Connections

During this week between holidays, some of you may have difficulty reaching the folks you need to reach to finalize the deals you've been working on.

There are sometimes other reasons why you could have difficulty reaching the folks you need to reach to finalize the deals you've been working on, and Larry Prevost wrote about this for Mantra:

Build a Prospect Network to Avoid Contact Catastrophe

By Larry Prevost, Dale Carnegie Training Instructor

Over the past year, I've had the opportunity to review and answer a number of questions from the Manta sales community. Most of these questions concern effective cold calling techniques.

In reviewing the questions, I saw that sales reps wanted to know:

1. If there was a standard protocol for connecting with a prospect.
2. How many times they can call a prospect before becoming an irritant.
3. How much time to let pass before calling a prospect a second or third time.
4. How many times they can call a prospect before giving up on them and moving on.

This leads me to believe that sales reps are focusing on one entry vector into a company. They identify one contact in the company and focus their attention on that one person once the connection is established.

Naturally, there is no right or wrong way to do anything, and that includes cold calling. However, you can make any activity more effective by identifying what you want to accomplish, varying some of the elements that make up that activity, and eliminating other elements when the need arises.

The key is being flexible in controlling the process instead of letting the process control you.

The next time you call into a company, ask yourself if you are making the best use of your contacts, doing enough internal prospect discovery work, and connecting with the right people within the organization.

Here are two quick examples on why you need to go beyond the " one company contact" philosophy. If you are making 80 to 100 calls a day, five days a week for several months and you are trying to sell over the phone, chances are good that you will run into similar situations. Be prepared. You won't find these examples in any of the sales manuals.

Let's Talk Next Week

There I was, calling this one company, trying to gain a foothold into the organization. I had inherited the company as part of an old database redistribution, had contacted a number of prior users of our services within the company and was now in full hunt mode to contact the decision-maker.

One afternoon, I lucked out and reached Bob. We had a brief discussion on the merits of our services and some of the benefits that his people had received. He was, in fact, a big fan of our programs and, after our discussion, he had identified an individual to send through our communications training. Now, he could finally create a plan and resolve the challenge of getting this individual to the next level in his career.

Bob had some paperwork to finish up that day and he had some other things on his mind. He told me that he was going to be out of the office for a week to take care of some health issues, but he would be back the week after and we could begin moving the process forward.

Flush with excitement over my success, I told Bob that I would give him a call back in a week after he had taken care of his more pressing matters.

After a week and a half, I called Bob back. Naturally, I didn't reach him so I left a message regarding our last conversation, and waited.

I gave Bob two days before calling back. I didn't reach him the second time either. So I left him another message and waited for another two days for a return call, which I didn't receive.

I called a third time, changing up my process and this time gave Bob a week.

No return call.

Maybe it was something I said. I thought that perhaps I had somehow managed to offend Bob in my past message and caused him to change his mind. I left a different message, asking if there was a problem, and waited for a week.

No return call.

I sent email, U. S. mail and followed them both with phone calls.

No contact.

After our initial conversation, when he told me that he wanted to move forward with the sale, I spent about two months trying to reach Bob. And I was having no luck at all in reaching him.

One morning, I called to leave a message and thought to myself, " Maybe I should try to reach someone else."

So when I got Bob's voicemail, I hit the zero to get the operator and actually got another worker in the building.

I asked him if he knew Bob and, more to the point, how I could get in touch with him. Bill stuttered for a minute and then said, " Bob is in the hospital." I told Bill that I knew Bob was going into the hospital to address some health challenges but it's been almost 2 months. That's when Bill told me that there were complications and Bob had slipped into a coma. His condition was stable, but no one knew when he would wake out of the coma and be ready to leave the hospital, let alone return to work.

Ultimately, Bob did wake out of his coma and returned to work. But between our conversation and his return to work, 52 weeks had passed. I had lost the momentum and the sale.

How do you tactfully break back into an account when your contact is taken out of action?

One Thursday in the spring, I was calling into a high tech company. After some maneuvering, I managed to get Bob, the sales director on the line. We discussed the challenges that his sales people were facing in addition to the communication skills and sales skills that he wanted them to develop, and learning strategies to help get his sales people to the next level. You know, I was having a good time, and Bob seemed genuinely excited about the possibilities. Bob said, " Hey, I'm off to see a client with one of my people. Let's talk early next week on how to proceed. How's Monday for you?"

