Tag Archives: Cold Calling

How to Navigate the Buyer’s Journey

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For a while, I’ve been talking about how “sales processes” are outdated, and that the important issue in sales now is to understand and navigate the Buyer’s Journey.  In fact, it’s a big focal point of my Webinar that’s coming up next week, “The Top Four Sales Trends That Could Double Your Bottom Line.”  That said, I haven’t explained what the Buyer’s Journey is.  That’s the focus of today’s article.

We are living in a perfect storm in sales right now.  Several elements that are cultural, technological, and generational have empowered buyers.  I’ve said for many years that salespeople who thought they had “control” over the customer were kidding themselves, and I was right.  But today’s buyer has control.  And they damn well know it.  And YOU had better know it, too, and respect it.  If you do, you can not only survive.  You can prosper, thrive, and quite frankly, kick the asses of the (many) salespeople who will choose not to internalize this fact of their professional life.  So, without further ado, here is now to navigate the buyer’s journey:

Step One:  Motivation

Every Buyer’s Journey begins with Motivation.  Something provokes that buyer to feel dissatisfaction with his or her current situation and envision a desired future situation.  The simplest example would be a buyer thinking, “I’m hungry,” and envisioning a time when he is no longer hungry because he’s eaten something satisfying.  That’s how motivation works.  It begins from a feeling of discontent, and the buyer begins his or her journey.

So, how does motivation happen?  You might not have realized this, but most advertising is aimed at creating that feeling of dissatisfaction in its audience.  Ads for Coca-Cola, for instance, try to make you discontented because you’re not drinking a tasty, ice cold Coke right now.  Ads for cars try to make you feel discontented with the old heap you’re driving around in (even if that heap is only a year old).  And so on, and so forth.  Advertisers attempt to create a feeling of dissatisfaction in the minds of their target customers – and get them to envision a better future state in which their products or services ease the buyer’s pain.

Motivation can also be produced through sales techniques like cold calling, email prospecting, social media outreach and prospecting, and other direct outreach tactics.  Salespeople who excel at cold calling know that they must create dissatisfaction through the words that they use – for instance, a salesperson might tell a prospective customer how they have helped a similar company to solve a problem that the prospect might be facing and then use questions to draw the prospect into a conversation.  It’s important to remember that, when prospecting, you aren’t trying to sell the customer.  You are just trying to create that feeling of dissatisfaction that will motivate the prospect to embark on a buying journey.  In fact, most of the time, the salesperson is not as much creating dissatisfaction as he is highlighting and bringing a latent dissatisfaction to the surface.

Step Two: Investigation

After the buyer has become Motivated and decides to move into a buying journey, the next step is Investigation.  At this point, the buyer knows that he or she is dissatisfied with the status quo, and that there is a better future out there.  But what exactly is the source of that dissatisfaction?  Where does that dissatisfaction rank in terms of priorities?  In the Investigation phase, the buyer’s needs and wants are prioritized.  Think of it like a visit to the doctor when you aren’t feeling well.  The doctor will ask you questions about your symptoms to define the unwell feeling.  In the same way, salespeople will ask questions of the buyer and analyze data and information to help the buyer define his or her needs or wants.

The Investigation phase goes far beyond the simple, outdated process of “qualifying,” to help the buyer define a successful purchase.  We know that there is a desired future situation that the buyer is seeking – in the Investigation phase, we help the buyer define what that situation is and how to get there.  The key to a successful Investigation is comprehensive, customer-centric questioning.  Remember, the buyer is the star of this show.  Our job is to help him get to that future state.  Questioning that is limited, narrow, and leading will work against the buyer – and likely get you kicked out of the Buyer’s Journey.  You can’t navigate the Buyer’s Journey if the buyer kicks you out of it.

Make no mistake – the Investigation phase is the key to winning the sale.  If you do not correctly capture, interpret, and understand the buyer’s needs, you cannot make up for it later in the process.  We need to make the most of this time.

