What I’ve learned from sitting next to a pro salesman
medium.com
medium.com
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.
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.
It's actually kinda neat.
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.
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.
That could explain why the women were tired of the topic.
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.
But obviously the overwhelming majority of football fans are guys.
"The data show that 70% of working men and 59% of working women are sports fans" [1]
"74.6 percent of all male respondents consider themselves football fans as well as 51.5 percent of all female respondents."[2]
"...according to data from The ESPN Sports Poll and the U.S. Census, with league officials saying 44 percent of all football fans are now women."[3]
2: http://www.statista.com/statistics/208431/football-fans-by-g...
3: http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/7536295/nfl...
It's unclear to me from the context whether they are just from some town in the state of Oregon, or that they were alumna of the University of Oregon.
The gender ratio among college sports fans is a _lot_ closer to 50/50 than it is for pro sports fans.
If somebody assumed because I grew up in California that I'm a fan of the Bears, I would also not be particularly amused.
They were both Oregon alums. :)
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 read that book yearly, and learn something every time.
"Talk to people about themselves and they will listen for hours"
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.
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.
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.
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.
Win for everyone, IMHO.
What do you think of high value stuff sent to you? We all get the usual gift card, gadget, or curio. Whatever.
But I've had somebody actually send me something I might consider buying. Not the product, just as a gift.
I called 'em. Looked like a $50 - $100 item, and I figured they were serious. They were.
Sits in my kitchen now.
Very obviously bulk swag stuff, but decent quality, and the per-unit cost isn't dirt cheap. Like I said, sits in my kitchen, and my wife and I use it to listen to music while we cook.
The vendor in question is relatively well-known in their space, and were I in the market for a new solution in the future, they were on my short list even before the sales guy initially reached out to me. I just have no interest in hearing the pitch when I have zero intent to consider a new solution, and know that their offering isn't THAT different from what I use now.
Thanks.
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
You can find more via this article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-sales-teams-need-trade-pi...
Hope this helps. Jacco.
If I get a phone call that starts with "Hi Mr. Adams, how are you?" My instinctive response is "busy, get to the point."
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.
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.
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.
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.
I particularly like the bit about concluding with something concrete. That's great advice
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.
This applies anywhere you are driving a process.
* if the social brain hypothesis is true.
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.
> 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 …
> 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.
you think you are so smart and other people are so driven by their emotions
I don't know about everyone but it sure as hell wont work on me