These weeks just fly by, don't they!? Well, we're two full weeks into Q2 of 2010 - where are you against your goals? Hopefully ahead of them, right where you want to be!
We had three great blogs this week, and here are the recaps and links:
Monday April 12th
Sales Prospecting: Who's Helping Your Sales Team? - Our Director of Sales, Chris Lang, wrote an entry for us about why it's important that your sales team have support from a teleprospecting perspective. Chris shared, "Your outside sales executives are trained to close deals. They identify pain, propose solutions, move a prospect along the sales process and bring a client to a yes or no answer. The sales executive role is a full time position. The teleprospecting role is a full time position. The effectiveness of both is in major jeopardy if you try to pay one person to do both."
Tuesday April 13th
The Laser Focused Teleprospector - Director of Client Operations, Craig Ferrara, wrote about how teleprospectors can be successful at cold calling, but they're going to need to be focused in order to do so. Craig shared, "So how do we force ourselves to do something that we traditionally gravitate away from? I've discovered the hard way that a half-hearted effort with sporadic calls throughout the day generally did not get me my desired result. What seems to work is taking the time to carve out at least two hours during your day to make dials, otherwise the sporadic and unfocused effort will yield marginal results."
Thursday April 15th
Keep Your Teleprospecting Intro Simple and Effective - Nicole Puddester, a member of our Training and Implementation Team, blogged about four guidelines to help keep your intro simple. Nicole wrote, "After we prepare our reps (until they are blue in the face!) with scripting and product information, they are beyond eager to get started on the phones. When they finally get someone live on the phone, all the scripting is thrown out the window. Let's be honest, using a script isn't the best way to sound unscripted."
Which entry resonated with you the most? Which one did you disagree with?
"Here at XYZ Comp, we offer a solution to automate your process by blah blah blah."
This opener is inevitably going to happen.
I've done it, you've done it, all great sales reps have done it. After going through the whole process of training on a new product with your value proposition, learning all the key benefit points, and differentiators, going back to the importance of keeping the message simple can be the most difficult part. I was reading an article by Michael Pedone, CEO of online sales training company SalesBuzz.com, entitled Bad Phone Sales Script Advice. Michael drives home one particular point - "Don't start selling before you know the situation." I cannot stress enough, how important this is in lead generating efforts.
I had an interesting conversation with my Director of Client Operations. We were trying to uncover why one of our reps is doing so well and another one is falling behind on the same project. Interestingly enough, after listening to a scheduled call, our successful rep did not relay any product information. Our most successful reps are skilled learning about the situation and frankly getting the prospect to do all the work.
After we prepare our reps (until they are blue in the face!) with scripting and product information, they are beyond eager to get started on the phones. When they finally get someone live on the phone, all the scripting is thrown out the window. Let's be honest, using a script isn't the best way to sound unscripted. Let's take a step back and focus on four guidelines that help to keep your intro simple while "uncovering the situation" directing you to your ultimate goal - qualifying the prospect.
- Introduce yourself and your company- you wouldn't call a friend of a friend and start rattling off questions without a quick explanation of who you are - a referral makes this even better!
- Verify they are the best person to speak with - Don't try to sell something to the wrong person! Verifying they are the best person to speak with is also a good ice breaker.
- The purpose of your call - Be honest. Let them know that you are calling to learn more about their environment.
- Transition question - As mentioned in previous blogs, this should be designed to get your prospect talking about challenges within their environment. Once the conversation has started and you have them talking, this will naturally guide the qualification process.
What do you think?
There are many facets to teleprospecting -pre-call plan, qualifying questions, overcoming objections and so forth. Through my training experience at AG, there is not one common area of weakness; everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. I'd like to take this opportunity to go over some of the trends that I have come across and things to keep in mind when you reflect back on your own on your lead gen team's prospecting approach:
1. Be assertive! There are many ways to be assertive, but one thing to be aware of is not using submissive phrases such as, ‘I was hoping, ‘I was wondering'. Be present and be confident. As Jaime noted in one of her recent blogs, 90% of effective communication is non-verbal. So if we statistically are relying on 10% to be effective, don't waste it by sounding submissive and unsure. It's a simple tweak in the messaging that can have strong effects on the outcome of your conversation and your own mental state.
