|
2) Contact (step two of the sales cycle)
“You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!” We’ve all heard this one before. Well, actually, sometimes you truly do get a second chance to make a first impression. I’ve been blown away at my first couple attempts to contact a decision maker. And guess what? After waiting a few weeks and trying again, the secretary or decision maker had NO CLUE they’d ever talked to me before!
The second part of the Cycle of Sales is known as the Contact. This in essence is your first attempt to make verbal or in-person contact with a decision maker. There are two types of contacts: 1) contact via the telephone, and 2) contact via ‘in-person.’ Both types of contact are completely different and have VERY specific goals.
Warning: the goal of the contact (whether in person or via the phone) IS NOT TO LAUNCH INTO A DEMO TO SELL YOUR PRODUCT… read on!
The Phone Contact
Many successful salespeople utilize the telephone to make most of their initial contacts with a lead or prospect. There are several advantages to using the phone for prospecting- namely the ability to make many contacts in a relative short amount of time. But you have to be very careful when making contacts via the phone that you accomplish your objective. And the goal of the Contact over the phone is first and foremost to GET THE DECISION MAKER’S ATTENTION. I can’t tell you how many times a sales person gets through to me and launches right into his or her ‘product’ speel about if I’d like to save some money, or if I’m ‘in the market’ for something. This DOES NOT ACCOMPLISH THE OBJECTIVE of getting my attention! In fact, I’m already trying to hang up the phone!
If you’ve ever been annoyed by a telemarketer’s call during your dinner hour, (and it’s no wonder they’re trying to enact laws to prevent these calls,) you normally get an unprofessional person pronouncing your name wrong, and then asking you stupid questions about whether or not you’re the man or woman of the house! They not only DON’T get your attention, but they actually accomplish the opposite! They lose you immediately!
To adequately get someone’s attention on the phone is fairly easy. First, you need to address them by their name. First name is best. Correct way: “Hi, is this Jim? I’m glad I was able to finally reach you!!!” vs. Incorrect way: “Hi, is this Mr. Nuusbaum, Chief Purchasing Agent for the XYZ Company?” Now which contact wreaked of salesperson, and which one would immediately get someone’s attention- at least to encourage them to pay attention!
The next step to gain the DM’s attention is to instantly build some rapport (and by now you know this means names in common!) We call this using ‘lead names’ or names that you’re relatively certain will mean something to the D.M. It’s done like this: “Jim, this is Chris Anderson. I work with Mike Stern at DDI and Sara Brownson at Hamilton Accounting down the hall from you and I thought I’d give you a quick call.” Now if Jim knows either of these two people, you’ve succeeded in getting his attention which is the ONLY goal of the phone CONTACT. (Once you’ve gotten his attention you can move into the next phase of the phone call which is covered later- the mini-demo to attempt to get an appointment, or a full demo to attempt to get a phone sale- see Presentation)
The In-person Contact
Successful salespeople often utilize face to face techniques or ‘in-person calls’ for initial contacts with a lead or prospect. There are also advantages to ‘dropping by’ to try to see your contact, especially the fact that this can be an incredibly effective method (albeit very time consuming.) For sales people who truly know how to perform in-person contacts, they can often get right-in to see the decision-maker while the sales person using the phone was shut-down or hung-up on!
Again, much care has to be taken to ensure that you follow the correct technique when making an in-person contact. The goal of the In-person Contact is TO SIT DOWN WITH THE DECISION MAKER! Why is it so important to sit down? Because very rarely will you EVER make a sale standing up. In fact, even if you have good rapport, standing is normally not conducive to make a presentation or closing a deal. In fact, you also want to make sure that you create enough rapport to suggest sitting down somewhere with little or NO distractions! Usually on the occasion that a sales person calls on our office or on me in-person and unannounced, they usually launch right into their product demo while we’re standing in the hallway!
Again, to accomplish the goal of the in-person contact (to sit-down) First, you need to be armed again with GREAT name-based rapport. Then, when approaching your decision maker, make sure you walk in a non-threatening manner (we call it ‘low and slow.’) Never run at or towards a d.m. or jump into their office. It is all right, to approach someone in their office in a non-threatening manner.
Upon approaching someone, you simply make your in-person contact by walking up to the D.M. and saying something like, “Hi- are you Jim? I’m Chris Anderson. (you can shake hands if you feel comfortable.) I was just over visiting with Sara Turner at Brown and Hamilton down the hall- I work with her on some projects, and I also needed to try to catch Joe at Sports Research after I stop here. I apologize for only having a few minutes, but Sara thought I should stop by for a second and show you what she’s doing. Do you have a spot we could sit down for a quick second?” Lead towards a table, chair, office, i.e. at this moment use body language to lead him to sit down somewhere! Also notice how I said to mention “I apologize for only have a few minutes, …” this takes pressure off the D.M. and lets him know your not going to be there all day. And finally, the MOST important part about the in-person contact, those PRECIOUS NAMES! Now if Jim had no clue who Sara or Joe are, I probably don’t have much of a shot at sitting down with this guy either! However, if he knows Sara and Joe and likes them at all, and honestly does have a couple minutes, YOU GOT HIM! Names are everything! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cold called on a company with nothing but a ton of names to end up finding myself right in front of the d.m.! You can use the names to approach secretaries, gate-keepers, even security guards. The art of in-person contacts is that it’s kind of like a treasure hunt. You can find yourself inside an office building looking for the ‘buried goods’ with each contact being a key on your map! And if you do a good enough job of building rapport, you can get each and every contact to work with you to help you find your treasure!
We’ve even built enough rapport with secretaries before that they’ve been willing to have us set down, relax, get us coffee, and then go madly to work paging the person we wanted to see. And guess what? When they finally got ahold of the
d.m., they became our ‘sales ally’ in making sure the d.m. gave us a few minutes to meet! (For those of you who don’t know, usually secretaries carry a lot of weight in a company!)
Remember- the whole goal of the in-person contact is to build enough rapport to get the person to sit down with you. It is NOT to start your sales speel! In fact, if you ‘blow it’ and launch into talking about your product or service right at the onset of the contact, you’re going to invariably blow it and get shut down EVERY TIME. Go low an slow, and use those names!
|
