Finding New Business.
New Business
How to Generate more Sales Leads than you can Possibly Handle
WEL C O ME
New customers are the building blocks of your sales career. As an expert sales person, you'll build your whole working life on your ability to find new clients.
Finding new prospective customers (prospects) is the basis for your sales success.
This ebook shows you the BEST way to find new clients (from referrals) including the words to say - and when to say them:
· if you are building long-term relationships and sell repeat bookings
or
· if you are cold-calling or approaching strangers, and only mean to 'hit' them ONCE.
Gathering referrals is also part of every sales interview, whether you make a sale or not.
Then we go on to cover other ways to find new clients. There are two parts to finding new clients:
Part One Making the first contact
Part Two The re-contact -- getting permission to keep calling them.
Once you have found a new client, you move to the Sales Conversion Process. This also has two parts. The first part is to keep contacting those new prospects that you’ve found -- making at least 7 contacts -- as you get them prepared to hear your sales talk.
The second part of the Sales Conversion Process is your sales talk -- the heart of the sale.
But you can’t give someone a sales talk until you’ve found them, right?
Occasionally (very occasionally) someone will call you on the phone and ask you to give them your sales presentation!!
Wow! If this happens, you can skip the whole of the ‘Finding New Customers’ bit and the ‘re-contacting at least 7’ times bit …… and go straight into your sales talk. Yippee!
Sadly, this only happens to us about 4 or 5 times a month. But we have to give about 10 sales talks a day! You’re probably sailing in a similar boat.
So where do all the OTHER prospects come from?
From having a system for finding them. You build your system so that you have a number of activities; and each activity brings in a few new leads.
One activity might bring in 10 new leads a week, another brings in 3, another 6, another 2. You have to keep doing a little bit of all of them, to bring in enough new potential clients to keep your sales pipeline full to overflowing.
In fact, in this e-book, you’ll discover that we list over 20 activities which you can do each day to bring in some new clients. But all selling begins with YOU contacting a ‘suspect’ by phone, e-mail, fax, mail or ‘walk-in’.
In this e-book we share with you the secrets of successful ‘push’ systems. You’ll find the ‘pull’ methods in the Lead Generation System e-book which accompanies this one.
Ready to get started? Then let’s begin by reviewing the best push method of all -
REFERRALS
Roy Preece
Explanation of Terms Used
You'll see that we often use the terms 'Suspect' 'Prospect' and 'Expect'. For our purposes:
You target a group of "SUSPECTS" to approach with your ad space offer (because you suspect that they might need to advertise with you). You offer everyone in that target group an incentive to come forward – to identify themselves as interested in your product or service.
For example, you might offer them a free report, or advice on finding new business. Or you might just cold call them and ASK them if they're interested.
Those who take you up on your offer and request a report (or welcome your cold call) are your true "PROSPECTS". They're interested. They've responded to you.
Once you have sent your "prospects" their freebie (or information pack) you contact them again, and ask permission to keep in touch.
That’s the end of the ‘Finding’ process.
The next process is the Sales conversion process where you contact them again and again -- with offers, news, advice and tantalizing tidbits of information ….. so they ask you to explain your offer to them.
You also QUALIFY these prospects during the initial Sales Conversion Process -- to see if they are TRULY interested in advertising with you, and if they have any MONEY to spend with you. Anyone who passes your qualification is an "EXPECT". You can expect to do business with them.
You give your "expects" a sales talk. But before you can give anyone a sales talk you have to find
them
Gathering Referrals
"I'm so pleased with what your comapny has done for me, that I've voluntarily written out a list of my 10 best friends for you.
Call them. They're expecting your call as I've already spoken to them on your behalf."
Have you ever had ANYONE say that to you? No? Nor will you. Nor will anyone else you know.
You only get referrals by asking for them -- professionally.
You should ask for a referral at the end of every sales interview, whether you've sold or not, for one major reason:
You'll need only a third of the time and effort to turn your referred leads into new sales compared to those prospects whom you find from cold-calling.
Which means that you can make three times as many sales with referred leads as you can with cold calls. And the real benefit to you is that you'll earn three times as much money.
A study done by the Securities Industry Association showing that 86% of surveyed customers would refer their broker to their friends, yet only 12% had ever been ASKED.
Another study found that a referral is up to 15 times more likely to do business with you than a cold prospect.
Learning Objectives
When you've finished working on this e-book you should:
Be able to
· Gain referrals from every interview or long telephone call
Understand Why
· Referrals can be converted into sales, in one third of the time taken with prospects found through cold calling
Understand How
· To help your client to isolate one or two people and offer them to you as a referral, together with some information about their business situation
Isolating a Face
The only way that you get referrals from your clients is by asking for them. Clients don't volunteer them.
But there's a secret to asking for referrals
You must FIRST help your client to ISOLATE A SPECIFIC FACE or person in their mind, BEFORE you ask for the referral.
Have you ever asked a client “Do you know someone else who might be interested in advertising with us?"
How many of them said : “Yes”? Practically none, right?
They said something like: “I can’t think of anybody right now”.
After about the sixth person said “No”, you came to the conclusion that the idea doesn't work. So you stopped asking.
Now you don’t get any referrals.
The clients who said that they couldn't help you were telling the truth. All your clients have friends and business acquaintances who WOULD be interested in advertising with you, but they can’t visualise them at the moment when you ask for a referral.
There are just too many of them. You want your client to filter out most of the people
they know until they come up with a single name.
So you must help them single out a face or couple of faces and name them for you. And you should do this at the end of every sales interview.
However, if your client has just had a long sales conversation with you, they want to think about what they must do next. They want to get on with their work.
They want you gone.
Why should they make an EXTRA effort for you, now that your sales conversation is over? Far easier just to say: “I can’t think of anyone right now”.
So you get referrals by MAKING IT EASY for your client.
You simply ask them a question which allows them to ISOLATE a few faces of people whom they know.
Then you write the names of those faces on a card.
Once you've written the names down, then you ask if you can contact these people and use your client's name as an introduction.
You must use this system in a casual and relaxed manner, or your clients will freeze, becoming uncomfortable and unwilling to help you.
This is how you do it. When the moment comes:
1. Ask your client a question which isolates in their mind’s eye one or two people.
2. Bring out a couple of 3 by 5 inch cards.
3. Write each person's name on its own card.
4. Ask qualifying questions about each person.
5. Ask if you can mention your client's name when you contact the people mentioned.
6. Ask if your client will call these people for you.
The key is to begin by asking a question which allows your client to focus on one or two faces.
Most sales experts ask for two references before they start to write.
Focus on a Personal Quality
You introduce the subject at a tangent.
At the end of your sales conversation, whether the client has booked an order with you or not, you ask – almost as an afterthought:
"By t he way, who is the most XXX person who you know?"
The XXX is a personal quality, like: competitive, thrifty, or hard--working. You can then ask: "Who is the next most XXX?"
Once you've got one or two names, you take out your 3 X 5 cards.
Now you ask questions about each of these most hard--working / most competitive / stingiestpeopleinturn.YouaskQUALIFYINGquestions.
· Needs
· Wants
· Money
· Authority
· Personal Buying Motive
You also ask your client what they like BEST about the people they've named. Now you've got your COMPLIMENT ready when you meet your new prospect. (See our companion product ‘Sales Conversion System’)
Then, you ask whether you can mention your client's name when you contact your new prospect.
Finally, if all's gone well, you ask your client to set up a meeting for you with the person you've been talking about. (You're pushing your luck a bit with this last step. But if you don't ask -- you don't get. If you do ask -- you'll get some, and not others).
It doesn’t matter which personal quality you choose to ask your client to focus on. It will be a different idea for every product or service.
The PURPOSE of your question is to make your client ISOLATE A FEW FACES in their minds, so that you can ask them qualifying questions about those people.
David Ross Asking for Referrals
Here's David Ross, an ad space sales executive, working with a suspect. His industry is different to yours, and when he get’s selling, his presentation will be different.
But he’s not selling -- now. He’s returned to prospecting …. Finding out if the client who has just booked an order with him, will give him the names of two more prospects for him to call on..
Here he is. He's just sold Penny Adams (a hair salon manager) an advert and he's preparing to leave. David's already spent half an hour with this client, and she's anxious for him to go, so she can get back to managing her salon.
D.R.: Well Penny, congratulations on booking your advert. I'm sure you've made the right decision here today. Maybe one day you'll look back on this booking in the years ahead, as a turning point in your life.
P.A.: Steady on! Its only an advert. I haven’t won the lottery or anything.
D.R.: Sure. I know that. But taking any business decision is never easy. So many people shy away from making a decision about anything …. By the way, who's the most decisive business person you deal with in this town -- the best at making decisions?
D.R.: No I don’t think I do. What business does he work in?
P.A.: He runs the computer repair company that we use. Its over in the High Street area, up a back alley.
D.R.: Yes? And who do you think is the most decisive lady in business?
(Notice that David has not taken his cards out yet. If he starts to write at once it might trigger a “What are you up to?” response in Penny)
P.A.: Well Lorraine over at the staff agency...
D.R.: Yes. It was Lorraine who told me about you. She told me how much she admired your business ability. There must be a few ladies in town that you both know who run businesses ... Do you have any kind of club or regular meetings?
P.A.: Joan Shaw is trying to set up something. She's asked me to go to The Grill after work to meet a group like that. I think they meet on the last Friday of the month. I've never been. I'm not really interested, and besides, Friday is one of our busiest nights.... So I use that as an excuse, but I can’t really be bothered.
D.R.: I don’t think I know Joan Shaw. What does she do?
P.A.: She runs a virtual P.A. service with word processing, fax, DTP.
D.R.: No I don’t know her. Do you have her number? She should definitely start letting everyone know about her service.
(David now takes out a three by five inch card and writes down Joan Shaw’s name. He takes out another and writes down Jim Harvey’s name.)
D.R.: Do you know the name of Joan’s company?
P.A.: I've got her card here somewhere. She gave it to me last time she was in.
D.R.: Oh. Does she get her hair done here?
P.A.: Yes. She has done since before she opened up on her own. (David writes down details from the business card on his three by five.) D.R.: How long has she been going on her own?
