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Archive for the ‘Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking’ Category

Your Prospects Aren’t Responding To Your Emails? Maybe It’s Your Subject Line. Prospecting Email Strategies To Increase The Success of Your Email Campaigns– Part One

Oct 1, 2010 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Marketing, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, sales tools, Technology and Software

email button Developing an email template compelling enough to elicit a response from a prospect is hard enough. Unfortunately, this is only part of the challenge. What compounds this challenge are spam filters, firewalls and a slew of other devices that channel our innocent solicitation into the prospect’s spam folder or worse, the trash; never to find its way to the inbox of our targeted prospect.

While the body of the email is critical when prospecting, the subject line will often determine whether or not the email will even be opened in the first place, gets caught in the recipient’s spam/junk folder, is blocked by the firewall or is evaporated from existence by the stroke of the ‘delete’ key.

Building off the work from my book on cold calling, I spend a substantial amount of time with salespeople and sales teams helping them craft their prospecting systems and compelling email templates. However, we take just as much time ensuring the subject line in every email is on point in order to avoid the pitfalls I mentioned.

While crafting the body of the email message is a different topic altogether, in part one of this two part series on effective email strategies, here are some quick ideas to be mindful of to ensure your emails get opened in the first place. Keep in mind, some subject lines will work better than others, depending upon a variety of factors that you need to weigh in and be mindful of; including your:

1: Target audience, their position as well as whether or not they are a client, a referral or someone you’ve never spoken with,
2: Your product or service,
3: Your sales cycle,
4: Even the locations in which you sell, both domestically as well as internationally.

In terms of what to write in the subject line, here are a few ideas.

1. The Blank Subject line: As the recipient of an email with no subject line, first the recipient may peek at the sender. “Hmmm, looking at their email address they seem like a reputable sender but what is this about? Maybe this is important.” Curiosity may take over and before you know it, they’ve opened up your email. Personally, I delete every email that does not have a subject line in it, unless I know who it’s coming from personally; but that’s me.

2. The Referral Subject Line: What if you’re prospecting through referrals but the person you’re sending the email to has not a clue who you are? Simple, lets say Jane Smith gave you the name and email of a viable prospect and decision maker. Most important, make sure you get permission from Jane that it’s okay to mention her name in the email to this prospect. Next, in the subject line of the email you’re sending to this prospect, you can write, “Jane Smith Suggested We Connect.” Again, these are the strategies I use and my clients use with great success. This particular strategy turns a very cold email into a warmer, more inviting one.

3. The Cold Email Subject Line: Okay, so you have a name and an email address of a potential prospect but it’s not a referral and you’ve never connected with them. It’s a cold call in email form. What to do? Here’s where you need to take your time and be articulate, brief, creative and compelling but tempered with a delicate balance between being creative and sounding to salesy. Here are a few examples. Fill in the blanks and edit accordingly to include your service, a signature client or a measurable compelling reason. Again, be mindful of getting permission from your clients to use their names as testimonials.

• Recent Work We’ve Done For (state client)
• Why (state a client or client’s industry or profession) Choose Us
• An Introduction and Recent Success With (State Client)
• We Just Helped (Client) Reduce Their IT Costs by 35%
• Recent Success With (state client)

Lets say you provide a lead generation or marketing service. Here’s one that works well. The words in brackets are optional. Use at your discretion.

• Who Do We Send Referrals(Leads) To (At Your Company?)

Here’s another subject line strategy. Write a subject line that simply contains their industry name or name of their profession or a reference to their product or service. For example:

• Need a Florist
• Need a Mortgage
• Need a Caterer
• Need a Real Estate Agent
• Need a Photographer
• Interested In Your Services
• Your Services
• Your Products
• Information About Your Services/Products

Of course, regardless of what subject line you use, your email message needs to support it but keep it brief and don’t give away too much information to the point they have no need to follow up with you to ask for more.

