Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you another guest entry from one of our BDRs, Jill Ryan. 

Recently I was getting extremely frustrated with the concept of “maintenance mode.” How long can some one “maintain” contact with a person that has never answered before? I can’t stand calling someone for 6-12 months and leaving them voicemail after email, getting nothing in return. Part of this job is to gather market research on why someone isn’t answering so we can make the best use of our time. Personally, I pick up and hang up every time I see a surveyor on my caller ID. That person could be giving away the hope diamond and I would have no clue because I don’t feel like listening. Even after being in this business for a while and having countless conversations about the difficulties of cold calling, I still never throw the receiving end a bone.

So that leads me to this thought- why do I have no interest? I think the reason why people have no interest is because we are constantly on the defensive. “What are you trying to sell me? I have no money!” We are all guilty of assuming that the person on the line is on a mission to cram product down our throats. In my case, I’m not, hell I couldn’t sell you a CRM if I tried. All I want to do is see if you have a problem and if I can help solve it. So why not just say that directly? An email or a voicemail is not a close, an info commercial, or an opportunity to recite the year your company was most profitable.  It is an opportunity to invite a person to have a quick conversation, point you in the best direction or tell you when to follow up. In the business of “Business Development”, we need to open the gates to new business in order to do our jobs.

Here are some ways I conquer my “maintenance mode” and get more people qualified in or out:

1. Write new “maintenance mode” emails: Send your prospects a quick note with an updated case study, or some interesting new literature on your company.
2. Call them during a holiday season or the summer and see how everything is going. The more memorable you make yourself, the better chance you have of building a relationship with that person.

I have had an outstanding response rate to this new email and I think it’s worth a shot to send it out to those people that declined your invitation 3-6 months back. Let’s face it, these people are not thinking about our products as much as we are. It’s our job to drop in and say hello and not lose to opportunity to share our story. Working on new personable attempts to make contact with your prospects will keep them out of the dreaded “maintenance mode” and place them into your pipeline.

Try this email:

Following up on information from XYZ Company—Jill Ryan

Mr Prospect,

I wanted to follow up on some information I have sent you over the past couple of months. I understood at the time, it did not make sense to connect. I wanted to touch base and see if you had any active goals regarding ____________ and ___________ at this time.

My role is at the very front end of the sales process; I just want to engage you early on with information regarding how we enhance ______________________.

Please let me know the best time to follow up, as I certainly do not want to bother you unnecessarily.

Hope all is well,

Jill Ryan
XYZ
000-0000-0000

Fill in the blanks with the problems you are looking to solve and see if you can conquer “maintenance mode”.