Coffee Break: How to prospect through e-mail

I joined a site called Sales Gravy a couple of weeks ago. I was referred to it by a friend in the consulting business, and he got me connected with the owner. It seems cool, and honestly I have not had the time to start networking the site for contacts. I really want to leverage this site to continue building my brand as a Sales Mentor and Coach. Eventually, I plan to market my services to Start Ups that need their sales strategy developed and source the tools for execution.

I received this message in my inbox yesterday.

Karl,

I want to invite you to join our new business networking site for Sales Professionals. We just launched it this week and it’s already growing fast. Its invite only, but you can get in with the following code:

www.accountmaven.com
Invite code: ________

Look forward to seeing you on the site, PS: if you can blog about it that would be totally cool.

Mark ___________

This person not only got me to join their group, and I have to admit at first glance it looks like a fantastic idea, but as you can see, the kindly asked me to blog about the site and here I am doing it. The reason I am blogging about it is simple. This is an example of how a non intrusive, properly placed e-mail can trigger someone to act. I am a sales coach, any network that tailors itself to sales professionals is of interest to me. Indeed, this e-mail got me on their site, but the reason is that they did their homework. The person looked me up, saw that I was a networker, and a blogger, touched to those points without mentioning anything directly, then sent me a non intrusive message.

Now, before you go assuming I sign up for every social network I can, I assure you I do not. Ecadamy, Notch Up?, and all the other new networks have not had the honor of my presence. MySpace and Facebook get no attention from me whatsoever. Only Plaxo and LinkedIn get my traffic, so to position this network as a business network for sales professionals, hits me in the sweet spot.

How can you go after your target audience with simple questions that trigger them to act?

Sales Training: Qualifying Pt1 – Getting to know people and their place

I find it mind boggling how many sales representatives get an opportunity to really communicate with a prospect and talk their ear off. I find it even more tremendous how many sales managers coach their people to ask only enough questions to find the pitching point. Finally it completely leaves me huddled in the corner of my cube wondering how you could enter this critical phase without an objective list for information gathering.

To begin, the qualification stage of the sale, or the discovery/interviewing phase, should be thorough and thought out. The initial goal of this meeting or call should be to UNDERSTAND THE CONTACT! Learn about their role and responsibilities. Learn the hierarchy and how they fit into the mix. What are their personal goals for today and tomorrow, and where did they come from? If you start with some simple questions, you can learn an amazing amount of information. The key at the beginning of the discovery phase is to be vague, and let people pick the path for information. You will continue to guide them towards your objectives, but if you can steer them with the right questions, it will give them a sense of control.

Some examples of questions and flow:

“So, Ms./Mr. prospect, tell me what do you do?”

People laugh at me when I suggest this, and I assure you the question sometimes gets met with, “What do you mean?” and we will address that response in a moment. You can learn an immense amount about a person from which way they take this conversation. Usually the response is a trigger of one of three things:

1. What the person does in their day to day, especially focused on how it relates to your offering – A tactical mind that is only looking at the basics. The details will be important and objections will come without the authority to make them.
2. What the department does and how they fit in – A more strategic mind, but still looking at only their team’s level of responsibility. Probably a pleaser and will buy into anything that makes them looks good.
3. What the company does, how their department assists, and perhaps finally how they fit into the equation – Keep an eye on this person, they are going far. You want to think of this person as an executive. R.O.I. will eventually be your course of action.

Listen for cues of disdain within each answer. This too is a trigger point on how happy they are with their job, their department, or the company as a whole. It might also end up as a selling point if you can eliminate that disdain.

This answer will also provide you with the ability to choose your next set of questions. If they want to talk about themselves, ask questions specific to how they do their job. If they get into department, ask about hierarchy and departmental initiatives. If you get into the strategic thinker, ask their opinions on how the company functions and get them to give you a strength and weakness analysis on how they do what they do. This course is not as hard as you think, as people love to talk, especially about their passions. Even if we do not like our jobs, most of us are passionate about them. If there is no passion in your contact, and you cannot instill any, they probably are not going to be too great an asset. That is, unless they are the decision maker.

Now, if I get that rebuttal I mentioned earlier, or for some reason I be a bit more specific:

“Help me understand your role (or your department’s role) at the company?”

I can count on one hand the number of times I have asked this question and received a response that was less than a minute long. I have asked this question THOUSANDS OF TIMES! If you think that is not a big deal, stop reading and count to 60 RIGHT NOW!

People love the sound of their name, and to talk about themselves, even shy people get in the groove when they feel someone really cares about them. If you are a true salesperson, looking to make a career out of taking care of people, you should care about them. That said, your job now is to get them to reveal the inner workings of the company in relation to you, your competitors, their core processes, products and problems. Treat every contact as someone you want to get to know; not just professionally, but personally. If you can build this habit into your initial phase of qualifying, you are taking a huge step towards building a long term bond. People buy from people they like, and everyone tends to like people if they know they are going to listen.