Step Three: Solution

Once we have correctly identified and understood the buyer’s needs (the source of their dissatisfaction with the status quo), it’s time to show them how we can solve those needs – or, if we cannot solve them, discontinue our participation in the Buyer’s Journey.  Wait, what?  Discontinue?  Yes.  If we continue to push our products and services, knowing they won’t fix the buyer’s problem, we kill our credibility. Many a future sale has been won by a salesperson who told the buyer, frankly and honestly, that they could not solve the buyer’s problem.  And, let’s face it – the buyer will figure it out anyway.

In this phase, the salesperson must present his or her plan for solving the problem, as well as showing the advantages and benefits of adopting the salesperson’s plan by buying what the salesperson has to offer.  Further, the salesperson should show why his solution is the best available solution.  In today’s information age, the buyer can easily access data like product specifications, features and benefits, etc., so the salesperson should focus on customized presentations that directly address the buyer’s definition of success, as established in the Investigation phase.

Step Four:  Evaluation

Evaluation can be thought of as the “price and terms” phase.  At this point, if your buyer has expressed genuine interest in a purchase, he’ll likely ask the classic question:  “How much?”  It’s our recommendation to make the answer to that as quick, concise, and to the point as possible.  The more you babble before telling the customer how much a solution costs, the more the customer understands that you are scared of your price.  This invariably leads to negotiation, which in turn leads to discounting.

Make no mistake – what the buyer wants from you at this point is to know what they will be asked to pay.  Answer them.  The buyer will be asking themselves three questions:

  1. Can I afford it?
  2. Are the terms acceptable?
  3. Does it represent good value?

If the customer answers all three of those questions “yes,” you probably have a win on your hands.

Step Five:  Decision

In the Decision phase the customer decides to buy or not buy.  Your job is to ask them to do so.  The key to the Decision phase is simple.  Ask yourself four questions:

  1. Is your customer motivated?  In other words, does the customer feel dissatisfaction with the status quo in such a way that a purchase would create a desired future situation?
  2. Have you assisted the customer in a complete investigation of his or her needs, helped her define success, and gotten her agreement that you have accurately captured the source of her dissatisfaction?
  3. Have you shown the customer a solution for the dissatisfaction, and gotten his agreement that this would relieve the dissatisfaction?
  4. Have you helped the customer evaluate your solution by quoting price and terms in a simple fashion?

If the answer to all four of these questions is “yes,” then you have to ask the customer to buy.  Period.

And that, in short form, is how you navigate the Buyer’s Journey.  How important is this?  It’s vital. Going forward, my sales training will be centered around this concept, because I believe in preparing salespeople for the NEXT 20 years in sales, rather than the last fifty.

Why Doesn’t Cold Calling Work Anymore?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of selling.  Last week, I defined the four trends that I believe will drive sales into the rest of the 21st century, and I’m even hosting a Webinar on those trends on July 6.  One of the dangers of thinking about the future, however, is that you lose sight of what worked in the past and can still work today.  I’m not going to do that.  That’s why this week’s Navigator is going to be about why, if you think cold calling doesn’t work, maybe the problem is you and your skills.

Cold calling is probably the oldest technique for generating new prospects.  It’s taken many forms over the years, but it’s still around.  Should it be?  Spoiler alert – YES.  But you have to be good at it.  Yesterday, I had a cold call that illustrated something I’ve been saying for years:  If you think cold calling doesn’t work anymore, you’re probably lousy at it.  I’m going to tell you about the cold call I received, where he went wrong, and how you can do it right (and why you still should).

Yesterday, I was cold-called by a guy who was selling recruitment services that matched military veterans to employers (a worthwhile cause).  On the face of it, this is probably a guy who should be talked to if you are hiring.  Here’s where he went wrong.

The first time he called, his phone connection was so bad that I couldn’t understand anything he was saying.  He said, “This happened on my last call, let me switch phones and call you back.”  Wait – if it happened on his last call, why didn’t he just stay on the other phone and call me from that one?

