Jill Konrath | Selling to Big Companies

Selling—Just One Step at a Time

After working so darn hard to set up a meeting with a corporate decision maker, the last thing in the world you want to do is blow it.

If you're like most sellers, when you're prepping for the call an endless debate is going on in your head:

• What should I tell them about us?
• Which of my products or services should I talk about?
• What if I choose one, and they're not looking for that right now?

Since this might be your one and only chance to sit down with this person, you decide you can't leave anything to chance. So, rather than focusing on just one aspect of your business, you decided to share the full breadth of your offering.

Let me tell you what this feels like from the buyer's side of the desk.

Cold Calling Calamities

Everyone has an occasional off day when selling. But some people are totally oblivious to how their approach is perceived by prospective customers.

My friend Ardath Albee who writes the popular Marketing Interactions blog sent me the transcript of a voicemail she received recently. Imagine yourself listening to this message:

"Hello Ardath. This is Terry ... and I'm with the X and X, which is a division of our company. We do marketing services. We also have a call center where we do surveys, market reasearch and lead generation.

I was thinking of your company as a possible lead generation client for us.  Please give me a call at (phone number).

I saw the article on your company in Minnesota Technology and I just thought, and I mentioned to our president, who is xxxx, that you'd probably be a very, very good prospect for our company. So I'd love to hear from you. Please give me a call."

Yikes! Can you believe that? It makes me shudder to think that any rational person could possibly have left a message like that. Yet I have no doubt that this seller is a decent human being who is trying to do a good job. She just isn't thinking.

To be good at selling today, you must engage your brain fully. You can't go running off at the mouth and blurt out anything that comes to mind. It's imperative to filter your words through your prospect's brain before you speak - to see how they hear from a potential buyer's perspective.

So let's have some fun! I'll tell you my own foot-in-the-mouth story shortly. Do you dare to share your own cold calling calamities?