I was jazzed. This guy is the decision-maker, he actively coaches and works with his people, and he has set a specific time the following week to talk further. Typically, when a high-level decision-maker says "call me next week" after an encouraging discussion, they really mean call back next week.

I've set meeting times with clients as far as 3 months ahead and when I call back at the appointed time, they are there, notes in hand and the conversation resumes as if it hasn't stopped. High-level decision-makers hold time in high regard. If you are up front with them and respect their time, you can typically reach them when they tell you to call back.

In addition, this is a sales director and sales directors are typically extremely time conscious. If you are going to train their sales people, they want to know that you can control the events in your own day before turning you loose on their people.

So imagine my surprise when I called at our mutually agreed scheduled time on Monday and I did not reach him.

So I left him my best voicemail message and waited.

No response.

I called back the next day, left another message… and waited.

No response.

I waited a week and called back. I got his voicemail and left another message.

No response.

I didn't understand. What did I do wrong? What could I have possibly said that would have caused him to blow me off?

Or maybe this was Bob's way of testing my persistence and creativity in going after the sale.

After three weeks, however, I heard that little voice in my head say, " Maybe you should call someone else in the organization and get the lowdown."

So I called the main number and got the gatekeeper.

"Hi Bobby. Hey, I'm calling for Bob the sales director. We had a call scheduled a couple of weeks ago and I haven't been able to reach him since that time. Did Bob go on vacation?"

The gatekeeper hesitated. Then, with a little edge in her voice, she said, " Bob had a stroke about 3 weeks ago and was hospitalized. Right now, he's resting at home, but I'm not sure when he'll be back. I don't think that the CEO even knows whether he's going to ride this out or look for a replacement at this point. They are good friends."

Again, an awkward situation and lost momentum in the sales process.

So the question that comes to mind is how do you recover when the contact that you've been building rapport with suffers a catastrophic personal incident?

Well, conventional wisdom would suggest that you immediately find someone else in the organization and begin to re-establish yourself in the account. However, doing so will appear extremely callous. Your main contact has just suffered some type of major personal injury and your response is: " Sorry to hear that. Whom else in the organization should I speak with to move the sale forward?" Sales people already have a reputation for being somewhat cold, ruthless and uncaring when it comes to business. So, unless you are trying out as a "metal extra" in the next Terminator movie, I would suggest an alternate strategy.

Can it be done? Sure, nothing is impossible. But you will need to use all of your communication skills, tact and diplomacy to navigate the situation.

However, by simply making other contacts within the organization and leveraging those contacts throughout the sales process, you can avoid most of this unpleasantness.

Here are four suggestions for building a network of prospects within your target organization:

1. When you identify your target company, identify several contacts within the organization and contact them. When you research your organization in Manta, identify several prospective contacts and mine them all, not just the one that looks good. However, always keep in mind whether your contact is viable by asking if they have the ability to buy and the authority to buy. If you are talking with someone who doesn't fit the bill, use your communication skills to get them to identify someone who does.
   
   
2. When you call your contact, ask questions about the decision-making process. In particular, determine how many other players are involved and who they are. Get them into the conversation as quickly as possible.
   
   
3. When you make contact with your prospect, ask them if there are other divisions in the organization that could make use of your services or products. Naturally, you will want to get the names and extensions of their counterparts in these other divisions.
   
   
4. Leverage your gatekeepers. Most sales reps play the game of ‘get past the gatekeeper'. If you have the attention and the support of the administrative assistant, however, they can help you navigate the organization and feed you up to date knowledge about company events.
   
   

As Harvey Mackay suggested in his book, " Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty," you should create your network before you need it and it will be there when you actually do need it. As Mackay puts it," 3 a.m. is a lousy time to make friends."

This goes for your network of prospects within a company as well. Develop your network of contacts within the company before those unforeseen emergencies arise. Then, regardless if your contact goes on a two-week vacation, or heaven forbid, have a major medical emergency befall them, you can empathize with the situation while maintaining contact within the company.

Remember that it's always easier to navigate these situations if you are viewed as an insider and part of the team than if you are on the outside trying to break in.

Good selling.

About the Author: Larry Prevost is an instructor and an IT consultant for Dale Carnegie Training of Ohio and Indiana.

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