P.A.: Over a year now.
D.R.: How's she doing?
P.A.: Well she started off with a bang. But now things have slowed down a lot.
One of the reasons that she's started this group is to get her nam e around so that she can pick up some more business. From what she's said, I think she's quite worried.
D.R.: It's a big step, going out on your own. Why did she do it?
P.A.: Well she had a safe job at IBM but felt that she wanted to be her own boss. It was a brave thing to do. Reckless even. She wants to show the world that women are just as good at business as men. She's got a bit of a bee in her bonnet about it.
D.R.: Well, I'm sure that we can help her. Would you mind if I mentioned that I spoke to you about her? That you said she was brave in setting up on her own?
P.A.: No. I don’t mind. Don’t say that I said she was reckless though. Or that she has a bee in her bonnet!
D.R.: No I won’t say anything like that, I promise. Do you mind if I call Jim Harvey? Do you have a card with his details?
Notice that when David goes to see Joan Shaw, he already has in place:
His compliment: ("I've wanted to meet you ever since Penny Adams told me that she thought your move out of a big, safe company was very brave”)
Her need or PROBLEM: More P.A. work -- quickly. His questions on her problem are already forming in his head.
Her Personal Motive: To show that women can succeed in business.
Her authority : It’s her business so she can decide if she will place an order with him.
David still needs to find out if Joan Shaw has any money which she can spend on his services. But can you see that he's miles ahead of where he would have been if he'd cold called her, even if she'd given him a positive response to his call?
This is why your referrals will take one third of the time to close as sales which you make from cold-calling.
David then repeats his questioning for Jim Harvey.
You can see that this was all low pressure conversation. Also notice how Da vid introduces the subject at a tangent.
He doesn't say: “Do you know anyone who wants advertising?”
He asks a question about decisive people.
David also asked for two references BEFORE he got out his cards and started writing. Once Penny has focused her mind on one person -- Joan Shaw -- it will be a wrench to start thinking about other people.
But if her mind is concentrated on the question of decisive people, she can come up with several names. Then David asks her to concentrate on each one of these decisive people in turn.
The time for creative script writing is before the interview begins. Once your sales interview begins you're like an actor on stage, concentrating on the cues from the
other performer. If you've no lines ready to speak, you won’t speak them when your client feeds you your cue.
Write in the space below four questions which you can ask to stimulate your clients to isolate some of their friends and business contacts.
You: Who do you know who is the most : 1. ?
2. ?
3. Who is the best that you know?
4. Of all the people you do business with, which one likes
_ the most?
Summary
Turning referred leads into sales takes a third of the time and effort than making a sale to prospects who have been cold called.
When you ask for a general referral, a client will suddenly see all the people whom they know. You have to help them single out a face and a name for you.
When you ask for a referral:
· Isolate the faces for the client to see in their mind’s eye
· Bring out a few 3 by 5 inch cards.
· Write the referrals name on the card
· Ask qualifying questions about the referral.
Introduce the subject at a tangent. DON'T say. “Who do you know who wants XXX (YOUR product or service) ?”
The client will answer, truthfully: “I can’t think of anybody”. Ask a question about a narrow band of people that the client knows. Ask them about the most XXX person they know. Then ask them about other XXX people.
(The XXX can be any characteristic of a group of people. Ask them to name decisive people, or competitive people, or rich people or fitness freaks, or diet fanatics).
The secret is to get them to filter all the people they know down to a few faces.
Marketing Yourself
Isn't this almost better than referrals? Yes, BUT it takes a lot of TIME to set up.
Time you don't have -- at first. Once you have
established yourself as an expert, then it's easy. But it will take you between 6 months to a year to achieve 'expert' status.
How many new people do you need to meet each day to find all the new customers you need to find? It depends on the QUALITY of those people. How close are they to doing business with you?
And the quality of the sales prospects you meet, depends to a large extent on HOW you meet them.
You can meet them on the phone, in person, by e-mail, fax or letter.
You can meet them because they called your office and asked for you, or because you called their office and asked for them.
If you called them, it could be because you have been referred to them, or because you found their name in the Yellow Pages.
In fact, there is a HIERARCHY of QUALITY as follows:
1. Bottom of the barrel -- the cold call. (You have to make hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cold calls a month in order to meet ENOUGH of the high quality people you MUST meet to smash your sales quota.)
2. Still in the sludge -- an appointment made from a cold call. (These people MIGHT be willing to book ad space with you -- after a long and skillful sales call by you. It takes time, and drains your energy).
3. Looking up -- response from an ad or direct mail. (The caller knows a bit about you, but at this stage you know nothing about them).
4. Well hello! -- an appointment made from a trade show or networking event. Now, you have met the client once, you know a bit about them, and they asked you call them ...
5. Now we're cooking -- referral from a customer or friend (a referral which you asked for). When you asked for the referral, you also asked the 5 basic qualifying questions of the person who gave you the referral. They knew SOME of the answers (like: 'does the person you're referring me to have enough money to buy an advert?') but not all.
6. Almost sold -- unsolicited referral from a customer or friend (a referral you didn't ask for). Again you ask the person who gives you the referral the 5 basic qualifying questions.
7. SOLD! -- unsolicited call from a prospect wanting to buy. (How do you meet MORE of these people every day?)
8. Top of the heap -- call from an existing client who has already done business with you and wants to book again because your product or service 'worked'. A happy camper.
Let's return to the Quality Hierarchy, and look at the TIME and NUMBERS needed to make a sale.
1. Cold calling. You'll be toiling hard in the salt mines to find a true prospect. Plus, cold-calling annoys people. If you've got nothing else going for you, then you HAVE TO cold call strangers. You need a throat-grabbing opening statement that thrills people and gets you through to the decision-maker … a nd dogged perseverance.
Cold calling is 'quick and dirty' because if you DO stumble upon someone who is ready to buy NOW, you can make a quick sale.
So you cold call while your other (better) tactics take their time to produce high-quality prospects.
2. Cold call follow-ups. It's still a struggle, and still a low percentage turn into sales. But until you have got your referral system motoring, just get on with it.
3. Response from an ad or direct mail. You still need a lot of these calls to make a sale, because some people respond to compare prices, or pick up a brochure. But you always have a good excuse to question them closely, before you send them what they want.
4. Calls to people you met at a networking event or trade show. Networking is safe, and a great plac e to begin establishing your reputation and position as an EXPERT at finding new business for people in your market or your business community.
A different KIND of hard work is needed: a networking plan and a 30-second personal commercial ('elevator speech ') to qualify each prospect. Then there is the networking itself. You gotta invest the time and work the plan.
5. Referral. See previous section.
6. Unsolicited referral. Someone gives you a referral because you earned it elsewhere.
We're now into an area which management loves and hates. They love to have you working for them if you are the kind of expert that people call up and ask for. They hate it if you earn this reputation by meeting and impressing people in ways which can't be measured, taught or controlled.
7. Call from a client asking to book an advert with you. This happens only AFTER a prospect needs help and thinks you are the answer.
A LOT of hard work is needed BEFORE this happens. You need to build a reputation by staying in front of likely clients. You develop a community presence with speeches at civic groups and networking. You develop a market presence with your mini marketing campaign of faxes, newsletters and e-mails.
It's DIFFERENT work to cold calling, it's much more FUN than cold calling, but it's still WORK. At first, this work is done in your own time, while you spend your days in the office on the phone -- cold calling and creating a referral network. Once you're smashing your sales quota, you can do this work on the company's time.
8. Repeat booking or series booking from a present client. They know you, like you, trust you, believe in you and have confidence you'll deliver the srvice they need.
This is 'easy' work. You develop your relationship and help them build their business.
The sales which are closed most quickly and easily are the ones where the client calls you.
So -- somehow -- you need to put into place a system where (eventually) potntial clients call you
Now for the good news. Most sales people aren't willing to do the hard work it takes UPFRONT to get the client to call them -- to make their selling easy 3 months down the road.
If you will put in the extra hours this month on a system to get clients to call you -- on top of your ‘normal’ daily calls -- then you'll find, after about 8 weeks, that your work becomes easier as every day passes ….. as your system kicks in and more and more clients begin to call you.
Where do you find the Clients?
Before looking at the techniques and tools for attracting new clients, we need to look at WHO they are, and WHERE we might find them.
Your answer will be different to mine.
The clients who are looking for a solution to a problem which you can solve are completely different to those who want to cure a pain which my service can cure.
They are different people, they hang out in different places, and you go to different places to find them.
However, the process of finding groups of potential clients is the same -- no matter which comany you sell for.
The process of finding clients involves finding lists of possible clients, and working those lists.
You work those lists with cold calls, letters, faxes, e-mails, personal visits, postcards …. whatever.
We’ll get into all that stuff later. For now -- let’s talk about lists.
While we’re talking about lists, we talk about calling the names on a list. This does not just mean telephone cold calls, it includes faxes, postcards, e- mails etc.
All About Lists
When you first call a stranger -- whether it’s on the phone or by a postcard -- they're a only a 'suspect' on a list of names.
You don't CREATE a prospect from a suspect. You only DISCOVER whether this suspect has enough money and interest to become your prospect. (If they do, then you have the opportunity to CREATE a client from your prospect).
When you go ocean fishing with a fishing line, you hook individual fish swimming amongst the shoals of fish in the sea. YOU don't choose your fish, you dangle some bait and wait until A FISH CHOOSES YOU.
Once a fish has bitten your line and you've hooked it, then you can start to reel it in. You can 'play' your hooked fish and use your angling skills.
In the same way, you discover your PROSPECTS swimming in a shoal of SUSPECTS. You throw your bait -- your ideas for finding new business -- to lists of suspects. Some bite and become prospects, most keep swimming in their own little sea.
You can't create money in a suspect's bank account, nor interest in a closed mind.
So you comb lists of suspects to find potential prospects.
The better your list of suspects, the more prospects you’ll find for every 100 names you call.
'Prospecting' is the process of sifting a list of suspects to discover if any prospects lurk among them.
The word 'prospecting' was picked up by the sales industry many years ago from the idea of prospecting for gold. Gold prospectors spend most of their time THROWING OUT the sludge which isn't gold.