One final tip. When you finally do connect with your prospect in person or over the phone (fine, even via email), interview your prospects to determine what it was that motivated them enough to respond. This way you can duplicate what works and develop your own set of best email practices.

It may take you several attempts to find the strategy that works best for you. Conversely, you may find a blend of these strategies to work if not all, depending upon the situation you’re using them in. So be patient, be consistent, be pleasantly persistent when prospecting and remember, make sure you’re tracking your results to gauge what works and what does not in order to continually refine and develop your masterful prospecting system.

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VIDEO: Is Cold Calling Really Dead?

Apr 19, 2010 cold calling, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, sales tips, Sales Training, tele-sales, Videos

You get to your office, sit down at your desk and open up your calendar. A concerned look sweeps over your face. “Only one appointment this week.” You look at your pipeline and get that squirmy feeling inside your gut, as you realize your pipeline is not as full as it used to be. You’re wondering where you’re going to find your next prospect.

The uncertainty begins to sweep over you. The stress starts creeping into your body, for you realize you can’t keep procrastinating making the cold calls you need to in order to book more appointments with key decision makers.

Does this situation sound familiar? As you might imagine, I’ve been getting a high volume of calls from sales managers and their salespeople struggling to meet their sales goals.

After investing several hours cold calling, this experience can leave you feeling depleted, frustrated and annoyed. You don’t understand why you’re unable to set the appointments with the prospects who you know you can help and therefore need to meet with. You ask yourself, “Why won’t they talk to me? I know I can help them. If only they’d give me some time on the phone.”

In desperation, you cry out, “This cold calling thing doesn’t work for me! What else can I do to schedule meetings with more qualified prospects who can buy from me?”

In this video, I address the question, “Is cold calling really dead?”

So, what is the answer? Is cold calling really dead? The answer is a resound, “Not even close.” Therefore, do not abandon cold calling! Cold calling is far from dead and I see evidence of this every day.

Sure, I realize for many people cold calling and prospecting ranks right up there with getting their teeth pulled without the gas.

However, as someone who has coached and trained thousands of salespeople and managers over the years, here’s what I’ve learned very early on. It’s not that cold calling doesn’t work. Cold calling works fabulously well. It’s the way you’re cold calling that doesn’t work. In other words, consider that it’s more about your approach and cold calling strategy; what you say and how you say it – that is ineffective and what your prospects are unresponsive to.

So be careful. Most people who feel cold calling doesn’t work in actuality, have learned the wrong lesson.

Side note: Over the last year, my cold calling book has been gaining a renewed popularity as competition increases and the need to find more qualified prospects to fill your pipeline intensifies. So, if you’re ready to develop a permission based prospecting system then check it out here.

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VIDEO: The Primary Objective of a Cold Call or Your Prospecting Efforts? It’s About Finding The Fit, Not Focusing On The Result

Mar 31, 2010 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, telesales, Videos

What’s the initial objective of a cold call or your prospecting and new business development efforts? Rather than focusing all of your energy on making the sale, first determine if there’s a good fit between you, your prospect, and what you are selling.

Instead of feeling that the intention of prospecting is to get a sale, provide a demonstration, submit a proposal, or schedule an appointment, the initial intention of prospecting is to determine if there’s a fit worth pursuing.

While this may sound a bit strange, closing the sale and earning the business of a prospect is not your initial goal. Instead, your primary objective is to determine whether you and your prospect are a good fit.

Take a moment and think about how this change in your attitude and mindset would change your cold calling approach as well as your experience.

While your traditional approach may be to produce a measurable result, now your primary objective is to discover whether you and your prospect are a good match and if this relationship is worth moving to the next stage of your selling process. If you feel that you constantly have to push the sales process forward, you’re not taking into consideration that the prospect may simply not be ready, let alone may not be a good fit for what you are selling. Pushing the sales process forward before a prospect is ready only creates pressure for the both of you, fostering an unhealthy relationship from the start.

