Archive for the ‘Prospecting’ Category

Just the Right Amount of Customer Contact

May 13, 2010 by Scott Olsen

I’m often asked about the best ways to follow up with prospects and customers. I find most sales people are concerned about following up too much and coming across as aggressive, while sales managers have a fear that their sales people may be too passive and not following up quick enough or on a consistent basis.

Based on a McKinsey Quarterly article, The basics of business-to-business sales success, there is good reason to pay attention to how you do follow up. This article is based on a study that shows the “most destructive” sales activity in the eyes of the decision maker is “too much contact (in person, by phone, or via email)”.

I’ve found the best way to ensure the appropriate amount/timing of follow up is to take the guess work out by asking the prospect. At the end of each conversation, agree together how you can best track with and support the customer’s decision making process and when you should talk next. This simple idea saves sales people a tremendous amount of wondering, grief and head ache as to when to follow up. Some of my clients have tripled their weekly productivity by becoming better at closing each phone call with an agreed upon clear next action step with their customer.

“When” you follow up is important, but perhaps the bigger question is, “are you adding value every time you make contact with your prospect or customer?” Here are some simple common sense ways that may help ensure your conversations are relevant and meaningful to your prospect:

  1. be brief and to the point
  2. open with a quick summary of relevant info from your previous conversation
  3. confirm/establish the objectives, then the agenda of the meeting
  4. summarize the key take aways from the conversation
  5. confirm next action steps and who is responsible for what, including the date/time/objectives of the next conversation

Running effective meetings or facilitating effective conversations is more science than art. One of my clients, an SVP of a very large technology company, shared with me that the most valuable training he had ever participated in was a week long course on how to run effective meetings.

Please share your approach to ensuring the right timing and ways you facilitate relevant and meaningful conversations with your prospects and customers.

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Categories: Closing Skills, Engaging Your Customers, Executive Selling, Major Account Selling, Prospecting, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Tactical Selling Skills, Uncategorized, sell, selling

The Oldest Negotiation Tactic in the Book

January 22, 2010 by Scott Olsen

My client met with a prospect who was interested in consulting services to help streamline product development cycles. During the visit, the President said, “we could really use your help, but we don’t have a budget for this, give us your best pricing and we’ll see what we can do.” Not having budget and not having resources to pay for services are two different things. Listen closely to your prospects and customers, but don’t let negotiation tactics get you down. When it’s time to present your proposal, make sure you share with your prospect you listened and understood his/her concerns about expenses. Point out specifically how you’ve taken his/her comments into consideration into your proposal to make sure you can meet the confirmed needs and budget requirements.

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Categories: Negotiation, Prospecting, Sales Skills, Sales Stories, Trust and Credibility

Where Are Your Prospects?

April 10, 2009 by alnodarse

When the market gets soft, the first thing that many companies do is “go back to basics”. This has always driven me crazy. Shouldn’t you always focus on the fundamentals?  I remember hearing how Larry Bird was always the first one to show up to practice. Even though he had one of the best free throw shooting percentages, he still felt that he always needed to focus on the basics.

When it comes to your database, the same holds true. You should always be “fine tuning” to make sure all of your prospects are on your radar screen. If you don’t know where they all are, how can you sell to them?

One big challenge most companies have (even Fortune 500’s) is that they lack visibility. I have found that many companies that are household names don’t even know about 65% of their prospects. They are not even on their radar screen?

Just like there is a process in free-throw shooting, there is one for building and maintaining a database:

Start by making sure that everyone who should be in your database is.
Continually look to update your database by adding or deleting companies.
Verify and validate the critical info to make sure it is always up to date.
For large account sales, make sure you know of all sibling companies and their relationships to the parent.

To have and maintain a world-class database, you have to commit to the process. No matter how good you think your database is, you can always do better. That’s the first step. Just step up to the line, commit and shoot.

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Categories: Prospect database, Prospecting, Sales Management

Prospecting is Not For Dummies

December 16, 2008 by Scott Olsen

One of my favorite stories about prospecting happened when AT&T was broken up into the baby bells and their “sales people” experienced their first taste of competition. A vice president of sales was speaking to a large group of sales people. He was going on and on about how they would need to adjust their approach now that they had real competition. They would have to be proactive and go out their and prospect for new business… they couldn’t just wait for the customer’s to call them.  He went on for a few minutes until one of the sales people raised his hand and asked, “What’s prospecting!”

When salespeople struggle to achieve their numbers, the first questions I ask are “How are you prospecting?” and “How are you closing?” Through my experience in talking with, observing others as well as studying my own conscience, prospecting can be a very thrilling, anxiety ridden, stressful and empowering experience. It reminds me of exercising, because it doesn’t always sound like fun, but I’m always better for it afterwards.

What does your prospecting experiences remind you of…?

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Categories: Prospecting, Sales Skills, Sales Stories, Selling in Difficult Times, sell, selling

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