call-center articles and white paperCold-Calling - The FIRST Rule!
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The FIRST Rule of Cold-Calling The first and most important rule for productive cold-calling is to Enter the No Product Zone. At first glance it may seem strange or even bizarre. But our research is conclusive. You will not get positive yield whatsoever if you mention a word about your product or service when you make cold-call presentations. Let me be bold: If you or your sales team incorporates even a hint of product-benefit or even value-proposition language in the context of cold-calling, then you have a gaping hole in your technique. And you are missing out on a lot of meetings with your target buyers. Our culture has built up notable and lofty walls of sales resistance. When I observe sales teams’ cold-calling practices, I am forever amazed that most cold-call presentations sound exactly same, regardless of industry! Even the better opening statements are doomed to failure. Why? Because your value-proposition oriented elevator pitch sounds the same as the other forty calls that your target receives weekly. If not, daily! Below is an actual documented cold-call presentation targeting VP Marketing at large insurance companies, who are buyers for web-based agent portals. Agent portals are designed to improve efficiency and save money by eliminating paper-based reports, and routing them electronically to the right people at the right time. This cold-call presentation, though one of the best we have heard during an observation period, failed miserably to produce the desired effect of getting meetings with target buyers. Kevin - Is Mr. Williams in? Admin - No he isn't. Kevin - Do you keep his calendar? Admin - Yes I do. Kevin - This is Kevin with ABC Company and I am calling to schedule a 30-minute meeting with him. I would like to introduce him to our company, our Agent Portal solution, and I would like to share with him how we saved Zurich International Insurance Company $1 million last year. Can you help me schedule this? Admin - I'm sorry, Mr. Williams doesn't have time to meet with you. Kevin - When is a good time for him to meet? Admin - Kevin, would you please send me an email describing your company and the topic for the meeting. I will review it with him and get back to you if he’s interested. Can you spell F-A-I-L-U-R-E?? This is a classic product-benefit statement type of cold-call presentation. It cannot work and does not work in today’s environment for three reasons: (i) the culture does not respond to product-benefit statements; (ii) the entire approach smells like sales stench and the moment your pitch sounds sales-eee, its doomed for failure; (iii) your targets receive dozens of almost identically worded cold-call pitches each week, maybe each day, and it all sounds like the same white noise to them. The culture of phone sales can be understood and manipulated through several rules that I have developed: The old adage about working smarter not harder is true. Tele-prospecting is a unique practice that needs to be developed and honed. If you execute the principles of The Must-React System properly, you are not soliciting your prospects to attend a sales call. Not a chance. You are inviting them to attend a research-based briefing that contains compelling information that is educational and relevant to your target buyer. The fact is that your targets are much more apt to attend a briefing that contains research that is relevant to their profession, than they are a sales call. You might be thinking, OK smart guy, what happens now that I win the meeting? Blaire Group has built dozens (hundreds?) of Analyst-Briefings for our clients. By following the principles of Must-React, our clients acquire voluminous meetings with targets and deliver Analyst-Briefings in place of a traditional, initial sales call. The beauty of the Analyst-Briefing model, however, is that you keep your promise of delivering relevant information, but the talk-track associated with the presentation allows you to deeply qualify the target’s environment, carefully determining if there is a sales opportunity. When there is no opportunity, we simply thank the prospect for attending the briefing and document the results. Where there is opportunity, we schedule a definitive next step meeting with a date and time certain and begin the sales cycle in earnest. One Blaire Group client adopted our practice as their primary vehicle for lead generation. We helped the team Enter the No-Product Zone by deconstructing their existing value-proposition based presentation, and reworked it to be consistent with the principles of The Must-React System. The new cold-calling presentation was wildly different from what they had been accustomed to doing. The sales organization was trained and certified in The Must-React System. In a 12-month period, the model delivered 1,680 analyst-briefings that was directly responsible for $30 million in forecasted pipeline and $10 million in net-new, closed business transactions. Register for a FREE Cold-Calling Webinar entitled, Optimizing Cold-Calling to Drive Revenue Complete the form below to register.
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 Kraig Kleeman CEO, Blaire Group |
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