The prospector digs his pan into the bed of the stream, then pulls it out - full of mud, gravel, sludge and a little bit of gold. He filters out all the rubbish, leaving the gold in the bottom of his pan. The more dirt he gets through and throws out, the more gold he finds!
In the same way, prospecting for sales can be seen as digging into a list of names and throwing out the NONBUYERS. The more names you dig into, the more
non-buyers you'll have to throw out - but the more gold there will be at the bottom of your pan (in the shape of prospects wh o are interested in doing business with you and have some money to pay for it).
Creative list development puts more ore into the stream from which you pan for your gold. It puts more high grade names onto your list.
So you need to make fewer calls to strike gold. There's no virtue in calling the sludge. Why not throw out as much sludge as possible by developing your lists BEFORE you begin making calls?
Your LIST of suspects is important; the individual names on the list aren't.
Your list is like a shoal of fish. When your fishing boat leaves port, you search for a large shoal of good fish. You throw your bait into the shoal together with your fishing line and hooks. Then you wait for individual fish to take your hook.
If you can't find a decent shoal, then you won't catch any individual fish. The bigger and better the shoal, the easier it is to catch individual fish. In the same way, the better your list of suspects, the easier your task of hooking individual prospects.
At the moment when a name on your list of suspects says: “Yes I've got some money which I might spend on your offer” - then at that moment the individual becomes important. They leap out of the shoal of suspects and become your prospect .
Until that moment each individual name is unimportant. What counts is the quality of the TOTAL names on your list or sub list.
Your sales career depends upon knowing how to manage your suspect lists.
Where do you find a golden suspect list, full of prospects? How many suspects do you need on your list? How frequently do you recall them?
You find a high-grade list of suspects - full of prospects - by constructing one yourself from lots of high-grade SUB LISTS.
A sub list is one which holds 10 to 50 names of individuals related by occupation, market, location, age or wealth; or any category which implies that if one person from that group of individuals will advertise - they all should.
Average' sales executives don't bother to put in the effort needed to develop their own outstanding lists. They expect their manager to do it for them.
But if the amount of money you earn depends on your sales results, and your sales depend upon calling an outstanding list of suspects, aren’t you crazy to depend upon anybody but yourself to get your list right?
By all means take all the help you can get from your sales managers but you ALSO have to do your own homework to create the best possible list of the potential advertisers in your market.
Go to your local library and hunt out directories, magazines, databases - any source of names which relate to your field - and mine these sources for extra names and extra lists. It’s your life that depends on your list.
FIND RARE LISTS - WORK 'EM 'TILL THEY FAIL
We've compared prospecting to gold mining and fishing. In any gold rush, the rich claims get staked early and worked to death. And the "traditional" fishing grounds have been over fished so that they're now exhausted and empty.
It's the same with lists. In any field whe re there are several competitors, the names on the easy lists have been battered by calls from every sales executive working the patch.
Repetition has faded into harassment.
Which brings up a crucial point for your success:
The easier a list is to get hold of, the more sales executives will have it, and the less likely it is to be a goldmine for you.
The harder it is to get a list, the fewer sales executives will have it, and the better your chances of finding unmined gold.
Once you've found a stream which produces some gold, how long do you work it? You keep panning it until the gold runs out. Sometimes you pan it once, sometimes 10 or 12 times. You can't tell when the gold is about to run out, so you keep working the claim until it no longer produces.
It's the same with lists. You keep calling all the names on a list (or sub list) of suspects again and again as long as that LIST keeps producing enough prospects.
You can't tell which names are going to have-money-and-be-interested this time round, until you've called the whole list and asked everyone on it.
You recontact your list or sub-list every 8-13 weeks, or for as long as you're getting 4 to 5 "Yes, I'm interested in XXX (YOUR product or service) and could afford to spend some money" from every 45-60 names called.
As with a gold bearing claim, every time you find some gold (or a name on the list who says "Yes") you remove it. The name goes onto a prospect record card, and your list SHRINKS by one good name.
So a successful sub list is always shrinking until one day it stops producing the minimum number of "Yes"es per 60 names dialed. Then you throw away the WHOLE of the rest of that sub list.
Picture your sub lists of suspects like small shoals of fish. If too few individuals from a particular shoal bite on your hooks, you up anchor and sail away to find another shoal. You don't worry about single fish or individual suspects. You hunt for shoals of them.
But as long as a particular shoal of suspects is producing the required number of prospects every 45-60 dials: keep fishing it.
IMPROVING YOUR LIST
You can actually improve the response that you get from your list of suspects. How?
By calling it over and over again.
With this prospecting method, it will usually take six times for a person hearing your name before he or she will remember it. The first time you call a particular sub- list, you'll find it a cold wet list. After you've called the names on the list several times you'll find that it warms up and dries out.
If you demonstrate by your actions that you're pleasant but persistent, and will still be around next month, you'll find that your prospects begin to recognise you, respond to you, and some even to call you back when they're ready to advertise!
Suppose you call a prospect several times over a period of months. Each time that they say: “I'm still not interested”, you say: “Thankyouverymuch. Goodbye.” You make them realise that it's safe talking to you. They can relax when you call.
You're not going to browbeat them or lay a guilt trip on them for not advertising. After the fourth or fifth time, (by which time you'll have been calling regularly but
infrequently for about five months) the names on your list will all understand that
when they get a call from you, they get an offer, not an argument.
You keep calling them with an IDEA -- an idea which they never hear. They can refuse your offer without any hassle. You're not about to jam an advert down their throats.
Once this notion comes across, you'll be talking to people who can trust you, and your calls become warm calls. You'll begin to stimulate the interest of many of the names on the list. They get curious.
What idea do you have for them?
If you offer to help them find more customers and make more money, or cut their costs and save money … and at the first sign that they're resisting you hang up, you'll leave them wondering whether they've missed an opportunity!
If this happens to them 5 or 6 times over the course of half a year, what will happen to their curiosity? One day they will want to know more.
Suspect: O.K. You've called me so often you've caught my interest. Send me some information on your publication.
You: Could you invest a minimum of $350 at this time, if you liked what you saw?
Suspect: I'm not sure about that.
You: Then let's not waste each other's time. I'm going to pass this time. Perhaps you'll be better placed to invest in your future in a couple of months time. I'll call you again then and see how you feel.
What happens the next time you call? He bites your arm off trying to get your info.
If a suspect isn't interested, then neither are you. If a suspect is grumpy, don’t bother with them. Find someone else. Just say “Thankyouverymuch” and disappear out of their life for another 2 months.
LOTS OF NAMES
How many names do you need on your list? That depends on the type of product or service that you're selling and the type of customer you're trying to attract.
With the method described later (power cold calling), you should be able to call 35 -40 prospects an hour. Yes a minimum of 35! If you doubt that, look again at the sequence of 5 calls you see David Ross blast out.
Each call lasts less than 2 minutes -- including the dialing.
With this method you can expect to cold call for 7 hours a week, or an hour and a half a day. The rest of the day will be spent with current clients, cash collection, organising artwork and the many, many other tasks that an ad space sales executive has to do each day.
At 45 calls a day, or 220 a week, if you're calling the right lists, you'll soon have enough business to occupy you for the rest of the day.
If you choose NOT to cold call in the way we describe later -- you need ANOTHER method of getting your name in front of suspects. This could be:
· Postcards
· Faxes
· Letters
· Fliers
· Voicemail
But you need to be making contact with 200 to 250 ‘suspects’ every week. They are the shoal of fish from which a number of prospects will be caught. Expect to contact every suspect on a list or sub list at least every 7 to 10 weeks.
TIMES CHANGE.
Two months is long enough for the situation in any organisation to change.
If a list is yielding the right number of interested prospects each time it is called, then call EVERY name on that list every two months.
But 220 names a week for 8 weeks is 1,700 names …… YIKES!
Worse, as some of the names become clients, they come off your list of suspects. So you need to be continually adding to your bank of 1,700 names, at a rate of at least 50 names a week - just to stand still.
Are you saying to yourself right now that there aren't that many names in your market?
Further, if you've got a list of this many names, how much does a single
“No!” bother you? Or 20 "No!"s?
If you call 45 suspects every day, you can expect to get at least 35 "No!"s every day. But you'll also get 5 to 10 “Yes!”es every day for you to follow up with literature and selling calls.
And when you follow up next week, you can expect those whom you give a "second call" will be ready to talk to you. You'll have already discarded the dross during your first calls. You'll be following up next Monday or Tuesday the true prospects whom you found during your discarding session this Wednesday and Thursday.
You'll be making second calls to individuals who have told you:
· that they're interested in considering doing business with you
and
· that they've got money to spend now.
If you've made the first call as described above, have qualified for interest and money, have sent some information, and then conduct the second call as described
- you can expect 35% to 50% of your second calls to book an advert with you.
Pretty soon you'll fall into the comfortable, profitable habit of daily cold calling without stress.
Suppose there was some way that you COULD find 1,700 names to make up your very own high quality suspect list, and you COULD call 45 of them a day, every day - in an hour and a half or less - how would THE REST of your sales job be?
WONDERFUL!
You'd spend the rest of every day dealing with people who are pleased to hear from you!
You'd know that they were pre-qualified individuals who were interested in doing business with you. These people would be happy to take your call and negotiate.
How does this compare with spending all day, every day, on the phone hustling strangers who don't want to speak to you, and who treat every word you say as a lie?
Creating an outstanding list based on outstanding sub lists is hard work, and the hour and a half a day you spend prospecting isn't the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
But prospecting a good list in this manner sets you up to make good sales, love your job and enjoy every day for the rest of your sales career.
FINDING NAMES
So how do you go about finding 1,700 names in your market?
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Instead of trying to find one list of 1,700 names, think in terms of 50 names at a time.
50 names is a bite-sized chunk. Now you only need 35 chunks and you've got your list. Thirty five chunks! This still seems an awful lot
Begin by making a list of the categories of people who do business with you at the moment. (The categories depend upon your company).
Your Master List of 1,700 names will be made up of sub lists. Make a sub list for each category or business ‘niche’ that you sell to. Some lists will only have 10 names of any interest to you on them. Others will have 150 or 200 people whom you could reasonably contact.