2. Ask questions - Whether you are leaving a voicemail, sending an email, or having a conversation, ask questions. Use the knowledge that you have gained through other conversations to ask a strong question. How are you currently addressing XYZ need? What are your plans around XYZ? Are you able to do this? Add a little assertiveness to your question and phrase it "When do you plan on..." (everyone else is doing it, when are you). The goal of asking questions should be to get the prospect thinking about what they are not doing, and uncovering the pains that others in their situation have already addressed through your solution.
3. Reference Others - This is such a useful tactic. Our ultimate goal is to either qualify or de-qualify a prospect/company. The sooner you can do this the faster you can move on to someone else. Something that I have found to be extremely helpful is to reference the others that you have reached out to within the organization. Give yourself the credibility you deserve and show the prospect how hard you've been working to speak with someone.
4. Be Honest - Prospects don't always know that you are not their sales rep. For that reason I think that it is very important to let them know of your role. Many times you will have a conversation and the prospect asks that you follow up with them in three weeks to discuss further. That's fine, and by all means do follow up, but I still find it important to let them know of your role. Understanding that you are not going to be able to provide them with the in-depth technical knowledge that they need in three weeks, they may ask to be connected with their sales rep instead. If so, set it up and back qualify.
5. Keep it simple - As much as I would prefer a prospect calling me back for a nice conversation, more often than not their busy day does not permit that. That being said, their busy day is most likely going to prohibit them from being able to read a long email. Therefore, keep it simple. As Nicole often speaks about, make sure you have a clear purpose within your email, don't product dump, and always end with the prospect thinking about how efficient/effective their current solution/process really is.
It's tough to write about a surefire way to approach teleprospecting, as there are so many different variables that can affect the success of your call. What's important, though, is to have a strong foundation, and that starts with your teleprospector! Be confident in the knowledge that they have of your product, the market and be confident in your own process, because YOU trained them.
It's your 20th call of the day. You just left 10 voicemails, you've been screened by 7 admins, and had 2 prospects dismiss your cold call immediately. FINALLY, a prospect picks up the phone, ready to talk to you. After introducing yourself and your business, you have the green light to proceed. The problem is, you have a surplus amount of information as to why your product is better than the rest, but have approximately 30 seconds to peak interest. Where do you go from here?
In previous blogs, I stress the importance of a clear purpose of your call. More importantly, this needs to be followed by a compelling transition question. Peaking interest and getting the prospect to become involved in an interactive business conversation can be the hardest part of a cold call. Too often, the rep will transition straight to product information or product "dumping." The trick to a successful transition is to probe your prospect to start talking about what is causing them a headache on a day to day basis. It is important to stay in control of the conversation while keeping the ball in your court. The goal is to have your prospect tell you about the major issues they face before relaying the right information that will resonate with their needs.
A compelling transition question should simply always reference the most common industry pain that your product/service alleviates.
Another popular, yet crash and burn transition is going straight to, "do you have any projects in place?" This conversation opener still makes me cringe. A successful transition question should be vague, never leaving the opportunity for a no answer. This makes it way to easy for the prospect to push you off the phone. That being said, the objective of a successful transition is to prompt your prospect to engage in a business conversation surrounding their pains. Now learning about how your solution will solve these problems really sounds like a no brainer!
Everyone has their own unique personality and we all communicate very differently. It's interesting when we think about people in our lives that we look up to on a day to day basis. I personally tend to gravitate to more distinct, unique, and spontaneous communicators; always positive thinkers. I find these people inspiring and interesting to watch and listen to, and maybe that is because there is no telling what they will say or do next. The bottom line here is that there is something that intrigued me enough to make me want to listen.