When he called back, he introduced himself with his name and company (good so far).  Then, he went into a long spiel about what his company did, and that this was definitely a sales call, that he’d be wanting to talk about getting my hiring business, and could he have 30 seconds?  This spiel took him more than 30 seconds.  I timed it.  So at this point, I just explained that I don’t do hiring because I don’t have a staff.  That’s not 100% true, as I just hired my very own sales executive (the business is growing), but I didn’t have any MORE need for hiring.

Then he asked, “Well, could you tell me who would do all the hiring at Salesforce?  It’s a big company.”  That’s when it dawned on me.  He thought he was calling an executive at Salesforce.  For those of you who haven’t been with me for the nearly 19-year ride of my business (most of you), I’ll give you the backstory.

When I started my business on September 1, 2004, I called it “Salesforce Solutions.”  The idea was not that I worked with the Salesforce CRM, it was that I solve companies’ problems with their own sales forces.  Seemed like a great idea, but it wasn’t, due to marketplace confusion (up to and including calls like this one).  That’s why I rebranded around my own name in 2014 – ten years ago.  This guy had somehow gotten ahold of ten year old data and thought that he was calling an exec with a large company.  I explained his mistake to him, politely, and wished him well.

He is probably thinking, “I don’t know why I’m cold calling – cold calling doesn’t work!”  No.  He’s just very, very bad at it.   Before I give you the four keys to being good at cold calling, however, I want to talk about the elephant that I put in the middle of the room.

If I’m talking about the future of selling, artificial intelligence, what ChatGPT can do, etc., then why am I talking about this old sales technique?  Simple.  First of all, cold call prospecting is STILL the most controllable way that salespeople can build their businesses and attract new customers.  Other strategies, such as networking events, social media, etc., are great and can work, but they are not numerically predictable and controllable.  And we need a method that is.  Cold-call prospecting should be part of your repertoire and routine.

Second – and now we can directly look the elephant in the eyes – cold calling is not (yet) something that AI can do well.  In the article I wrote a few weeks ago, I said that salespeople need to get better at those things that AI cannot do well.  Cold calling is one of those things. By using AI well in things that it’s good at, and then using the time saved to improve your skills at the things it does not do well, you can become the complete package.  With that said, here are the four keys to being good at cold call prospecting:

  1. Test your technology. This means that, if you’re using the phone, make sure that you get a good connection and that you are understandable on the other end of the line.  If you sound like you’re calling from the bottom of an oil well, find a different phone.  You MUST be understandable.  And while we’re on the topic, no damned auto-dialers!  As a call recipient, nothing kills your chances quite like the 2-3 seconds of dead phone line between the time that the call recipient answers and says, “Hello?  HELLO?” and you pick up and start talking.  Use your fingers and dial the phone.
  2. Use a good database. Even the best databases can have about a 10% obsolescence factor – but in this case, “obsolete data” means a year and a half, not ten years.  I think someone would have to be working hard to find data old enough for my past company name.  By the way, here’s a quick hack.  Most good library systems have subscriptions to free database services like ReferenceUSA, Data Axle, A to Z Databases, or the like.  These databases give all pertinent information including contact names.  You must have a NAME to ask for – not “the person who.”
  3. Be concise and powerful. From the time your prospect picks up the phone, you have 15 seconds – MAXIMUM – to give that person a reason to talk to you.  Crap like “How are you today?”, “is this a good time?”, or other babbling uses up that 15 seconds, as well as your prospect’s patience.  Introduce yourself and give ONE powerful sentence that explains how you benefit your customers, and how you could benefit them.  Yes, this requires thinking and refinement.  DO IT.  You could even try getting ChatGPT to help you write the sentence!
  4. Ask a strong question. After giving your one-sentence explanation, ask an open ended question about the prospect’s potential problems and needs to stimulate the discussion.  Then you can ask for an appointment.

If you’re thinking that cold calling doesn’t work, it’s time to get good at prospecting.  Don’t waste your prospects’ time – or yours.

