Upbeat in the below video.
Check out the shoe salesperson story! BTW, this was recorded in high definition. Be sure to select the HD option under the arrow menu on the right.
Handling Conflicts...the Abe Lincoln Way
We hung up the phone thinking “whew” that call sure got hot. An irate customer? A demanding boss? A frustrated sales rep? Nope. It was an internal planning meeting between sales and marketing for fiscal year 2010. Not all such meetings, of course, are this animated but this one sure was. And that’s not always a bad thing but in this case people left with some hurt feelings and damaged relationships. I’m sure you’ve seen your share of heated conflict in the workplace. Here are some typical hot spots:
executive and line management, engineering and QA, tech support and development, manufacturing and operations, and finance and just about everyone. Conflict is healthy but how you handle conflict can be the difference between success and failure in achieving your business objects. Here are just three tips that have worked for Abraham Lincoln, our 16th President. I recently read a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns and cite examples of each point below drawn from Lincoln’s life.
Never use email for emotionally charged issues
Kearns writes about the time Lincoln was very angry with General Meade for not pursuing the confederates after beating them at Gettysburg. She reports that “Lincoln held back, as he often did when he was upset or angry, waiting for his emotions to settle. In the end, he placed the letter in an envelope inscribed: ‘To General Meade, never sent or signed.’” Lincoln saw that expressing anger in writing is never productive. He did convey his sentiments through his team but in verbal form not written. Lincoln got his point across, changed Meade’s behavior, and ultimately modeled for his staff how to handle conflicts.
Stick to the issue. Don’t personalize matters.
Lincoln selected cabinet members who were formidable rivals of his such as Salmon Chase (Treasury Secretary), Edwin Stanton (Secretary of War), William Seward (Secretary of State), and Edward Bates (Attorney General). Most of them excoriated Lincoln prior to his election because they felt he was not the best choice for the country. Conflict continued and tempers flared within his cabinet even up to his re-election. In speaking with one of his opponents, Lincoln states “You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I. A man has not time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him.”
Allow for the possibility that you are wrong
In a letter to General Ulysses S. Grant, President Lincoln admits being wrong on a strategic military route during the Civil War to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi. This was an important victory. President Lincoln wrote, "I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong." Lincoln was exceedingly humble yet tenacious in finding the best solution even if it meant admitting he was wrong.
I hope this gives you a few tips that might help the next time you’re in conflict with someone in the business setting. Please share with us any stories or tips that you’ve found helps turn conflict into constructive action.