Anyways, I heard on the radio this morning that 90% of effective communication is non-verbal. I found this very interesting because that would mean, being in the teleprospecting industry, that this would make my job 90%...ineffective!? In teleprospecting we don't have the advantage of seeing someone's body language or seeing their facial expressions that tell us to let up or keep going. Being in B2B outbound lead generation, we have learned how and taught ourselves how to be effective communicators by crafting a clever message, getting our message across, and grabbing a prospect's attention over the phone.
Here at AG, we make the most out of every call we make, regardless of who picks up the phone on the other end. We take the time to research the most important asset that each particular company has to offer. One of the most important questions I ask myself when learning about new prospects is, "do I know enough about them to convey my understanding of their space in the market, so much so that they'll entertain a discussion with me?" Another question I ask myself is, "do I understand enough about the solution or service that I'm calling on that my prospect will want to talk with me?"
For example: a good question to ask the prospect is, "What I am hearing in XYZ industry is that there has been an interest/need for (_fill in the blank_). Mr. /Ms. Prospect, do you also find that this is an area of concern or something that has been talked about within your organization?"
Some other questions to keep in mind (while recognizing that 90% of communication is nonverbal!):
How do you differentiate yourself in the space and why?
How can we make the most out of our message?
Are we listening and asking them the right questions?
What can I say that will make a prospect want to talk with me?
The most effective questions for our teleprospectors to keep in mind is, are we really understanding our clients' key targets and environment, and are we extracting the pains that seem to be associated with those situations, and are we determining if they happen to experience them too?
I've been thinking lately that life is kind of like a series of sales situations, and if you never ask for the sale, you're always going to get a "no." So, I think that not only in life, but in teleprospecting, we should always strive to be initiators and be proactive.
Taking initiative is a key component in helping our BDR's at AG Salesworks succeed. Taking the initiative does not mean being pushy or too aggressive. It does mean developing and implementing a specific call-plan relative to our targeted audience. We should concisely and directly state the purpose of our call and make sure we clearly understand and define the decision making process of the organization. It also does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen with each and every call. We should, depending on the stage of the call, find out decision makers, whether or not projects are in place, or even how "active" that project is. Sound easy!?
Being proactive is important to teleprospecting, too. As Stephen R. Covey, the well known author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," points out in Habit One we want to be PRO-active as opposed to being RE-active. You should check out this article by Caidian Johnson for additional thoughts on applying Habit One to your sales process. We want our teleprospectors to be that way, too. Here at AG Salesworks we direct our BDR's to seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principals, to get the job done and qualify a potential sales opportunity. We encourage people to be resourceful and to take initiative to be the best they can be. Creating an atmosphere where people can seize opportunities and solve problems in an increasingly self-reliant way as their skill set develops is something that my colleagues and I focus on a daily basis.
Additionally, here are a couple quick thoughts to keep in mind when prospecting:
- Know what you're talking about. Have a strong understanding of what the company does, how they operate, and their competition. This will allow you to understand where they stand in the market space and what you are up against.
- Always be prepared. Who the heck knows what you will come across on any given day? So it's important to really listen to the person on the other end of the phone and open your ears. If it sounds like you caught them at a bad time, then you probably did. Quickly, understand if they are the best person to speak with involved in XYZ. IF not, then move on and politely set the expectation that you will follow up at a better time. Don't forget to ask when that follow up time may be
- Keep the ball in your court. Know when to let go of the conversation and when to own it. If you are doing all the talking then chances are that you are not doing your job. It is our responsibility to use our listening skills and extract the pains from the conversation. Once you have made the decision if this person is a qualified opportunity then take control. Let them know the next steps of our process and what to expect from this point forward.
For any inside rep, it is extremely important to convey all the information that you are provided during your qualification conversation to the Outside Rep receiving the opportunity. This week Jaime, Nicole and I conducted a workshop to help reinforce the listening and note taking skills of our BDRs to strengthen the quality of our leads. Now, I can't divulge all of our secrets, but I will let you know of some of the key areas that are important to gather during your initial call to help arm your outside rep for their follow up conversation.