By changing your thinking and your approach, you’ll now be able to focus your energy and precious time on the right prospects who are more inclined to buy from you, rather than wasting your time sending out proposals and following up with people who you have no business following up with in the first place. Filling your sales funnel with unqualified prospects does nothing for you other than cost you time when you spend it on people who are simply not a good fit for you or your product and service.

Here’s a clip produced by CanDoGo.com on how you can make this critical shift in your thinking which will result in more selling opportunities and less cold calling reluctance.

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Connecting on Common Ground: Questions That Gracefully Correct Someone and Foster Healthy Collaboration That Create Better Solutions

Dec 2, 2009 Communication, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching

There may be times when someone holds certain perceptions or beliefs about your product, service, industry, performance or processes that may be inaccurate. Or, maybe you need to enroll people in an alternative solution, a new way of looking at a situation or a different way of thinking. When this occurs, and you’re running into resistance from the other side when trying to create buy in or you are hearing conflicting opinions which you do not agree with, you may react by telling the person they’re wrong. Or, you attempt to fill in the conversation with statistical data, evidence or proof that supports and defends your point of view in order to convince them to agree with you.

Lets face it, when someone is told they’re wrong or their belief is in conflict with the position you’ve taken, they either shut down and stop listening or come out fighting in an attempt to defend their stand. Once this happens, a confrontational atmosphere is created between you and the person you are speaking with. When you invalidate someone’s viewpoint, they become further entrenched in their case and are less willing to budge or move off of their platform.

Rather than react to their remark, demonstrate your interest in understanding what motivates their thinking and reasoning in the first place. Become interested in gaining a greater awareness around where they are coming from and seize this opportunity to validate and connect with some aspect of their feelings and thinking. Saying things like, “I appreciate how you feel” or “I understand your feelings/position on that” lets the other person know that you are sincerely trying to understand and respect their view and what they had said, rather than dismiss it. This demonstrates a willingness on your end to smooth out the playing field, continue the conversation and find a common ground and solution, without becoming argumentative and defensive.

To avoid confrontation, detach from your agenda and outcome for a moment and instead, respond to a person’s statements or comments with a question that directs the conversation toward creating a new opportunity, belief or solution. Questions allow you to correct someone gracefully or explore a new possibility without having an emotional reaction, dismissing their opinion and feelings or telling them they’re wrong.

To avoid the battles that happen in daily communication, focus on helping other people get what they want in every conversation. This is especially important if you’re running into situations like these with the people you work with. We often forget that, while we may all hold conflicting viewpoints, you are still ultimately working towards one collective goal, objective and vision within the organization. We need to continually be mindful of our shared goals and keep this in front of our line of vision. This approach enables you to do so, while acknowledging and respecting each other’s differences. You’ll also find out that you have more in common than you had originally thought.

Drive these types of conversations with well crafted, neutrally charged questions that are not loaded, manipulative, adversarial or have a hidden agenda attached to them. The byproduct will be healthier collaboration that ultimately gives you what you want with less effort. These questions will also help foster a deeper level of buy in and the mutual alignment of goals that you need in order to ensure that together, you generate worthwhile results over the long term. The following questions will enable you to create new opportunities that you would not have noticed before and uncover innovative ideas that are otherwise left unexplored.

1.What else do you feel might be possible? What else could be true?

2.Can you please share with me your thinking on that? What does that (solution, approach, problem, etc.) look like for you? What does that look like through your eyes?

3.May I share my view on that? Are you open to hearing another point of view on that?

4.Is it possible that there may be another approach/solution here? Is there a different way we can look at this?

5.Is it possible that there may be more/other facts to consider?

6.How can I best assist you around achieving what you want most?

7.When did you decide that was true?

8.That’s interesting. Can you share with me why you feel/see it that way?

9.What else is true about that? Is that the truth or is it something else?

10.I’m not too sure what you mean. Can you say more about that?

11.How do you mean when you say (better results, well trained, not qualified, not professional, unmotivated, poor service, etc.)? What does (success, persistent, organized, responsive, more responsibility, a qualified selling opportunity, overwhelmed, etc.) mean to you/look like to you?

