Jill Konrath | Selling to Big Companies

Want to eliminate fear and rejection from your prospecting?

Art Sobczak alway has good ideas on how to do this. I know because I've read his newsletter for years. (Check out his article below to see what I mean.)

His new book, Smart Calling, is out today. It's a practical how-to guide with lots of real world examples on how to get business by phone. When you read it, you'll learn how to: 

• Grab your prospect’s interest in the critical first 20 seconds;
• Use "social engineering" to get the inside scoop on prospects;
• Turn around buyer resistance;
• Have screeners, gatekeepers, and assistants working for you;
• Get stalled prospects to take action;
• and more!

If you order it this week, you get lots of goodies too! Check out the special promo now.

How to Warm Up Calls by Using "Social Engineering" 

One reason that most “cold” calls fail and result in rejection is that sales reps start their pitch the same way to everyone they speaking with. They sound like a talking junk mail piece.

A much better approach, one that stimulates interest, attention, and engagement, is to use personalized, customized information in your openings and voice mail, coupled with an on-target value statement.

How? First, there is an entire wealth of information online, found through search engines and social media sites. The other way is by simply talking to people other than your decision maker. This is called “social engineering.”

The term “social engineering” has been most widely used to describe unscrupulous behavior, such as misrepresenting oneself and lying to manipulate someone to provide sensitive information.

However, we use it positively and ethically to gather intelligence for our Smart Calls™.  It can be done as a separate call before your first call to your prospect; and every time you call your prospect.

I find this to be the most underutilized tool available to salespeople – and the one that has the greatest possible payoff. All it requires is that you take the time to do it, develop a sense of curiosity, and cultivate some conversational questioning techniques.

Completing all of these steps may indeed grant you a revelation that many of us have had: people are willing to give you amazing amounts of quality information if you just ask them.

Kevin Mitnick was one of the most notorious computer hackers in the world; and at the time of his arrest in 1995, the most wanted computer criminal in US history. After his release from prison, he wrote the book entitled The Art of Deception in which he shares precisely how he pulled off many of his hacking jobs.

Mitnick claims that he compromised computers solely by using passwords and codes that he gained by social engineering; in other words, simply talking to people. Now a speaker and security consultant to corporations, Mitnick points out that the weakest link in any security system is the person holding the information. You just need to ask for it.

The Social Engineering Process

Of course, we are using social engineering in the positive sense: asking for information from people that will help other people and the organization as a whole. The social engineering process for Smart Calling™ is as follows: upon reaching a live voice, you:

1. Identify yourself and your company: “Hi, I’m Jason Andrews with National Systems.” This immediately shows that you are not hiding anything.

2. Ask for help. “I hope you can help me out” or “I need some assistance.” Most people have an innate desire to be helpful to others in some way.

3. Use a Justification Statement. This is the key that will unlock the most useful information. Some examples are: “I want to be sure that I’m talking to the right person there…” “I’m going to be speaking with your VP of Sales, and want to be sure that I have accurate information…” “So that I’m better prepared when I talk to your CIO, I have a few questions you probably could answer…”

4. Ask questions. Of course you want to ask about the basic, factual material for which you might not have information yet. This depends both on what you sell, and the level of person with whom you’re speaking. In general, the higher up you go, the better the quality of information.

The theory behind the success of these Justification Statements I suggest is discussed by Dr. Robert Cialdini — widely considered as one of the foremost experts on persuasion and influence — in his classic book entitled Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Cialdini cites an experiment conducted by Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer where students let others cut in line in front of them at the copy machine simply because they provided a reason for their request—“because I’m in rush.”

Direct mail copywriters also employ this technique, often referring to it as the “Why” or the “Because.” For example, if a business is running a promotion, they know their response will increase if they give the reason for it: “We need to make room for next year’s new models and are clearing out the warehouse, so we are dropping prices to move the current models.”

I recommend that you take the time to create your own Justification Statement — your “because” reason — and use it regularly.

Smart Calling™ Exercise


1. Prepare your own script for social engineering using the process above. Be sure you have a justification statement you are comfortable with.

2. Brainstorm for the questions you will ask at all levels of an organization, and write them out.

Use social engineering and you will make your prospecting calls much smarter, and successful.

Art Sobczak works with thousands of sales reps each year helping them get more business by phone. His new book, “Smart Calling” shows salespeople how to eliminate the fear, failure and rejection from cold calling.

To learn more about the book and get the free report, “The Top 10 Dumb Cold Calling Mistakes that Ensure Rejection” go to www.SmartCalling.com.

4 Invaluable Sales Lessons From Email Scammers

Have you ever received an email like this?

When the post below arrived in my inbox, I didn't recognize the sender's name but I still scanned the message in my preview screen. Here's what it said:

 

Hey.

This guy has another list that includes contact info. Thought it might be helpful.

