"I'm just calling to follow-up?" That phrase really gets you no where! Today sales expert Wendy Weiss shares what you can do to avoid it and really make a connection with prospects.
This week I've been barraged by phone calls from vendors. You see, a couple of weeks ago I attended the Selling Power Sales 2.0 Conference that was held in San Francisco. It was a great conference and I'm delighted that I attended. During the conference I was able to make the rounds and I spoke with most of the exhibitors there. And of course, I gave them all my business card.
This week the calls started: "Hello Wendy. I'm with _____________. Thank you for stopping by our booth. I'm just calling to follow-up." Call after call after call after call after call of sales reps, "...just calling to follow-up."
I truly wonder how much business these reps have gained with that introduction. I'm willing to bet, judging from the caliber of the calls I received—not a lot. So what should these "following-up" sales professionals have said or done instead of using that lame phrase?
Well, to start off—they should have done their homework. While in the crush of a big conference with many, many exhibitors and a large number of attendees it is frequently difficult to qualify a prospect - they should have at least tried. I had in depth conversations with many of the vendors. From those conversations those vendors should have know that Weiss Communications was not a good prospect for
their wares. You see, they were almost all on the hunt for Enterprise level customers. Weiss Communications is not yet an Enterprise level business.
With a good system in place, they should have made notes after our conversation and taken Weiss Communications off of their list for the reps to call. The challenge here, of course, is that most exhibitors never have any kind of system. They gather as many business cards as they can and then spend time (waste time) calling everyone.
I've received multiple calls from each vendor, multiple voice mail messages, and multiple emails from each of them. That's a lot of phone time and it's simply a waste of time—their time—I just hit delete. The bottom line with qualifying prospects is that if you're not speaking with a qualified prospect, that prospect will never buy anything from you.
There's a real low tech solution here. When you have a conversation with someone at a conference, make a note on the back of their business card. Combine that with a slightly more high tech solution: Google each company or visit their web site before you spend the time to call them. These simple solutions will leave reps with a list that is far more qualified. It will save time and it will make them more effective.
Once you have a list that you've pared down, a list that you believe with the information that you have, is a qualified list—then you start making calls. And when your prospect answers, instead of, "I'm just calling to follow-up" try: "What made you decide to attend the conference?" "What challenges are you looking to solve?" "What made you decide to stop by our booth?" "What did you think of our solution/product/offering?" There are many, many possible questions that you can use to start off your conversation.
The bottom line is that you want to get your prospect talking. You want to find out what are their challenges, what keeps them up at night, what do they worry about… then you can point out how your offering might be able to help.
That is how you engage a real prospect in a real conversation that could lead to a real sale.
Today's article is by sales expert Wendy Weiss. Learn more at http://www.wendyweiss.com or email her at wendy@wendyweiss.com
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