Another Way to Screw Up a Cold Call

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Cold calls have been on my mind again this week. There are several reasons for that. First of all, I received one a couple of days ago that had the classic “first three ways to kill a cold call.” Then, soon after, I received an email from a regular reader of the Navigator, and one of the things she said was this:

“At some time in a future weekly newsletter….would you mind talking about a sales person who won’t shut up?  This guy wouldn’t allow me to get out one full sentence of response without cutting me off.   Wouldn’t stop the sales pitch, even after I told him that for the most part, the services he was offering we didn’t need, but was very interested in one service.  Told him to get me info on that particular service and would sit down and talk with the owner about scheduling a meeting.  At that point, he went right back in to the overall sales pitch of all the services he had to offer again, and wouldn’t shut up even when I told him this wasn’t the most convenient time to talk and for a fact am on a deadline today.  He simply wouldn’t SHUT UP!  I finally had to abruptly end the call, of which he may have thought rude, but don’t care.”

Well, your wish is my command. Let’s go into the call I received, and then let’s talk about the call she received. We’ll figure out how to solve all of these issues together.

The call I received was a classic. I answered the phone, “Troy Harrison speaking.” If you call me, and I am able to pick up, that’s what you’ll hear. No “Dial 1 for,” or a receptionist – you’ll hear my voice ready to talk about sales. Sadly, I didn’t hear someone ready to talk about sales. Instead, I got a few seconds of silence – long enough to know that I had just been auto-dialed, and someone was about to pick up on the other end. I hate auto-dialers. If you use them, stop it.

Then, the woman on the other end said, “May I speak to Troy, please?” Good grief. Of course, since it was an auto-dialer, she didn’t hear that she was already talking to me. Now I know it’s a salesperson, and a bad one, but she was about to lock that description in. I replied, “You already are.”

“Hi, Troy. How are you today?” If you’re looking for the all-time dumb, moronic, time wasting, defense building, way to kill a cold call, this is it. There is only one type of person who says, “How are you today?” to someone they don’t know, and that’s a pesky, not well trained salesperson who can’t think of anything good to say, but thinks they are building some cheap rapport.

I sighed and said, “What can I help you with?” And she started into a spiel about some investment opportunity. I didn’t hear the end of it.

When you call someone, attempting to gain their interest in seeing you, talking to you, or buying from you, you have to give them a reason to talk to you without giving them reasons to put up their defenses. When people answer the phone, their defenses are typically down because they don’t know what the call is about. It could be a customer, a friend, a relative, or a salesperson. Your job is to give them a reason to talk to you while their defenses are down, because if you give them time and reason to put up their defenses, it’s much harder for your value message to get through. Look at the 20 seconds of the call I just described. She gave me three reasons to put up my defensese before she ever began a value message: The obvious auto-dialer, asking for me when I already said it was me (showing me that she wasn’t listening to whoever answered the phone), and then the obnoxious “How are you today?” Her call was DOA.

Now, let’s look at the different type of call that my friend wrote me to discuss. This call was not DOA. In fact, it was very much alive until the salesperson killed the call. Here are some of the things that my friend said:

“This guy wouldn’t allow me to get out one full sentence of response without cutting me off.” That’s a hallmark of a pre-scripted sales pitch. Worse, it’s the hallmark of just plain bad manners. When your customer or prospect is talking, words are coming out of their mouth – and those words could be important. Shut up and listen, even if it’s not taking you down your pre-scripted path. Sometimes customers don’t know their lines because they haven’t seen your script – but if they’re talking to you on a cold call, that’s a good thing.

“Wouldn’t stop the sales pitch, even after I told him that for the most part, the services he was offering we didn’t need, but was very interested in one service.  Told him to get me info on that particular service and would sit down and talk with the owner about scheduling a meeting.” Are you banging your head on your desk right now? Me too. The salesperson was winning the call, and wasn’t capable of seeing it. She didn’t just say “interested.” She said, “Very interested.” Granted, he wasn’t talking to the decision maker – but he’s the one who called. I’m betting that this was the classic “person who” call, i.e., the salesperson asked the receptionist to speak to the “person who” handled his particular service (this is another call-killer, by the way). The salesperson had her interest. He had her commitment to attempt to set a meeting with the owner of the company. This was a WIN. And he still turned it into a loss.