Book Review: Asking Questions Winning Sales by Stephan Schiffman

I never appreciate a book review that starts off glowing then turns to disdain, or vice versa. Again, a reminder that I am going to rate books on three aspects:

1. Delivery: Writing style, chapter structure, overall flow of concepts, and script examples.
2. Concept: Sales philosophy, concepts of focus, quality of lessons
3. Message: Overall lesson, Alignment of lessons with modern concepts, My opinion on the points made

I will give each of these three sections a rating of 1-10, then give my final thoughts and the overall rating of the book.

Delivery: 5

I want to start by stating that while the score for delivery may seem low, I did like this book. However, the book reads cryptically slow. While Stephan Schiffman has some great views on what he refers to as the interviewing stage, or the second stage of the sale, he does not deliver compelling explanations and powerful scripts to the readers. For some, his great ideas may get lost in the lack of explanation.

While the flow from discussing how to get appointments, through asking calmly for the sale is good he overlooks key parts of talented prospecting, how to manage objection handling, and what data from interviewing is important. He also is really limiting his audience by using examples relating to a face to face meeting. His ideas could translate to telesales with equal effectiveness, but he all but discounts this group by never mentioning them.

Schiffman’s scripts do not jump from the page and sell you on his process. They are a bit dated, and if you do not utilize his confrontational strategies properly, you will not be as successful as he suggests. He warns you in several areas to use caution, but does not train you on how to know when you are ready. One example is when he suggests bluntly asking who else is involved in the decision making process. He suggests asking and then staring at your page. I would recommend not asking this question until you have built some rapport with your prospect. If you have properly built an ally through learning who you are working with, you can just ask and get the information you need.

Concept: 8

Now you will hear a bit about why I REALLY LIKE WHAT SCHIFFMAN HAS TO SAY!

About three years agoI developed a training for my team at WorkMetro. I called it the Who, What, When, Why, and How training. Some of those amazing sales reps read this blog, and can understand when Shiffman presents his six questions why my eyes nearly leapt from their sockets. I am paraphrasing, but here are his six conceptual questions for your prospect, and in my opinion if you can answer these six, you will almost certainly get a sale:

1. What do you do?
2. How do you do it?
3. When do you do it?
4. Who do you do it with?
5. Why do you do it that way?
6. How can we help you do it better?

Again, if you know the answers to these six questions, you can evaluate a situation, overcome any objection, and close sales if they were meant to be closed.

The only thing Schiffman leaves out is a detail as to why you need this data. So, I will some more questions as detail, but turn the questions to you, the sales rep, with some minor advice:

1. What do they do?
Do you understand what the company does overall?
What they do in relation to what you are selling?
What your contact does?
What the people above and below him do?

2. How do they do it?
Do you know the process involved in their day to day?
Do you know the process for purchasing?
The process for what you are looking to improve or replace? (If you cannot improve how they do it, why would they buy from you?

3. When do they do it?
Is there cycle dependent on calendar?
Do they have triggers in sales or inventory that effect their decisions?

4. Who do you do it with?
Are they working with your competition?
Do they do it in house, and is it effective?

5. Why do you do it that way?
BE CAREFUL, I BELIEVE THAT ANY QUESTION THAT STARTS WITH WHY CAN BE CONFRONTATIONAL! IF YOU CAN ELIMINATE WHY FROM YOU QUESTIONS, BUT STILL FIND OUT WHY YOU WILL REMOVE MORE BARRIERS
Do you know the thought process behind how they concluded to do what they do?
Is there a higher level decision maker driving the way they do things now?

6. How can we help you do it better?
This one is self explanatory and as Schiffman states, all you need do is understand the first five and you will have this one on your way to a proposal.

Message: 7

One other fantastic point he makes is about the possible sales you can make in a year. Schiffman states that if you just show up you will get a third of the deals out there, if you present something viable you may get another third, but if you actually interview your prospect, learn about their needs, and only present once that bond and understanding is established, you will close every deal out there. He uses the Olympic Medal winner analogy, that if you read enough books on sales you realize is a common one. His point is strong however, and the underlying message to all sales people. There is only a small difference between the time or score of an Olympic champion and the person who came in second. No one remembers the person that came in second, and you know what, in sales that person does not get a commission.

Overall score: 7

This book is a great read if you can make it throw the boring style. Schiffman delivers some really important advice and everyone from a rookie to a seasoned vet can pull great points from his teachings. I would suggest blazing through the 125 page book in a weekend and taking notes on what jumps out at you. Also, if you get stuck in the writing, jump around and fill in the gaps. Utilizing his advice will definitely improve your sales!

Click on the link to the left to buy this book.