First and foremost, you need to uncover the "Business Profile". What is the structure of the company? What process do they have in place or what solution are they using? It is during this part of the conversation that you want to include all of the qualification specific details. For our CDRs (Client Development Representatives) whom prospect out to clients that AG would like to do business with, they want to discover how those organizations currently generate leads? What tradeshows do they attend, or how do they generate inbound opportunities from webinars or white paper downloads? What is the quality of those leads? How are they following up and tracking the progress of those leads? This is going to provide our sales team with landscape of the organization, and to help follow up with more probing questions.
From their probing questions, they need to uncover the "pains/needs" within the organization. What is going to be the compelling reason that the organization will want to look into our services? What are the limitations or weaknesses within the current process? How is the organization planning on addressing those pains (if at all)? This is extremely important for our Outside Reps to know, because it is going to allow them to speak specific to the organizations needs. For our CDRs, we want to know how many of those leads are they following up on? Are they able to track the progress of all your B and C leads? Are they currently seeing the ROI for their tradeshow events? Are they meeting their quarterly goals? We want to be sure to uncover the reason that the organization wants to talk to us. Elementary, sure, but that makes it no less important.
Another important question for an Inside team to as is, "what other vendors is the organization evaluating or what alternative solution are they looking into?" This is going to provide your Outside team with immeasurable value when they speak with their prospect. Knowing who the other competition is will allow your Outside Rep to focus on what differentiates you from the others, as well as highlighting weaknesses that your competition may have in line with the organizations needs. For AG, if we are aware that you may also be looking other companies in our industry as an alternative outsourced solution, we know to speak specific to the quality of our leads and the success that we have had when it comes to forecast and closed business from our opportunities.
There are many other topics that you want to uncover during your qualification call but the top three are the most important (do not neglect budget and decision making process though). By providing your Outside team with this information, they are going to be able to go into the follow up call with the utmost confidence and knowledge of the environment and the organization's needs to help increase the probability of taking the conversation to the next step!
So you have a talented teleprospecting team in place. Your reps all accomplished an extensive training period. You helped them grow through a magnitude of call training sessions and workshops. You conveyed your knowledge and "tricks of the trade" to your reps, and they've taken those skills and are cranking on the phones. As a trainer, job well done, right? Wrong.
The key to a successful teleprospecting team is fostering an encouraging environment. As part of the training department, it is my belief that our most important job is ensuring that our team is constantly motivated. Here are three ways to make sure your team is always motivated:
Recognition - Your most cost effective tool can be a simple "pat on the back." An even better "pat on the back" is one the whole company can see. Create public recognition such as a company mass email, visible name plaques, or recognize a valued rep during a company wide meeting.
Little perks count- It's been a tough year. Many teleprospecting firms are making the mistake of letting incentives fall by the wayside. It is hard to keep a sales team motivated without their "competitive juices flowing." Now is the time for your team to compete for paid time off, small cash rewards, and team outings. A little perk can make a big difference.
Positive reinforcement- It is important to keep an open forum for constructive advice and positive feedback. When giving feedback, it is important to emphasize strengths before you highlight areas of opportunity for improvement. The most de-motivating way to try to help a struggling team member is to "micromanage" or become "overbearing." While it is important to fix the problem, sometimes a confidence boost is very necessary.
If you don't know what works best with your team - just ask! In this economy, you might be surprised by what will best motivate your reps, whether it is small incentives, more time with their family, or simple recognition. Chris Snell also talks about understanding what motivates your reps, and you can read his thoughts on that here. It is important to cultivate a highly communicative culture and involve everyone in the process - hey, we are all in this together.
In my first video
webcast, I spoke about the importance of developing and establishing the value of your product/solution, knowing who your target market/prospect is, as well as investing in a good marketing list prior to moving forward with your next teleprospecting campaign. Building off the importance of a good marketing list, we all know that no matter how hard we try, the prospects are not guaranteed to be the right person within the organization.
