Finding good prospects...then developing them into satisfied customers is never easy.
Especially now...because information overload makes us skeptical and hesitant to believe anything from anyone.
Consider your emails and voice-mails --- how many were sent to you today?
Same overload your prospects deal with...day after day.
How to get your message through this clutter...so they believe what you can do for them is true and not just another sales pitch?
Try the human touch.
That way you get to know them...and they get to know you.
What I'm talking about is speaking directly with your prospects by phone...
...engaging in real-time, meaningful dialog rather than voice-mail or sending automatic e-mails like you (and your competitors) are used to doing.
That herd mentality --- doing the same thing over and over like everybody else trying to sell you something or win you over to their way of seeing things --- that's what I want you to put aside for now...
Let's test a different approach to show your prospects that what you do is different.
What you offer is different.
And that you are different.
This break from the herd strategy is more important than ever because people are more distracted than ever.
This is where a cold call lead process comes in ---- something you are not used to doing yourself...and probably not something you are used to receiving in your office.
That's because nobody makes those calls anymore.
At least not the right way!
How I make those calls and why they succeed I'll get to in a few more paragraphs (scroll down now, if you can't wait).
What's important to grasp now is the importance of positioning ---
...branding yourself so your prospect is comfortable not just speaking with you and listening to your "pitch"...but agreeing to learn more about what you can do for him or her.
That's important --- wanting to learn from you how you plan to help them.
For this to take place you need an effective follow-up process to effectively deal with each prospect you have qualified as a good prospect.
It's here most sales organizations --- maybe yours too --- drop the ball.
They lack an effective follow-up cold call lead process.
This kind of follow-up is not sending out email blasts.
It is NOT one-call appointment setting.
It is NOT hit or miss boiler-room telemarketing.
It's not a CRM app you download onto your smart phone.
And it's NOT intrusive or annoying like the telemarketing calls you are used to getting.
But something entirely different.
Call it old-school relationship building by phone
And don't kid yourself.
You know that even if you had time you would do anything but work the phones and make those real-time follow-up calls. Just something you are not cut out to do.
So you get other people to make those cold call lead development calls for you.
You hire a telemarketer.
Or you outsource to a telemarketing call center.
And happy you are because no matter who you hire for your telemarketing they tell you the same story -- how many dials per hour they make and what you can expect in appointments per day.
Sound familiar?
Either way you probably end up with the same result --- mostly junk leads that go nowhere.
Then there's your sales rep problem --- remember, you're paying them to bring you new business.
You leave it to them for reaching out to your prospects and to your customers.
But they tell you the same story...over and over ---
--- how they want to make those calls...but never get around to actually doing it (even your best reps are too busy handling their own customers to develop new ones).
And what about voice-mail and email?
You and everyone else looking for new customers have over-used voice-mail and email so much that your messages are pretty much ignored and left unaswered.
The Solution (maybe!)
To help you determine if I'm a good fit for what you need I'll give you a detailed summary of my cold call lead process.
First of all, I do NOT outsource to third party call centers.
All the prospecting and follow-up calls I do myself.
And what I do is NOT one call appointment setting…not even close.
I'm telling you this now to save us both lots of time.
Because most business owners or sales managers or their business development executives with big titles are not a good fit for my services because they are set in their ways and will keep doing the same old sales and marketing thing.
If that sounds like you and you are the business owner ask yourself why are you paying these people so much money to do what they do...and keep bringing you the same results!
But if you're still with me let's get back to my cold call lead process...how it works...and what I can do for you.
It’s more a list-building process…starting first with the best list you will ever own --- your existing list of prospects you want to sell to.
The sales cycle depends if we get lucky and find a pain point that needs attention.
Not the norm...but it does happen!
My guess you will need month or two to see a sale.
Might happen sooner.
A big key to my cold call lead development and overall database management is a rapid application contact management crm called TeleMagic.
I do not sell it.
Just recommend it highly because it is a great resource not just for phone prospecting but tracking and managing your customer and prospect base.
I recently made a video about TeleMagic --- you can see it here.
You can generally count on 2 prospect contacts per hour…those being prospects who raise their hands and say "OK send me your info..and fine if you call me back".
I make certain they are qualified and reasonably interested in what you do.
As we work setting all this up we will find key words and phrases that resonate with the prospect --- Not sure what you have found is the “secret sauce” that gets them talking about what they need.
The process works like this:
Intro call…real-time interaction with decision-maker or get the name of that decision-maker. I recommend NOT sending out email until I contact and qualify that individual and once done…I confirm their email and mention I will be sending follow-up to them.
I email you --- immediately --- the results of my call and what you are to send the prospect. Helpful if you and I figure out what key data points you want collected by me in the opening call.
Your follow-up email could open like this: My colleague, George Clay, Spoke with you today about blah blah blah…and asked that I follow-up with more info on our services…
You send the email…and then—according to the time-line given me by the prospect in my intro call --- I recontact that prospect real-time and ask if info received..any questions..any needs we can help them with etc….if note…I if I can contact say 30 days or so or if ok to check back time to time.
I email you immediately their response and at this stage good to either email again and/or snail mail. Keep the snail mail and email on-going ---educating and informing about special offers, etc.