If you think in terms of 50-name 'bites', then you'll have to band together some sub lists to make one bite. Other sub lists will contain enough names on them for four or five bites.
However, you only need to have five or six bites lined up when you begin prospecting by this method. You only need 250 to 300 names to begin. You do not need to wait until you've constructed your 1,700 name Master List before you start. You can be finding new names while you're phoning the first week's lists.
Consider this list, and every sub list of YOUR suspects in the way that direct mail marketing companies look at the lists which they solicit.
As long as they get two or three responses per hundred letters which they mail to a specific list, they'll keep mailing that same list again and again.
Prospecting is not selling. Prospecting is like sending a direct mail shot down the telephone.
YOU want MORE than two or three keen prospects per hundred people called, but the principle is the same. As long as you get the minimum number of conversions from suspects to prospects (4 - 6 an hour with the cold calling method described later) -- keep calling your list.
Those who don’t respond are just ignored. Only t hose who do respond are logged onto a database and cherished.
Those who DO respond get further (expensive) mailings, brochures and phone calls. And the original list is mailed again and again until it stops yielding enough prospects per thousand letters mailed.
THE BEST LIST
Your best list contains individuals who already do business with you, or who LOOK LIKE someone who does.
How do you find out if someone in the same ‘niche’ as one of your present customers has the same problem (which you can solve with your offer)?
The only way to find out is to ASK THEM! And ask at least 100 others on this large sub list. If enough show interest, add this list to your master list. But if only 2 or 3 an hour show interest for a whole hour's phoning (45 calls) - DUMP THE WHOLE SUB LIST.
Once you've got a list of “look-alikes”, take this one stage further. Ask yourself:
What sort of individuals or businesses look most like this "look-alike" list? Get a list of THOSE people.
Your next best list contains individuals who do business with your competitors.
CHANGE LISTS
Your 'change' list is another important list. Use your change list to top up your Master List of suspects. (Because every day several of your suspects will convert into prospects.
They’ll leave your suspect list and move into your prospect box - see the section on Record Keeping in the companion e-book to this one.
A change list contains companies and people that are going through a change. By its nature this list is temporary. (Once anyone has been through a change in their circumstances, the change is over!)
A change list is valuable because, other things being equal, a person or company who is in the middle of changing their working habits, finds additional changes EASIER to make. Their additional change could include doing business with you.
The most obvious change occurs when the executive who buys your kind of product or service leaves.
The new person is likely to begin with a review of their entire departmental spend. While this review is in progress, you've got a better opportunity than usual to get onto their schedule.
But there are other changes worth monitoring so that you can call the individuals in transition. People who have just won a big order, opened a new office, or had any success about which they would like to be congratulated.
Suppose you find that a company is launching a new product. They're worth a call - because they'll have a launch budget. Shouldn’t they be spending some of that budget with you?
(Don't worry if the answer is "No!", your change list is still only a list of suspects a shoal of fish in the sea. The shoal is important, the individuals within it aren't).
This means that you need a weekly routine to monitor changes in the ‘trade press’ of all the industries you sell to..
When you start to do this, you'll probably be amazed to find that you're the only person in your market who does. You can allocate one day a fortnight to your change list, or better still, call five new suspects every day who are in the process of change.
Your change list is a list of SENSITIVE suspects. Whenever someone is going through change, their sensitivities are heightened.
They're anxious, elated, on a high, jumpy; they're extra-aware of everything happening to them; they'll remember your call to them at this time for months afterwards. In normal circumstances, when you cold-call these same individuals, they've forgotten you before their phone is back on the hook.
Apart from your change list, how long does it take to research a master list of 20 to 30 sub lists? Somewhere between ten and forty hours of slogging research. You'll have to do this by yourself, in your own time.
Your reward is that it will set you up for the rest of your career.
O.K. So you’ve got a list of people to call -- now what?
Now you start calling them, using lots of different ways and messages. But the fundamental way is the telephone cold call.
Aaaaagh!!
Telephone Cold Calling
Finding new customers accounts for over 60% of the time, energy, and talent of most successful sales experts - through self promotion, referral gathering ….and cold calling.
These experts have their self promotion and referral gathering systems on full throttle, so they don’t have to do much cold calling. But even the best hit sales slumps -- and go back to the basic cold calling process to haul their sorry butts back onto the track.
You live or die by the day - every day - when prospecting. It's the starting grid of the sale. If you can't find new potential customers, then you can't sell to them can you? But prospecting is the sales activity that the average sales executive likes least, and performs worst....
The truth is that very few sales executives enjoy cold calling -- an activity with maximum rejection. In this section, you'll learn some ideas to make cold calling bearable.
These ideas will make your prospecting more fun, so that you find new customers quicker, with less stress. And the real benefit to you is that as an expert cold caller, you're certain to be an outstanding sales success.
And you won’t be part of conversations like this:
( Ring ring)
Mr. Smith: Hello?
Amateur Sales Rep: May I speak with Mr. Smith please?
Mr. Smith: Speaking.
Amateur Sales Rep: Mr. Smith, this is Mark James at Mega Corp company.
Mr. Smith: (Interrupting). If this is about XXX, I'm not interested....
Amateur Sales Rep: Of course you're not interested. If you had been, you'd have called me, right?
Mr. Smith (Angrily): I am not interested in you. I'm not interested in your company and I'm not interested in XXX. Is that clear enough for you?
Amateur Sales Rep: Thank you. Mr. Smith, I find that - AT FIRST - many of my clients aren't interested, but once they hear about the superb offer which we can
Mr. Smith: **** Off!
Too many calls like this and the novice salesperson is searching the recruitment columns of their local paper, looking for a way to escape.
Learning Objectives
The PURPOSE of telephone cold calling in order of importance, is:
· To find yourself a new customer, TODAY.
· To find someone who will become your customer SOON.
· To put your name in front of someone who is likely to become your customer later this year.
The techniques used in cold calling change slightly, as the PURPOSE of your call changes.
If, for example, you're selling recruitment advertising, then most of your suspects won't be interested in your offer until they've got a job vacancy.
So your prospecting call has a slightly different purpose. You make certain that when they do have a job vacancy later in the year, you're the person they call to advertise that job.
HARDLINE TELEPHONE COLD CALLING
Why do sales executives hate cold calling so much?
Perhaps you found the phone conversation in the Introduction above unreal.
Then you haven't yet worked for a hard-line manager who insists that your 'suspect' must say "No!" seven times (or hang up) before you can accept that they aren't a genuine sales prospect -- today.
You spend most of your day on the phone, pestering strangers who have already told you that they don't want to talk to you.
Even without a rottweiler-manager on your back, cold calling can be intimidating. Many EXCELLENT sales executives are uncomfortable talking to countless strangers every day.
Also, the cold calling techniques which you may be forced to use are rude and aggressive. So the strangers you call are rude and aggressive right back!
Life's much easier when you're dealing with people whom you know already, and with whom you've developed a relationship. Working with existing accounts is far less stressful than finding new business.
Furthermore, when you do find a genuine prospect while you're cold calling, there's no instant reward. You'll usually experience a time lapse between finding your potential client and making the sale. Your sales cycle takes time.
You can't instantly find out your prospect's exact needs, and come up with a proposal to satisfy those needs. So success at prospecting, unlike success at closing, brings you no immediate reward.
And there’s an enormous psychological barrier to cold calling:
THE TIME LAPSE FROM PROSPECTING TO SALES SUCCESS
Assume for the moment, that your sales cycle is 2 weeks. (On average it takes you two weeks from first finding your prospect to booking an order from them ). And let’s further assume that you've got to make 25 cold calls to find one new client. If your target is to find one new client a day -- as well as handling all your existing accounts -- then you must make 25 cold calls every day.
Suppose one of the 'suspects' whom you call today shows interest, and has some money.
You arrange to send him some information and make a follow-up call later in the week. After that follow-up call, and another one a couple of days later, you sell him a small order. You book the order exactly ten working days after you first cold- called him.
Between cold calling your suspect today, and booking his advert in two weeks time, you'll be making another 250 cold calls to OTHER suspects (10 working days
@ 25 cold calls a day).
If your ratio is one 'hit' to 25 calls, then you'll have been rejected ANOTHER 240 times by the time you get your order from today's suspect!
Yikes!
The gap between your original cold call and your reward (a sale) is so long, and the rejection (from others) so huge, that you can lose sight of the connection between your original call and the booking.
And if you're like most sales executives, during a normal day you've got lots of good reasons for NOT cold calling.
You've got to:
· help your existing clients,
· sort out the new clients that you found 2 weeks ago,
· chase delivery,
· chase payment,
· prepare presentations
and handle a hundred other pressing claims from today’s clients.
And in 2 weeks time your sales dry up.
What you need to overcome these miseries is a new method of prospecting and cold-calling.
A NEW WAY OF PROSPECTING FOR BUSINESS TODAY
Once they're talking, you try to stimulate their interest, and then develop a full sales conversation. You open these calls with a compliment and an agreement staircase.
The modern cold calling method uses the Call-Mail-Call strategy.
The modern method still uses the classic Agreement Staircase,
but for your second call.
You offer compliments and agreement staircases to 'PROSPECTS':
individuals who have previously told you that they've got some money and interest.
The type of call described in the ‘Sales Conversion Process’ which accompanies this e-book is NOT used on your first call to 'suspects' -- total strangers whose name you've pulled off a list.
At first sight, this modern method might appear a little strange to old hands.
The critical difference between this method and the old way of prospecting lies in the number of people called and your attitude when making the first call. With this method you call LOTS of people!
And you WANT them to say No!
The new attitude makes prospecting fun again. It no longer hurts to call 45 strangers. You can do it in less than 90 minutes a day. And you don’t antagonise them.
[This method assumes that you're looking for prospects who will book today or at a known date in the near future. It is not used when you're calling to sell "name recognition" to someone who 'may' need to do business with you at some time in the future.]
THE FIRST CALL
During the first call you phone a list of 'Suspects' and you ask each one if they've got any money to spend, and if they're interested in your offer.