There have been many occasions when I am required to follow up on marketing lists which contain prospects with unrelated titles, bad phone numbers or no email address provided. Pending on how you generate your marketing list, be it from whitepaper request or tradeshows, there is little you can do to alter the contact information that is provided. More often than not I have found that what sparks an individual’s interest is to stay on top of the technology; therefore we need to take what we have to find the right person. Don’t waste your investment; make the most out of it!
We teach our BDR’s the skills needed to be resourceful and make the most out of poor marketing lists. There are a quite a few ways to do so.
0# - 0#'ing is one of the most commonly used tactics at AG Salesworks. Once you have left a voicemail for the prospect who attended your show, 0# to speak with the person who covers that extension. If it is a direct colleague of the prospect, confirm that they are the appropriate person to speak with regarding XYZ topic. If they are not, asked to be referred to the appropriate person. If you are re-routed to the operator, inquire if they know who the appropriate person is regarding your solution, or at least ask to speak with someone else in “John Stiles” department.
Check Duplicates – Having invested many years in building out our use of Salesforce.com, AG Salesworks has accumulated a plethora of contacts within different companies. Utilize the knowledge that has been established by previous work and reach out to alternative contacts. Always reference your initial contact to add credibility to your call, but do your best to confirm that the person you are reaching out to is the right person to speak with.
Jigsaw.com – My secret is out! I am in LOVE with
Jigsaw.com! It’s a great site to use to find the contact information for obscurely titled prospects, or to find the contact information within a company that just will not direct you further throughout the organization. Updated regularly by sales reps like you and me, the contact information often includes direct dials and confirmed email addresses – we all know how frustrating it is when the best piece of communication you have (email) is bounced back.
Top Down Approach – One of the best ways to find who is the appropriate person to speak with regarding the management and evaluation of a certain area is to be referred by the C-Level or VP-level prospect. As
Craig mentioned in his
latest blog, the best way to do this is through simplicity! “I hate to bother you, but would you mind referring me to the person who oversees secure content delivery”? Those high level, extremely busy prospects will appreciate your directness and respect for their time and will most likely refer you to the appropriate person within the organization. When they do refer you, make sure to reference that in your follow up voicemail/email. Anything that can add credibility to your messaging will help you disposition the prospect faster and find more opportunities.
It can be very easy when you have a list of 200 people to move on to the next prospect, but don’t! Utilize the investment you have made and the resources that you have to navigate and find the appropriate person within the organization. There have been enough experiences in my time of cold calling to justify these habits - and you will find them too!
In today's internet, blackberry, and wireless driven society, the most effective, and in many instances, only way to grab a prospect's attention is via email.
In my previous blog, I discussed the importance of your window of opportunity when you get someone live on the phone. A cold caller's time is typically 10-15% live communication. It is just as important to ensure the 85-90% of "non-live" messaging is effective. Today, we are all faced with information overload. In response, we have become experts at being our own personal spam filters - constantly hitting the delete button. Here is how to separate yourself from the crowd with effective email communication:
Subject Line: This could be the most important part of your email as it determines if the prospect will even open your message. DO NOT use spam words or sales and marketing jargon. A referral is your best friend and should always be present in the subject line.
Make the Connection: After leaving your voicemail, send your follow-up email within the next 5 mins. In your voicemail, always refer to your email and visa versa. Let's face it, we don't have time to free write every email, it is important to avoid any evidence of a template while personalizing your message as much as possible.
Problem and Solution: Always tie the message to their business needs. Sometimes, prospects need to be reminded of their day to day headaches. Illustrate an industry pain and how your product/service has helped others to solve them. As in your live communication, same holds true to email, do not information dump!
It's all Visual: Keep the message short. Most likely, they will decide to read it after the first couple sentences. The prospect must be able to read it at a glance. Use bullet points and sentence breaks. Test your email and send it to yourself first.
Always End with an Action Step: Great, you gave them some info. Now, tell them to get back to you! Let them know, if they don't respond, you will reconnect in a couple days.
As always, revamping and refreshing your message is crucial. In my next blog, I will discuss the importance of refreshing your team's techniques by consistently bringing new ideas to the table.