Angela

 ---Original Message---

From: Thomas
To: Angela Spenser
Subject: Illinois new car deal decision makers

Did you get your no-cost copy of the Illinois new car dealers? They are all on this weeks complimentary auto dealer list that includes decision-maker contact information. 

How can you get your copy of this list in Excel format and give your staff some relief from cold calling? It's easy. Just go to FreeAutoDealerList and get your copy today.

Thanks in advance for your time,

Thomas

________________________

 

The email message is a total (see addendum below) scam, masquerading as a nice note to me from a friend. But here are four lessons we can learn from this.

1. Informality puts you at ease.

When people talk with you as if you're a trusted colleague, you drop your guard. This enables their message to sink in without barriers. 

If that's the case, think about what happens to your prospects if/when you use the opposite? Typically slick marketing copy, sales gobbledygook and pretentious SIG files cause people to raise their guard. They feel you trying to sell them.

2. Questions pull you in.

When the fake original sender writes "Did you get your no-cost copy ...?", it automatically engages you. Your brain can't resist a question. Did you notice how I started this article? 

3. Simplicity gets you to act.

When you feel that taking action won't require a lot of time or effort, you're more likely to respond positively. In my upcoming book, SNAP Selling, I focus on numerous ways you can simplify the buying process to keep things moving along.

4. Scamming destroys credibility.

When people feel that they've been tricked, they won't do business with you - no matter how good your offering might be. 

So as you can see, even slimy salespeople can help us become better at our jobs! The scammers who wrote this email were brilliant. If I were actually in their target market, I'm sure I would have fallen for it.

Way down at the bottom, they even included a disclaimer as required by law. Here they even admit what they're actually doing.

This is an informative/promotional message delivered to you by a third party, elistman. If you wish to abstain from similar messages, please make us aware her or by regular snail mail at 707 E. Cervantes St. Pensacola, FL 32501. Thank you for your time.

But I won't respond. They'll never remove me from their list! After all, they're full of deception and lies - scammers, at heart. 

ADDENDUM (added 9/17/10): I just spoke with "Thomas," the guy behind this scammy email. He's upset because I'm implying that his whole operation is a scam - and he lost one customer because of it.

I have no idea if it is or not. I just know that his email is highly deceptive with its implication of a false friendship -- and I told him so. He said, "That's your opinion." He's right. It is.

And it's also my opinion that anyone who is willfully deceptive in one area is probably deceptive in other areas too. Just my two cents.

 

 

Are You Investing in Your Most Valuable Sales Resource?

In the past year, your company probably slashed virtually all "unnecessary" expenses from its budget. How did it hit salespeople? Perhaps your annual sales meeting was cancelled. Maybe important training was delayed. You probably cut your travel expense big time too.


But what happens after you've squeezed every bit of fat out of the budget?

It's time to focus on growth again. That's the only viable option for companies who want to be around for the long haul.

Instead, I see the opposite happening.

Companies are refusing to spend money to upgrade the knowledge and skills of their salespeople - when, in fact, that might be their only salvation.

Recently I spoke with Larry, the senior VP of sales for a technology-driven company. Last year was a brutal year for his dealers-orders were way down with existing customers, who'd been battered by the economy.

Even worse was his prognosis for the future. While his dealers were good at servicing accounts, they stunk at landing new ones. After years of coasting along during the good times, they were woefully unprepared to generate new leads and open new accounts.

Yet if they wanted their business to recover, that is precisely what they needed to get good at - and quickly.

Larry contacted me because he knew what needed to get done. His dealers desperately needed to enhance their new customer acquisition skills. So all that's good - at least from my perspective.

Then Larry dropped the bomb. He had virtually no money to invest in the professional development that was vital to the company's growth. Our initial discussion about a 2-day workshop quickly migrated to a one-day program, and then to doing a series of webinars so he could eliminate travel costs. But even that was too much.

My final recommendation? Buy a copy of Selling to Big Companies for every dealer sales rep and have him lead weekly discussions on each chapter.

He wasn't even sure he could get that approved—which of course, leads me to conclude that his company's executive team is totally clueless when it comes to understanding what it takes to get business today.

Yet these same smart people willingly invest in new technology to manufacture better products or improve their supply chain.

I never got a chance to talk to the head honchos, but I do have a message for them:

• Your salespeople are your company to every single customer they call on.

• If they're still selling your product's features, advantages and benefits, they'll never get their foot in the door.

• If they can't clearly articulate your value proposition, they'll be irrelevant to decision makers.

• If they aren't skilled in having business-focused conversations, they won't be invited back.

Unless you invest in your salespeople, you will find yourself in a slow death spiral.

Because the truth is, I don't see how it's possible to save your way into growth.

Now that I've shared my two cents on this matter, I'm wondering what you think?