That's all.
Any suspects who do show interest (and have some money) are prospective customers for you -- 'prospects'. Later, you'll sell to these prospects. But you don't sell to suspects.
'Prospecting' i s the process of sifting a list of suspects to discover if any prospects lurk among them.
The word 'prospecting' was picked up by the sales industry many years ago from the idea of prospecting for gold. Gold prospectors spend most of their time THROWING OUT the sludge which isn't gold.
Remember our old gold prospector, out in the wilderness with his tent and his donkey, panning for gold in a stream.? The prospector digs his pan into the bed of the stream, then pulls it out - full of mud, gravel, sludge and a little bit of gold. He filters out all the rubbish, leaving the gold in the bottom of his pan.
The more dirt he gets through and throws out, the more gold he finds!
In the same way, prospecting for sales can be seen as digging into a list of names and t hrowing out the NONBUYERS.
The more names you dig into, the more non-buyers you'll have to throw out -- but the more gold there will be at the bottom of your pan (in the shape of prospects who are interested in advertising and have some money to pay for it).
How do you find out if someone is a prospect or not? How do you filter out the non-buyers?
YOU ASK THEM!
The modern first call is short and sweet. It has a structure, and to keep the structure in place it's controlled with a script.
First you get your suspect’s attention.
Next you identify yourself and your company.
Third, offer a single, simple benefit.
Fourth you ask for a response from your suspect.
Finally you close the call. The way you close it depends on your suspect's response.
Here's a typical call from someone selling advertising space. Check it out and then we’ll try YOUR call:
(Ring ring)
Suspect: Hello?
You: (Step 1) Hello Mr. Smith. (You've got his attention by the phone ringing and speaking his name. When you're prospecting, THAT'S ALL YOU NEED).
You: (Step 2) This is David Ross from Mega Press. (Again, that’s all you need. Don’t get complicated. You're prospecting, not selling. He's a stranger. Don’t ask him how he is, if he's got a moment, whether you can talk to him for a second).
You: (Step 3) Mr. Smith, I'm calling to introduce you to some new ideas we've got for finding you more customers, by using our publication.
(Just give your suspect one benefit of talking to you at this stage. You're offering an IDEA which will bring your susp ect NEW BUSINESS).
Now you ask for a response. This is the crucial step of the prospecting call.
AND YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A NO!
You: (Step 4a) Mr. Smith, are you interested in attracting new customers at this time? (You'll probably get a “Yes”).
(Step 4b) Would you be willing to invest some money with me to attract this new business? (You'll probably get a “No!”, but will sometimes you'll get a “Maybe” or “O.K.”).
What do you say next? Let's take the “No!” first.
Mr. Smith: “No. I could do with some more business at the moment, but I'm certainly not going to spend any money on advertising”.
You: (Step 5) “Thank you very much. Goodbye.”
Click. Dial tone.
The click was the sound of YOU hanging up the phone. You, not him. You beat him to it.
You don't continue the discussion. You don't wish to work with this individual, at this time. You find someone else.
Sure, it's possible to sell to individuals who aren't interested 'at first'. Hard -line managers will tell you to 'question down' any suspect who responds like this. If you can get them talking, say the rotties, you can win them over.
If you've been in selling for a while, or been through one of the training programmes of the major sales houses, then you've probably been taught that when your suspect says “I'm not interested”, you respond with a question like “Can I ask WHY you're not interested?”
(The idea behind this response is that once you get into a conversation with your suspect, you can keep it going and find out more about them.)
But the modern method states that you DON'T want to keep every suspect talking.
You only want to talk to people who tell you that they have some money, and might be interested in doing business.
In fact, the modern method of prospecting is the opposite of the Neolithic method. If your suspect says "I'm not interested" ....
BELIEVE THEM
At once. Your time is much better spent looking for individuals who ARE interested in doing business with you.
SUSPECTS VS. PROSPECTS
You see, there's no shortage of good prospects for most companies, even specialist ones. There is a shortage of time. It takes time to FIND prospects who have got money and are interested in advertising.
When you find someone who IS interested in advertising their products or services with you, your call goes so much more smoothly. Selling becomes fun, and you develop a long term relationship -- with repeat business, the most profitable kind.
So, it’s worth repeating: the first principle of this modern style of prospecting is: When your suspect says: “I’m not interested”
BELIEVE THEM!
Say “Thank you” and hang up the phone. Go away and find someone else who IS interested and has some money. And accept that at any one moment, MOST suspects are NOT interested.
During your first call you aren't selling, you're prospecting. You're trying to
discard hesitant strangers so that you can find some KEEN ones.
You don't begin the selling process until a suspect indicates that they could be interested and they've got some money. Then they instantly become a PROSPECT. And you only sell to prospects.
When you first cold -call a stranger, they're a only a 'suspect' on a list of names.
You don't CREATE a prospect from a suspect. You DISCOVER whether this suspect has enough money and interest to become your prospect. (If they do, then you have the opportunity to CREATE a client from your prospect).
You CREATE your CLIENTS when you persuade your PROSPECTS to book an order with you.
But what is the point of having a 'selling' conversation with a suspect who has no interest in your offer? You can get them to talk to you, and you might have a fascinating conversation. But you'll be wasting your time and theirs.
So get rid of uninterested or moneyless suspects at once. Spend your time with the next suspect. Call lots of people and dump most of them.
H ow a SUSPEC T becom es a PRO SPECT
Looking back at the prospecting conversation, you'll see that in Step four you ask:
You: (Step 4) Mr. Smith, are you interested in attracting new customers at this time?
Mr. Smith: Yes I am.
You: Would you be willing to invest some money with me to attract this new business?
Occasionally your suspect will say:
Mr. Smith: I might be. We're launching a new widget to the trade next month, and we've got some plans to promote it.
If they agree they're interested, you ask them if they've got enough money to spend on advertising to make it worth your while selling to them.
You: (Step 4c) (Still qualifying) If you examined our offer, and felt that we could help you, would an investment of $450.00 for an advert be a problem for you at this time?
Mr. Smith: No. We have a budget set up for this launch. If you can give us the help you describe we could run to $450.00.
You: (Step 5) That’s great Mr. Smith. I've got the detailed information on how we can be of service to you right here.
I'll send you the information and call you again to confirm any details. When would be convenient to call you again? How about Wednesday at 11.20?
That’s all. Don’t complicate things.
The PURPOSE of your first call is to identify the prospects in your list of suspects. You separate the gold from the sludge; you find a fish which will take your bait.
When you find a nugget of gold, or a fish that takes your bait, you offer to send information, by fax or post - and then arrange a definite time for a second conversation with your prospect.
(Only in very rare cases you might go straight into your sales story. You only do this when you judge that your suspect is VERY KEEN).
If your new prospect agrees that you should send some information, that's enough. This is still the first call. DON'T SELL ON THE FIRST CALL.
You're still at the stage where you throw away any suspect who BEGINS to show resistance. If a suspect says that they're interested, and have got the money, but then they're reluctant even to agree to your callback after you've sent your brochure -- what are your chances of making a sale?
Your second call, the sales call, will begin with them saying something like:
Suspect: “I've already done you the courtesy of giving you some of my valuable time, and allowed you to send me a brochure -- now why should I want to speak to you again?”
It's uphill all the way from here. You're fighting your suspect. Far better to spend your time finding a different person - a prospect who wants to see you.
Don’t Hustle Suspects. You'll find that you CAN pressurise many suspects into allowing you to visit them, or taking another phone call from you, even when they have no real interest in doing business with you.
BUT. Your second call will be a waste of TIME. Your cold-calling aim is to find KEEN suspects. Suspects who say: “Thank you for contacting me. The reason I want to take up your offer is...” .
(You still might not be able to help a keen suspect, even though they're a ge nuine prospect. Your specifications might be wrong, or the company credit policy against them, or any number of things. But at least you'll begin your sales cal l with goodwill and a proper chance to sell).
Isn’t faulty prospecting the reason for high-pressure, argumentative, bad tempered sales calls?
Desperate sales executives MUST force themselves on a poor, uninterested suspect, when they don't have enough keen prospects to call .... So they have to hustle the reluctant ones!
If you don't discard reluctant suspects during your initial phone calls, then you'll waste your time arguing with them, mailing them, chasing them and making forlorn presentations to them. Time which you ought to spend finding KEEN prospects.
If you squander time on your first calls trying to 'convert' reluctant suspects, you'll never have the time to build up a bank of keen prospects.
The only way to find enough KEEN PROSPECTS is to discard all UNINTERESTED SUSPECTS quickly. Discard early.
Discard often.
DAVID ROSS COLD CALLING
Let's listen in to an advertising salesman’s conversations with this method of prospecting based on the IDEA that your prospects are located, not created.
His industry is different to yours, and when he get’s selling, his presentation will be different.
But he’s not selling -- now. He’s prospecting banging out ‘junk’ calls to a list of ‘suspects’ ….
You can create a customer from a willing prospect, but first you must FIND that prospect from a shoal of suspects.
(Ring ring)
D.R .: Hello Mrs. Higgs. This is David Ross from Mega Press. Mrs. Higgs I'm calling to introduce you to some new ideas we've got to help you find new customers through our publication. Are you interested in finding new customers at the moment?
Mrs. Higgs.: Not really. We're struggling to cope with the ones we have at the moment ...
D.R.: O.K. Sorry to have bothered you. Thankyouverymuch. Goodbye. (Click)
(Ring ring)
D.R .: Hello Dr. Jones. This is David Ross from Mega Press. Dr. Jones I'm calling to introduce you to some new ideas we have to help you find new customers through our publication. Are you interested in finding new customers at the moment?
D.R.: Would you be prepared to spend $300 to find some new ones? D.J.: By taking an advert with you, you mean? No I would not! D.R.: O.K. Thankyouverymuch. Goodbye.
(Ring ring)
D.R.: Hello Mr. Reeves. This is David Ross from Mega Press. Mr. Reeves I'm calling to introduce you to some new ideas we have to help you find new customers through our publication. Are you interested in finding new customers at the moment?
M.R.: Yes. I'm always open to new ideas.