12.I hear that you’re saying this can’t be done this way but what if it could be done? What would that mean to you?

13.What would be possible if…..?

14.What result are you looking to achieve here?

15.What is most important to you?

16.What’s the common ground that we share? What’s the common objective that you see here? What do you feel we are in agreement around?

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When Cold Calling, How Do I Determine How Much Qualifying Is Enough?

Nov 16, 2009 coaching salespeople, cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, telesales

I received the following question from a salesperson the other day who was struggling when it came to qualifying his prospects during a cold call. He was looking for an effective way to best qualify his prospects and how to avoid wasting time when meeting with the wrong ones. What follows is his initial inquiry and my response, which I felt important enough to share with you, as many salespeople seem to be struggling with this very issue today.

That is, “When cold calling, exactly how much initial qualification is enough before determining the next step in my selling process? Do I do all of my qualification up front on the phone before scheduling a face to face meeting or do I wait until I meet with the prospect and then conduct a more robust needs analysis? How do I make this determination?”

Here’s the email I received:

“Hello Mr. Rosen,
I am a salesperson selling health insurance who is currently working on my sales system. My target market is owners of small businesses. I call them and set appointments from telemarketing leads. I have a script in which I use to set the appointment and qualify them, before meeting them face-to-face. I’d be curious to know what strategy you feel is best regarding my two approaches below.

First Approach: Do minimal questioning and qualification and just set the appointment. Then at the appointment, conduct a fact finder to find out their situation and what they like or don’t about their current health insurance plan. Then, set another appointment and come back with a proposal and recommendations. I will pre-close them on the first visit.

Or is this a better this way?

Second Approach: Call and qualify them and ask them all the questions over the phone to find out their current situation on this initial phone call. Then, I will bring the proposal to the first face to face appointment, recap what we discussed over the phone, explain the plan and try and make the sale. Pretty much try and make the sale on the first face to face visit.”

Here was my response:

The answer is – BOTH. There’s always a minimal amount of non negotiable qualification that must be done before meeting with a prospect. Then, when determining how much deeper you can go in your qualification, depending upon the situation it could go either way, so let the customer decide.

The IDEAL scenario is the second one you mapped out. And it’s all in the spirit of saving you your precious and limited time following up and meeting with people who you shouldn’t be meeting with in the first place. The cost of meeting with unqualified people is compounded exponentially because you’re not only meeting with the wrong prospects but you’re now losing time that you could have invested meeting with the right ones – the ones that your competition is meeting with.

Of course, there are those situations where the prospect simply doesn’t have the time nor desire to answer all of your questions during an initial phone call and at that point, it’s going to be a judgment call on your part. So, to minimize the risk of meeting with the wrong prospects and maximize your time when meeting with the qualified ones, what I would recommend is making a list of the non-negotiable qualifying questions that must always be asked, regardless of the situation, so that you get a baseline understanding whether or not this person is even a candidate for your product or service.

Here’s a great way to handle how much qualifying you can do over the phone and how to do it in a way that would encourage the prospect to spend more time with you during this initial telephone conversation.

Simply put, let the prospect decide. After all, people want to save as much time as possible and would appreciate any opportunity to be more efficient when it comes to leveraging their time. That said, the next time you speak with a prospect over the phone, use the following approach during your initial needs analysis/qualification process.

After asking them a couple of preliminary, non negotiable questions, deliver the following message.

“Mr./Mrs. Prospect, I know you’re busy and I want to respect your time. That said, I want to share two options with you that would save you some time when deciding what solution is best for you and whether or not there’s even a fit here. We could schedule a time where I can visit with you to learn more about your business and your objectives and then at that time, schedule another meeting where we could discuss my proposed solution, or, to speed up this process and avoid scheduling another meeting, we can continue our conversation now on the phone so that at the end of this conversation, you would have a very good sense as to whether or not I can deliver more value than your current solution is providing you and if it even makes sense for us to meet face to face in the first place. Which option would work better for you at this time?”

