After five years in profit, Paul Jackson, chief executive of First Recovery, could be forgiven for thinking everything was OK. However, last May the company realised it wasn’t growing fast enough and was over-reliant on big customers. A reseller channel was required, but this would mean some serious leg work… or rather phone work.
“There’s just no substitute for getting on the dog and bone,” says Jackson. “No send-outs, no letters, no mailers, just cold-canvassing potential resellers. I started at 8:30am with my last call at 6pm, every day, five days a week, for two months.”
It wasn’t fun, but it paid off. Through a mix of hard work and luck, Jackson found his man. But then cold calling is partly about luck. It might be the first call or the 15th. Cold calling is a numbers game, but you can stack the odds in your favour.
Research and planning
Don’t just plough your way through the Yellow Pages, but search for your quarry before picking up the phone. Basic internet research will enable you to find information such as names of key stakeholders, business history and mission statements, which will help you plan your call. The most likely buyers are those that have done it before, and this can also often be discovered prior to your call.
Sean McPheat, founder of MTD Sales Training, helps business owners improve their sales techniques. He advises planning with contingencies worked in before calling up.
“Have a framework in place for how you are going to handle the call. Then if someone throws a spanner in the works, you’ll be able to continue,” he says.
The internet means that buyers are so much better informed about who you are and what the market has to offer. This means your approach must be different and in many cases less direct. You should set yourself primary aims, like making a sale or arranging an appointment, but also secondary objectives like gaining information on key buyers.
“A lot of people phone up and if they don’t get what they want, they just give up. You need to have a plan B,” says McPheat.
Making the call
So many of our ideas about selling come from America and there are dozens of cheesy books out there offering sure-fire techniques. However, most of these will fail with UK customers or won’t improve success rates. McPheat laments the sales approach of ‘smile while you dial’ and advises people to be less upbeat.
“I tell people to tone down the enthusiasm, because as soon as you say: ‘Hello, how are you today?’ they know it’s a sales call and the barriers will come up,” he explains. “After all, why are you asking how they are? You don’t even know them.”
Clare Young demonstrated winning sales skills on BBC’s The Apprentice. After filming, she sold IT equipment to the public sector for Sir Alan Sugar’s Viglen. She now has a sales role working for Karren Brady at Birmingham City Football Club and believes you must focus on the reason for your call. “You never ask people how they are; they aren’t there to be friends,” she says. “You’re there to do business.”
Jonnie Evans, founder of recruitment business Discovery Recruitment and Training, has spent most of his working life in sales. He says the internet has also changed the buying habits of businesses and that it has made them more resistant to old-school methods.
“The really professional sales people have changed. Around 20 years ago they spent less time asking really good questions and spent more time pressure selling,” says Evans. “People used to buy locally and there was less choice, but then the internet came along and now there’s almost too much choice.”
This leads to the conclusion that listening to problems and finding solutions is the best way to sell. All good salespeople agree that the most important thing is to listen to customers.
“Selling is about motivating someone to action through intelligent dialogue,” says Evans. “It’s about asking people what they want and finding a solution. It isn’t about providing them with something that they don’t need.”
Breaching the defences
Dealing with gatekeepers, as Jackson found, can be very annoying. “He says he ain’t interested,” he was told by one receptionist, leaving him seething and thinking: “What the hell do you know about my product – what did you tell him?” knowing he couldn’t actually say this. Another rebuff Jackson encountered was: “We don’t give out names. Send some information.”
Such reactions stem from British firms being subject to years of cold calling. But as a business owner, it’s easier to sound more important than the average sales executive, and this can work to your advantage. “Make yourself sound as important as you can,” advises McPheat. “You’ve got to make them think that they will be cocking up if they don’t put you through.”
Young says asking for assistance is often a good way to get people to open up. “‘Can you help me?’ is a good thing to ask someone – people don’t like to say no,” she advises.
Of course, one way to avoid gatekeepers is to call when they aren’t there. “I’ve been commended for selling before 8am and after 6pm, when a lot
of the gatekeepers have gone home,” says Evans.
Sell the right thing
All entrepreneurs can rattle off their business’ proposition, but this isn’t what they are selling. Often you’ll have to meet with the business involved and this means you should be focusing on selling the meeting not your product. “Sell the appointment,” says McPheat, “not your wares.”
It’s tempting to try to do it all over the phone in one go, but it’s unlikely to work if the deal is for anything large or long-term. When Young was working for Viglen she knew she had to get meetings booked.
“I would say things like: ‘I am going to be in the area, can I pop in and see you?’” she says. At the appointment she would work on the deal – the call was just to get through the door.
Offer the business
Always, always offer the deal. It sounds obvious, but this is one of the most common mistakes made in sales – forgetting to offer the deal. Many salespeople sell the benefits, but forget to make an offer. Always do this, even if you think that they will say no – after all that’s the worst thing that can happen.
“Every call has to be followed up by an action,” says Young.
If you don’t follow up you won’t get the business. Your list of targets will form a shorter list of prospects and a shorter list of maybes. Eventually one will land in your net, but when it does you mustn’t ease up, but continue to approach more targets and push more down the pipeline.
Yes, it’s going to be a slog, but the rewards are worth it.
So good luck!