D.R.: Would you be prepared to spend $300, if our ideas were to bring you substantial new business?
M.R.: I might. It would depend on what we got for our money. I assume you're talking about advertising?
D.R.: Yes. We've got some important new ideas for you that could help you bring in some major new business. I've got some information on our ideas, and how they might help you. When would you like to see them? How about Monday at 4.50?
M.R.: This week is very full already. Could you send me something?
D.R.: Alright! I'll mail you some information today, and call you next week to see if you'd like to know more. Is that O.K.? M.R.: That's fine.
D.R.: Can I just confirm that if you do like these ideas, that you'd be willing to invest at least $300 to make them work for you?
M.R.: If they'll bring in substantial new business, as you just said, then yes.
D.R.: I promise to mail you the details now, and phone you on Monday afternoon, next week. Thankyouverymuch. Goodbye.
(Click)
(Ring ring)
D.R: Hello Mr. Cork. This is David Ross from Mega Press. Mr. Cork I'm calling to introduce you to some new ideas we have, to help you find new customers through our publication. Are you interested in finding new business at the moment?
M.C.: Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?
D.R.: Would you be prepared to spend $300 to attract some new business?
M.C.: If I was certain that I'd get more than $300 of new business. But not if I have to spend $300 and might lose it all. Is this to do with advertising?
D.R.: Yes. And I'm afraid that I can give no guarantee over the response that you'd get. I can promise you an audience, but whether or not they buy from you depends upon your offer.
M.C.: I am not interested in gambling!
D.R.: O.K.
Thankyouverymuch. Goodbye. (Click)
(Ring ring)
D.R .: Hello Mr. Nott. This is David Ross from Mega Press. Mr. Nott, I'm calling to introduce you to some new ideas we have to help you find new customers through our publication. Are you interested in finding new customers at the moment?
M.N.: Not at the moment. I know your publication. I've advertised in it before. The response wasn't very good. Anyway, we've got no budget at the moment. Perhaps in the summer.
D.R.: O.K. Would you like me to send you any information in the meantime?
M.N.: I don't really think that I need any at the moment. You can put something in the post if you like. I might read it, but I doubt it.
D.R.: O.K. I'll leave it for now. Thankyouverymuch. Goodbye. (Click)
(Ring ring)
D.R .: Hello Miss Adams. This is David Ross from Mega Press. Miss Adams, I am calling to introduce to you some new ideas we have to help you find new customers through our publication. Are you interested in finding new customers at the moment?
M.A.: Yes. We're about to launch a new service and we need to tell people about it. We're thinking about some sort of leaflet campaign. Putting them under car windscreen wipers. Something like that.
D.R.: Would you be prepared to spend $300 telling people about your new service? M.A.: We might. It depends on what we'd get for our money. Is this about advertising?
D.R.: Yes. We've got some ideas for you that could help you launch your new service and bring in new business. I've got some information on our ideas, on who our readers are, how they spend their money, and how they will be eager to use your service.
I'll post some information to you now. When would it be convenient to show you our full idea for helping you? How about Monday at 4.50?
M.A.: Did you say 4.15 or 4.50?
D.R.: 4.50. The extra details which I have to show you will take only 10 minutes of your time unless you've got questions. Are you free then or would another day be better?
M.A.: No. 4.50 would be fine.
D.R.: Thank you. Can I confirm that if you like the ideas I'll show you, you're able to invest $300 with us? M.A.: Yes. If you can produce the results...
D.R .: Thank you. I look forward to seeing you at your office at Number 10, The Parade at 4.50 on Monday. Goodbye. (Click)
Wasn't this sequence was quick? It shouldn't have taken more than seven minutes to make all the calls. Let's come back to timing later.
David could have spent much longer on each of these calls. He could have hustled every one of his suspects. He could have commiserated with the first, argued with the second. He could probably have persuaded Mr. Cork to let him come and visit. But the visit would have been uphill all the way.
Instead, David knew he was prospecting. He discarded the rubbish. He threw away the dirt and kept panning for the gold. Eventually he found a couple. It might take five calls or it might take twenty.
Now, when David meets Miss Adams, they'll meet on a level playing field. He'll be offering her a service and asking a price for it. He won't be asking her to do him a favour by listening to his story. (Which would have been the situation if he'd forced a visit on Mr. Cork).
Good prospectors throw away the false gold of the Cork situations, and carry on panning for the genuine prospects.
When you've hooked a prospect like Miss Adams out of your shoal of suspects, you begin to sell to her. You begin to sell on your second call.
If you use the modern system to identify your prospects as shown above on your first call, you can expect to find a keen prospect in one out of every 20 to 30 calls. (If you call the right lists. See above)
Eeeeek!! That many calls -- that many 'No!'s. BUT
They are quick and easy calls. Each one only lasts about 15 to 30 seconds. They're 'junk' phone calls. You can expect the same interest as you would from a 'junk' mailing (5% to 15% depending on your list).
AND
Once you've mailed those who DO show interest, you can expect your SECOND call to yield the following results (as a rule of thumb):
· 2 out of 10 to be "too busy right now" when you call again
· 2 or 3 to out of 10 blow you out altogether at some stage during your second call
· 4 or 5 out of 10 to make an appointment or book an ad with you.
RECONTACTING Suspects
The suspect who says “No!” today, might well be looking for new business next month, or in 3 months time.
Which brings you to the major benefit of the modern style of prospecting:
You can call back your suspects MANY times, if you don't antagonise them on your first call.
If, like David, you DON'T hustle your suspects every time you call them, you can call them again and again. By your actions (which speak louder than words) you show your suspects that they can say "No!" to you without getting into an argument.
You become a known voice to them. You ask if you can help them, and when they decline your offer, you don't fight them. This is unusual!
Over the course of a year most of your suspects will receive calls from 20 or 30 sales executives in your industry.
Most of these sales people hustle.
They argue and push. If you act differently, when your suspects ARE ready to discuss advertising, with whom will they feel most c omfortable?
After you've called the same suspect 5 or 6 times over the course of a year and not harassed them, you'll be making WARM calls to them.
How long do you keep calling suspects? As long as the list or sub list which they're on is working (see below).
Each time you call a list, SOME of the suspects will confirm that they are NOW prospects.
And once ANYONE confirms that they are a prospect .... you MAIL them.
THE MAILING
Once you find a suspect who has some money and some interest in advertising with you, you mail them a package of information. You do this:
· To prove by your actions that you're someone who does what they promise to do
· To obligate your prospect to at least take your second call
· To give your prospect some information on your company and offer
BUT you should NOT mail your prospect enough information to allow them to make a buying decision - Yes or No - without speaking to you again.
When your prospect has read your mailing, they should WANT to talk to you again. You should mail them information which delights them, intrigues them, entertains them, dazzles them ...
BUT. In your mailing package, you omit some vital piece of information, without which they CAN'T make a choice, either to go ahead with an order -- or pass you by on the other side -- WITHOUT TALKING TO YOU AGAIN.
What information you omit from your package is up to you. Creating a mailing which tells your prospect just enough that they feel stimulated, feel intrigued, fascinated AND WANT TO HEAR MORE - this is your creative challenge, and one of the fun parts of prospecting.
You should post your mailing on the day you find your suspect-turned-prospect ('This fish has MONEY and INTEREST. Yippeee!') and then allow it to sit on their desk for 48 hours before you make the second call.
Any longer than 48 hours and your prospect will start to forget about you.
When you make your second call, 48 hours after the mailing hits your prospect's desk (or 3 to 4 working days after you post your information), more than 50% of them WON'T have read it. This doesn't matter. Your second call is scripted to deal with this (see below).
The PURPOSE of your mailing is to show your client that you can be trusted to do what you say you will.
Sending your mailing is ten times more important than the contents of your letter and package.
If less than 50% of your prospects will have read your mailing, does it matter at all what you put in it? Yes! Because those who DO read what you send must understand from your mailing that you make sense, have some good ideas for them, and are competent at your job.
Your mailing should offer TESTIMONIALS (the single MOST IMPORTANT part of your mailing) benefits, specification details and prices (hazy indications rather than the actual price).
And you should offer at least one good idea for them, and some advice (as a professional) on their industry.
Your advice to them should be short and sharp, but be tantalising.
Having read your mailing, your prospect should say to themselves: "Wow! This person knows their business. I could do myself a favour by talking to them a bit more..."
Your prospect should NOT say to themselves, having read your letter, "Well the price for the products I need is $XX, and their offer covers X% what I need, therefore this is a good/bad deal for me."
DON'T give your prospect enough information to make their go/no-go decision until after they've spoken to you again.
THE SECOND CALL
Once you've mailed your prospect some information, you make the second call. This is either:
· A call to make an appoint ment
· A selling call
Your second call requires careful handling. Here's how a badly managed second call can go:
D.R.: Hello Mr. Cork, it's David here. How are you?
Mr. Cork: Great thanks. What do you want?
D.R.: I sent you that information earlier this week. Did you get it? About the XXX problem …
Mr. Cork: Oh, yes. I've got it somewhere in the office. Haven't had a chance to read it yet. Can you call again next week? In fact, I'm away for three days next week. Better make it in a fortnight...
Oh dear. David never got to Canaan. (The prospector's promised land of a MEANINGFUL sales call). He died in the desert.
You see, given a chance, many a call-back will fob you off, even if they were keen to be mailed with information.
Why? Their life moves on. New probl ems arrive at their front door, bleeding on the carpet and demanding attention. The problem you offered to solve goes from somewhere near the top of their heap to somewhere near the shredding machine.
You'll never entirely eliminate this.
You can reduce it by sending your client a package which they won't forget, even if they don't read your material. Bright stickers attached to the papers, passages highlighted with bright red marker pens, "READ THIS!" written in the margin, with an arrow pointing to a set of figures; all help to make your mailing stick in your prospect's mind.
But with our system it doesn't really matter if your prospect reads your package or not. You send a mailing to establish who you are, and to prove by your action that you're not a high pressure sales dynamo. Instead of pushing during your first call, you send a letter.
Now, you're ready to make a SALES call. Your second call has 4 parts:
Step 1.: Introduction and bypass
Step 2.: Sale of yourself and your publication
Step 3.: Qualifying/Hook Questions
Step 4.: Close for an appointment, or begin to sell
Step 1. Introduction and bypass.