When you give people a choice and share with them the benefit of investing a little more time with you on the phone, you’ll find that your prospects are much more willing to do so. And if you’re saying that your prospects are, “too busy to spend more time with me” or “this won’t work in my industry,” I would challenge you to re-think whether or not this is truly your prospect’s objection or a costly assumption that you’ve created in your own mind. If this new marketplace has changed the way we sell and engage with our prospects, then the old rules of how we qualify and set appointments with our prospects much be challenged as well.

This win – win saves both you and the prospect time, while ensuring that you’re meeting with more of the right prospects.

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Landslide Video: Respect Sales! A Day On The Links With a Prospect

Nov 12, 2009 All About Selling, Clients are fun. Case Studies in Sales and Leaders..., Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Training, Videos

Landslide.com recently recorded a video for a series with the theme: “Respect sales.” The idea is to show how sometimes people think salespeople have it easy – they get to travel, play golf, go on dinner outings etc. but the reality is far different.

So, what actually happens when a salesperson takes a prospect out on the golf course? Any good salesperson knows that deals just don’t fall out of the sky. Follow Landslide’s sales guy as he puts up with his difficult prospect and tries to close the deal. Click play on the video below.

If the video does not load, here is a link to the video.

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VIDEO: Developing a Compelling Opening Statement When Cold Calling and Prospecting.

Sep 21, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, tele-sales, Videos

BOOK EVENT EXTENDED THROUGH THIS WEEK! Due to Keith’s book selling out and making #1 on Amazon, we’re extending this event through this week! You can still get the book 34% off and the hundreds of dollars worth of bonus materials. More here.

Watch the Video Here.

Here’s one example of the type of opening statement and cold calling approach you can create that’s sure to generate more qualified prospects for you than ever before. This example was one that a cost reduction company used when calling on the C suite of prospects, such as the controller or CFO. Once you listen to the opening statement, I’ll then dissect this approach so you can see the strategy behind it.

Watch the Video Here.

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PODCAST: Is Cold Calling Really Dead? A View into the Mind and the Day of a Salesperson

Jul 10, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, podcast, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, sales tips, tele-sales, telesales

Listen to this podcast here.

You get to your office, sit down at your desk and open up your calendar. A concerned look sweeps over your face. “Only one appointment this week.” You look at your pipeline and get that squirmy feeling inside your gut, as you realize your pipeline is not as full as it used to be. You’re wondering where you’re going to find your next prospect.

The uncertainty begins to sweep over you. The stress starts creeping into your body, for you realize you can’t keep procrastinating making the cold calls you need to in order to book more appointments with key decision makers.

Read the rest of this entry »

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PODCAST: Crafting a Compelling Opening Statement When Cold Calling and Prospecting

Jul 10, 2009 cold calling, podcast, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, sales tools, Sales Training, telesales

Listen to this podcast here.

Enough theory for a moment. People need answers; granular, tactical, “How do I do this the right way and what do I say when I finally connect with a prospect when cold calling?” type of answers.

Those proactive souls who happen to cold call me and reach me live in an attempt to generate another prospects to fill up their rapidly drying pipeline certainly deserve the acknowledgment for putting forth the effort.

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Are Salespeople Asking Prospects the Wrong Questions?

Jul 1, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, sales articles, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, tele-sales, telesales

“Are salespeople asking their prospects the wrong questions?” As I mentioned in my last post, this was a conversation that came up while being interviewed by Geoffrey James for an article he was writing for Selling Power magazine on what managers need to do to effectively coach their sales team when cold calling.

The answer to this question? Well, it’s actually yes and no. Yes, many salespeople are asking good questions that help uncover whether or not the prospect is a fit for the product or service they are selling. Conversely, many are asking the wrong questions that drive the prospect away from you, rather than move them closer to a sale.

The real universal gap that I see after coaching and training thousands of salespeople,

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