I recently attended a seminar with a number of different speakers that were discussing aspects of business development and sales success. One of the speakers shared the thought that in their mind, the key is to remember 4 words – “Pick up the phone”.
It is hard to argue with this on a simplistic level as time and again, what we observe with our clients is that activity levels are well below where they need to be to ensure that they have consistently full pipelines.
Assuming though that clients take this first step, and start using the phone as a proactive sales tool to make initial contact; to follow up on whitepaper downloads, to follow up with new contacts from conference and seminars etc, the question then becomes one of skill. This is where the question of polling or prospecting becomes important in terms of turning conversations into meetings.
Polling describes most salespeople and business developers who simplistically are calling and in effect saying – “this is what we do, do you want some?”
Undoubtedly with enough activity behind it this will sometimes work as, applying the concept of the “numbers game”, some people will “want some”. Unfortunately though this only serves to encourage people to continue to “spray and pray” all the while claiming, and often thinking, that they are prospecting.
True prospecting is about working smart as well as hard. It is about focusing your efforts into the areas of maximum likely return. It is about stimulating demand not just relying on finding pre-existing demand.
Prospecting requires intelligence, focus and skill and will be a topic that I return to in future posts but as a start I would be interested to hear the thoughts of the sales community on whether their current habit is to poll or truly prospect.
Alan Morton
Senior Consultant at SBR Consulting
In addition to “Pick up the phone” I want to offer my two word mantra “Question everything!” – All to often we as sales people take the approach of “confidently handling the objection” with out taking the vital step of asking enough questions, and actively listening to the answers, to ensure that we have got the specific reason as to what is truly putting the prospect off.
For me true prospecting is about finding out who genuinely “wants some” and who doesn’t at the earliest opportunity. If we can find that out before even setting an appointment then surely that is prospecting as opposed to polling. Open probing direct questions such as “What are the reasons you feel that this is not an idea you want to consider?” – then keep asking further questions off the back of their answers…. What do you think?
I agree that good prospecting is more about ‘stimulating demand’. At first glance that phrase sounds like you’re going to go in with the intention of manipulating someone to want something, but in reality it should mean the opposite (in my opinion). I see it as much more of a relaxed conversation than your average sales meeting, where you are discussing ideas and options with the prospect with the intention of trying to find out if there is in fact a way you could help them. In many cases prospects will not have thought about or understood the ways in which you could help them. It takes this kind of conversation for them to realise sometimes.
Maybe “Uncovering Demand” has better connotations?
+1 being held accountable to something is a good commitment device. It’s definitely easier to take knocks or set-backs when other people around you are in the same position and having similar experiences.
Great wake up call Alan – In addition to the above I feel that prospecting ‘on purpose’ also has some value – What I mean by that is 1/ have some outline of the conversation in your head with an objective to help and not ‘sell’. Having a rough structure to the call – particularly the ‘hook’ to grab attention is important in improving your prospecting performance. Calling people to sell very rarely works – calling to give something – more information to help them some ideas for them to think about helps maintain their attention. 2/ Call with others calling around if its possible – a past delegate called me last week and asked if we could organise lone salespeople to come in and call from our office as a group – the idea is fantastic – it made me realise why I have a trainer at the gym to do a load of exercises i know how to do anyway! He makes me do them!