The introduction and bypass is a technique whereby you 'bypass' your prospect's attempt to say that they haven't read your material.
YOU: May I speak with Mr. Cork please?
Mr. Cork, this is David at Mega Corporation. I sent you that information you asked me for last week, but before I recommend you take any action, there's a point I must go over with you ….
Do you have a moment now or is later today more convenient?
Notice, you don't remind your customer what the information is about. You don't really care if they've read it or not. What you care about is: they asked you to do them a favour and send them some information.
You did.
Now they're morally oblig ed to acknowledge what you've done for them, and talk to you for a few seconds. They owe you 30 seconds of their time. You've got 30 seconds to hook your fish.
You'll call very few individuals who are so mean, rude and ill -mannered that they expect you to do them a favour (sending valuable information) and then feel that they don't even need to say "thank you" for it. Such slobs are few and far between.
Do you really want them as customers with whom you have to do business every month?
Thankfully, most people in your markets are fair minded. They realise that if they asked you to do them a favour and send them something, then once you've obliged them and sent it, they owe you 30 seconds of their time. You've got that 30 seconds to get them interested enough to keep listening some more.
During that 30 seconds you've got to SELL yourself and your company (Step 2) and ask them a Hook question which gets them talking (Step 3).
Now that you have FOUND your client you move into SELLING mode. To discover the full use of agreement staircases, and the words to say at this moment, you need to see our companion e-book ‘Sales Conversion System’ where you'll find a full explanation of Hook Questions and Agreement Staircases, in the section on Gaining Attention.
When you start using the introduction and bypass like this, you should here no more "I didn't get it/I haven't read it."
Your prospect isn't being asked if they've read your information, they're being reminded that you did them a favour, and asked if they have a moment.
Mr. Cork: I haven't had a chance to read it yet, perhaps you could call again next month...
D.R.: That's O.K. Mr. Cork, there's just one point which needs clarifying before then though, do you have a moment?
Step 2. Sell yourself and your offer.
You must sell yourself and your offer in two or three sentences. The step should go like this:
D.R.: Mr. Cork, since we've never met, let me mention that we HAVE AN IDEA FOR YOU which we believe can help you expand your business quickly and easily. My name again is Ross, David Ross.
Step 3. Hook Question(s)
You now move immediately into the Attention and Interest steps. You do this with a hook question. One like:
Do you sell to XXXX?
Are you Number One in the YYY market?
(The YYY will be the main market(s) that you believe your prospect wants to sell to.)
The purpose of your Hook question is to get your client talking - about themselves and about their plans. Once they're talking, you can either close for an appointment, or go through the complete sales call on the phone.
You should expect to sell advertising space to any prospect who will talk to you on your second call.
The easiest way to avoid spending money on anything is to brush off the sales executive who is selling it. So get them talking, and they’ll struggle to brush you off.
If you can get your prospect talking and involved, then more often than not, you'll sell to them. Your prospect has already identified themselves as someone who has (a little) interest and money. You now need to fan the glowing embers of their interest into a flame. You can only do that if they'll talk to you.
The people who take your second call are those you've qualified for interest and money. They've not agreed that they're keen to book. But once you can get them talking and thinking about their needs, you can begin to work on their problems.
Their best defense against buying from you is not to discuss the subject!
Your hook question or questions make them talk. As they begin to open up you can explore their problems and move into your sales story.
So. With this method of prospecting:
· you blast out a blizzard of 'junk' calls to a list of suspects.
· If a suspect shows interest (and has money) you label them a 'likely prospect' and mail them.
· Your mailing puts them under a (very small) obligation to take your second call.
· During that call, your "One quick point that can't wait ..." holds them for a moment.
· Your hook question GRABS their interest and starts a conversation -- a SALES conversation.
You need a number of hook questions, which you can use on different prospects. You won't manage to get them all into each conversation. But if you do it right, for every 10 prospects who take your second call -- you can expect to get six or seven talking.
Step 4. Close for an Appointment, or Begin to Sell
Step 4 depends on your method of selling. If you sell exclusively by telephone, you move into the rest of your sales sequence.
If you sell face to face, you close for an appointment.
You close for an appointment by stating a benefit to them of seeing you, and then offering them a time when you're available:
D.R.: Mr. Cork, Wouldn't it be an excellent idea if I showed you just what we're talking about? Our ideas could bring you in substantial new business over the next few weeks.
I could come over on Wednesday at 4.10 or Friday morning at 9.50. Which of those would suit you better?
During your second call, you pass from prospecting to selling. The call is a TRANSITION stage. Once you know that your prospect needs to solve a problem which YOU can solve for them, has some money, and is willing to talk to you - you want to keep them!
You're no longer discarding rubbish. You're selling to a client. Once your client bites on your hook question, you're into your sales strategy. The time for rejecting a suspect is over. The moment to begin selling to your client has arrived. You move into the Attention step of the sale.
Getting Past the GATEKEEPER
Here's a problem that you'll have to deal with frequently -- the dragon in the front office.
Executives with power live in lairs, deep in their office blocks. Just outside their lair, they keep a dragon who's employed to keep out unwanted
callers.
When you're cold calling, that unwanted caller is YOU
Once you turn the executive into your client -- once the executive knows you and is happy to take your calls -- his dragon will welcome you. While you're still just another cold - calling sales executive, his dragon snarls and belches flame.
But how can you persuade an executive to know you and love you when you can't ev en get to speak to him? Until you can get past most of the gatekeepers most of the time, you won't have mastered the art of successful prospecting .
However, you'll never get past them all.
After you've made several attempts at any particular gatekeeper and failed -- give up. Find another prospect.
than you ever will - and is likely to know something of his or her plans.
Some hard-line managers train their sales teams to try and force their way past a gatekeeper with this:
(Ring ring)
Secretary: Good morning, Mr. Cork's office.
D.R.: Good morning. Is Gary in?
Secretary: May I tell him who is calling?
D.R.: It’s David Ross. I'd like to speak to Gary. Is he in?
Secretary: May I tell him what it is about?.
D.R.: Yes. You can tell him that it's Mr. Ross. I'd like to speak to Mr. Cork on an urgent business matter - now. Please put me through.
This brutal method works. Once.
But it doesn't work twice to the same gatekeeper or the same executive. Once your call is over, the executive calls the gatekeeper and shouts at them for not screening you out.
What happens the next time you call?
Don’t antagonise, and don’t demean the gatekeeper. They're only doing what they're paid to do - screening callers.
As part of that screening, they'll invite you to leave a message for the boss.
DON'T
Don’t leave messages with a gatekeeper. Unless the boss knows you, he or she won’t ring back.
Who rings back a sales executive to sell something they don’t already know and use?
The only honest message you can leave with a gatekeeper is one which tells the boss that you want to part them from their money.
You can leave a mysterious or teasing message. You can trick the executive into calling you back. But when the return call comes, you'll only have stored up some grief for yourself.
Do you really want to receive abusive calls from people you’ve tricked into calling you? On a regular basis, they'll spoil your self esteem and destroy your ability to sell. So don't set yourself up to receive them. Don’t leave messages with a gatekeeper, keep calling back.
Here's how you should respond, when a gatekeeper offers to take a message.
(Ring ring)
Secretary: Good Morning. This is Mr. Jones office.
You: Hello. Is he in?
Secretary: Not at the moment. He's in a meeting. Can I take a message?
You: No Thanks. I'll call back later. (Click).
Here are 4 methods for getting past gatekeepers. None of these methods will work every time, although they increase your chances of getting through. But some executives build themselves a screen that's almost impossible to penetrate.
Don’t waste your time trying to break into their fortress by smashing down the front door, or sneaking in by swimming the moat and climbing the back wall . You don't HAVE the TIME to waste on these games. Find another prospect.
Method 1
Give the gatekeeper a benefit and ask to be put through.
(Ring ring)
Secretary: Good morning. Mr. Gough's office.
D.R.: Good morning. This is David Ross from Mega Corp. I need to speak to Mr. Gough about a special plan we've prepared for him, which involves finding some new customers for you. Could you connect me please?
Secretary: Um.. I’ll see if he is in.
Mr. Gough: Hello?
This method doesn't always work. But it's very quick, and it's honest with the gatekeeper. They know who you are and (a little bit) about why you're calling.
Often, you'll hear the keeper put down the phone and yell across the office. “Oh, John! There's someone on the phone from Mega Corp. It's something to do with new customers.”
John will be saying to himself, “What new customers? Where are they? What's going on?” He's likely to take the call, just to satisfy his curiosity.
Method 2
Ask the gatekeeper a question which they can’t answer.
In this method you act as if the gatekeeper is the decision maker and then ask him or her a question which they can't answer. If possible you also appeal to their self interest.
(Ring ring)
Secretary: Good morning, Mr. Nott’s office.
D.R.: Good morning. This is David Ross at Mega Corp. Do you work with Mr. Nott?
Secretary: Yes. I'm Fiona, the assistant development manager (deputy planning executive/ marketing initiatives manager/ Senior Secretary etc. etc. All these titles = GATEKEEPER).
D.R.: Great, Fiona! I'm calling about an important new IDEA which we've developed for you and Mr. Nott.
We believe that we can find you some new customers more quickly, easily and
cheaply than your present method.
Tell me, what percentage of your new business spend costs you more than $250 per client per contract, and how much is each new client worth to you over the 18 months after you've captured their business?
Secretary: Um, I’m not sure. perhaps you'd better talk to Mr. Nott.
The PURPOSE of this technique is to ask a question which only the boss can answer. You may not get put through, the gatekeeper may find out the answer and call you back. But you'll get through a good percentage of the time.
Method 3
News of the competition.
This is for those accounts which you're so keen to contact, you're prepared to invest some time in preparation.
Before you make this call you need to find out a bit about your prospect's competition, and how their leading competitor is doing things (like finding new business).
Suppose you're calling solicitors (specialist lawyers) in your area. Solicitors get several calls a day from all sorts of sales executives, and they all have efficient, well-practiced, gatekeepers.
But most solicitors are ALWAYS keen to know how the OTHER lawyers in their area are getting their business. They're curious to know of any advantage which their rivals might be gaining over them.
So, if you can discover some new informati on about the plans of one firm of lawyers, you can ring 10 or 20 competing firms with this news!
You really only want one good, meaty piece of information or news
If you're polite, pleasant and persistent, the firm which you call will often give you a reason why they're turning you away, out of courtesy.
Imagine that they reply:
Answer: “It's pointless for you to make a presentation to us, because our marketing budget is already being spent elsewhere”. If you ask NICELY, and show your concern to HELP them -- rather than just being interested in the contents of their wallet – many will feel obliged to indicate where that “elsewhere” is - how they're spending their marketing money.
Accept that information, thank them, and hang up. Then call all the other firms in the area.
(Ring ring)
Secretary: Sue Grabbitt and Runne, may I help you?
D.R.: Good Morning. This is David Ross from Mega Corp. May I speak with Miss Jones please? Secretary: I am afraid that she's busy. May I ask what this is in connection with?
D.R.: I am calling about Smith & Partners - your competition. (Perhaps you shouldn't have to point out who the competition is, but with so many temps and new secretaries, it's always worth emphasising).
Secretary: Can you be more specific?
D.R.: I've got some information for Miss Jones concerning some new plans Smith & Partners are working on to capture your clients. Can you put me through please?
Secretary: Can't you give me the information?
D.R.: This is really only for Miss Jones. Is it possible to talk to her?
(This is different from the hard-line "Put me through!" because you're offering some delicate, private information, which you can reasonably withhold from the gatekeeper).
As in the first case, you can expect the gatekeeper to speak to the boss and tell her that there's some geek on the phone, with information on Smith & Partners’ new plans to steal her clients.
Just make sure that you've got something worth saying when the boss picks up the phone.
If you have, then not only will the boss will listen to you, she'll gladly take your call the next time you ring. And every time you call thereafter. It might be smart not to sell to the boss on your first call. Just give her the lowdown on her competitor.
Then call again in a couple of days time with your own sales message.
Method 4
This method can be used with Method 3. Like method 3, it wastes too much time to use on a routine suspect. You use this method when you are calling a prospect whose name you have been given as a referral, or one which you are certain is worth spending time on. It's the pre -approach call.
(Ring ring)
Secretary: Good morning, Miss Jones's office
D.R.: Good morning. This is David Ross of Mega Corp. Please tell Miss Jones that I'll be calling her this afternoon at 2.15 with some important news about Smith & Partners. O.K.?
Secretary: Very good. I'll tell her.
(At 2.10)(Ring ring)
D.R.: Hello. This is David at Mega Corp. Miss Jones is expecting my call concerning Smith & Partners. Would you put me through please?
You then proceed as wit h Method 3.
If you fail to get past the gatekeeper after 3 or 4 attempts, move on to the next name on your list .
You've got thousands of suspects waiting out there. The problem is having enough TIME to call them all
Don’t worry much about those executives who don't wish to talk to you. They're still only SUSPECTS. If they don’t want to talk to you, you don’t want to talk to them.
LETTERS TO HELP Find New Business
Here is a series of three letters you can use to generate some leads. They are a crossover between a push and a pull method. They invite each suspect to respond to you (the pull) and if they don’t …. you call them anyway (the push).
These prospecting letters together count as one click on your marketing activity log (see Lead Generation System) because they go together.
Once you have your system set up, it’s easy to send out 20 of each letter each week. Over time, they will bring in a steady stream of new clients, to add to the clients who come in from other streams.
The first is the 'Who' letter. Next we'll look at the 'What' letter, and then the
'When, Why and Where' letter
The three letters work together, and are mailed one after the other -- one a week -- for three weeks. The third letter asks for an appointment, either in person, or a telephone meeting (set up with a date, a time, and a likely duration, just like any face-to-face meeting).
Three days after mailing the third letter you phone the client. That call counts as a ‘cold call’.
To test this idea, you should mail out the first of your prospecting letters to five, or ten, prospects per week. That will give you fifteen to thirty prospects to follow up with in three weeks.
Because you'll have to follow up these letters with a call, they'll give you something to do. Something to sink your teeth into—and it will help eliminate the ‘shufflin’ blues’ when your prospecting.
What's more, when you make the call, these letters will give you something to talk about, a foundation to build from. They'll warm up your cold calls.
You see, by closely following the theme of these prospecting letters, you'll sound knowledgeable because you have something to say. They'll help you with the "um's", "ah's", and dead spaces we all fear.
Further, by following these "micro-scripts" you can LISTEN better. Because you have your words ready, you can concentrate better on what your client has to say.
Read this first letter, and then we'll re-write it.
THE 'WHO' LETTER
Dear Ms. Adams,
"You don't spend all day worrying about XXX …. But we do!"
We can help you with XXX. Why?
Because we've been dedicated to helping our clients aggressively XXX last twenty two years. We know who spends their money -- when -- and on what products and services.
We have the data to help you accurately target the right group of people. What's more, we can consistently produce superior quality XXX just to make your job easier.
I'm writing you today to introduce our XXX plan. At Ace Weekly we have the most YYY within the metro area, and we're the only local company which ZZZ!
Over the next few weeks, I will be sending you additional information about the benefits XXX plan offers you.
Sincerely,
David Ross
David Ross
P.S. To learn more immediately, visit our Web site at www.Megapubs.com or call me at 6378459 for further information.
You can see that this letter is very short and DOESN'T ask for anything. You are just beginning to show up on your client's radar.
Next week you'll home in a bit closer, and the week after that you WILL ask for something. For now, you're just a blip.
Now sit down and rewrite this letter to reflect YOUR circumstances. The PURPOSE
of this letter is to get a response, not a sale. That's all you want.
Once someone responds, then you can start a dialogue with them, using all the tools described in this report.
Ask yourself these questions:
· What need does this prospect have that I can serve? (new business?)
· Which type of advert is best for this account?
· Why would you send for the report if you were this pro spect?
If you offer TOO MUCH information in the hopes of getting a booking you'll CONFUSE the buyer, they'll lose interest and you won't get a response, much less the sale.
We'll give them some more information in the NEXT letter - the 'What' letter.
THE 'WHAT' LETTER
(Mailed seven days after the "Who Letter".)
Dear Ms. Adams
"All XXX works .… It's YYY that makes the difference!"
At Ace Weekly every single person, every piece of equipment -- especially our computerised database -- are designed to YYY.
And when you work with us, you needn’t worry about wasting money by ZZZ -- because we can YYY so that you get a cost effective RESULT.
Over the last twenty two years we've worried about XXX, studied and purchased the finest equipment available, and hired the best people possible so that we can deliver to you, while you can concentrate on delivering the promises you've made to YOUR customers.
The more you know about YYY, the better Ace Weekly looks. Call me on 6375289 to find out how our higher standard of delivering XXX can lower your costs of doing business.
Yours sincerely,
David Ross
David Ross
P.S. Visit our Web site at www.Megapubs.com or call me at 6375459 for further information.
You can see that this letter is AGAIN very short and DOESN'T ask for anything. We are showing up on your client's radar for the second time. They MIGHT just recognise your name from last week ....
Now sit down and rewrite this letter. The PURPOSE of this letter is a response, not a sale. That's all you want.
THE "WHERE, WHEN, AND WHY" LETTER
(Mailed seven days after the "What Letter".)
Dear Ms. Adams,
Have you ever heard the phrase "Winking in the dark"?
Because if you wink at someone in the dark, they can't see you -- so they fai l to get your message.
Getting your XXX to as many of the right people as possible, as efficiently as possible …. is the most effective way to grow your business, isn’t it?
If you let us YYY for you and your business …. you will find ZZZ.
Because ….. Further, ….
And finally, we can …
If you're willing to risk TWELVE MINUTES of your time, I can show you several exciting ways that our proven company, quality YYY and GREAT ideas WILL find you new
customers.
Which means to you that you'll find more new business easier, quicker and less expensively than ever before…..
I will call you Tuesday, October 9th, to set up a 12 minute
appointment. Yours sincerely,
David Ross
David Ross
P.S. We have packaged several of our BEST ideas for finding new customers into two
special 8 page reports.
If you'd like me to send you a free copy of these reports -- which we have previously sold for $27.00 each, please let me know when I call you, and I'll be happy to send you a copy at once.
This is the last of the ‘push’ letters.
Three days after you mail this letter, you call the client and ask for a meeting, or a 12 minute 'telephone meeting'. (12 minutes is not too long, but shows that it is a
FORMAL meeting which should be scheduled for a specific time, and NOT interrupted.)
Wh at's more, when you make the call, these letters will give you something to talk about, a foundation to build from. They'll warm up your cold calls. Note especially the 'P.S.' in this letter. It gives you the first line to your sales call ....
“Can I send you the free copy of the $27 report I wrote about? … Would you like …”
Guidelines for the ‘Special Reports’ for you to send
A Special Report is a step by step list of guidelines produced by an expert (you) on the uses of XXX for the benefit of your ‘suspects’.
The purpose of a Special Report is to get as many ‘suspects’ as possible on a list or sub-list to raise their hands and say: ‘Please send me one. I’m interested.’
A report does this by promising to instruct the reader on how to achieve a certain
obj ective, or to avoid a certain problem. A Special Report can be from 5 pages to fifty or sixty pages long in length.
Special reports are a quick way to establish yourself as the expert on solving the problem(s) described in the report.
Nobody wants to buy XXX. Everybody wants the RESULTS that XXX brings
So your report should concentrate on the results which you achieve and the benefits which those results bring.
Special Reports give your suspects valuable beneficial information. It is a very giving process. Because you are the person providing this information you are seen to be generous. You will be "paid" back many times over with new clients/customers
For example, you can issue a press release highlighting the fact that the Special Report is available. Make special note of the best points and mention how people can get hold of the report.
You can also use Special Reports as seminar handouts, additions to brochures or turn them into published articles, etc.
Once your Special Report is written, you can use it forever. You just need to update it every so often. Special Reports are timeless lead
generation tools which can be used on list after list after list.
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