“At that point, he went right back in to the overall sales pitch of all the services he had to offer again, and wouldn’t shut up even when I told him this wasn’t the most convenient time to talk and for a fact am on a deadline today.  He simply wouldn’t SHUT UP!  I finally had to abruptly end the call, of which he may have thought rude, but don’t care.” Amazing. Defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory, and that’s what is frustrating to me as a salesperson. My friend might have genuinely benefited from the service he was offering, but we’ll never know because he burned the call.

What this salesperson didn’t realize is that a sales call is a dialogue, not a monologue. Worse, he failed to recognize an opportunity when he saw one – likely due to poor or nonexistent training.

Don’t be that guy. Instead, open the call right (avoid the call killers that I mentioned), and remember to make the cold call a dialogue. Cold calling is still a viable way to generate new business; I have a feeling that most salespeople who think otherwise aren’t doing it right.

Five Common Sales Call Killers That You Should Avoid

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Have you ever committed sales suicide by one of these five common sales call killers?  Chances are that you have, and you might not even know it.

Salespeople have a lot of tactics and techniques that turn out to be both time-wasters and contact-breakers.  Many times, when I ask them what they’re doing, they tell me that they’re “trying to make the prospect comfortable.”  That might be true, but usually, the truth is that they are trying to make THEMSELVES comfortable.  If you do some of these things, you might take the time to ask yourself why – and who it is you’re trying to comfort? Here are five common sales call killers that you should avoid – and many salespeople do them every day.

“Hi, Mr. Prospect.  How are you today?”  This is the all-time time waster, and is the death of more potentially great sales conversations than any other phrase.  It’s also the most common, and in my training, I warn against it.  When this is used in a cold-prospecting environment by a salesperson who doesn’t know the prospect, it’s a virtual announcement to the prospect that the caller is a pesky salesperson who is incapable of making the most of his or her time on the phone.  The reaction by the prospect is always the same:  “Uh, fine.  Who is this?” or some variation on the theme.  But what has happened with that simple little phrase is that the prospect, whom you really want to approach your call with an open mind, has now geared up his or her defenses and is prepared to resist.  That’s pretty much the opposite of what you want to happen.  The truth is that “how are you today” is a bridge to a conversation built by a salesperson who is uncomfortable with his or her message, and is stalling before delivering it.  Don’t be that guy (or gal).  Get comfortable with your message, and dump that question.

“Is this a good time for me to call?”  Here’s the truth – when you’re calling a decision maker, it’s hardly ever a great time to call.  Therefore, the best thing you can do is be as respectful as possible of their time by being impactful and communicating value.  But asking that question creates a great opportunity for the prospect to dump you off the phone, never to hear from you again.  Again, this is delivered by salespeople uncomfortable with their own message.  Instead, go ahead and make a GOOD approach statement.  If it’s REALLY a bad time, your prospect will tell you.

“Fish on the Wall” selling.  Everybody knows what this is, right?  That’s the salesperson who enters a prospect’s office, sees a fish mounted on the wall, says, “Did you catch that fish?  Hey, I fish too!” and then spends an inordinate amount of time talking about fishing – or whatever personal interest they observe.  It’s not a great practice when the salesperson really IS an enthusiast, but it becomes downright pathetic when the salesperson isn’t.  Example – my favorite sport happens to be auto racing, and it’s not a casual pursuit.  I’ve done everything in it, up to and including owning and driving my own race cars.  When a salesperson enters my office and tries to build fake rapport with an obviously solicitous discussion of racing, it works against his desire to make a sale.  Why?  Because it’s phony.  You didn’t enter that office to talk racing (or fishing, or whatever) – you entered to attempt to make a sale.  Whether you’re working on selling or not, the clock is ticking.

“Just.”  This is a word that salespeople use to take the edge off their communications.  For example, “I was ‘just’ calling to follow up…” etc.  The problem with this is that the word “just” diminishes the importance of whatever follows, by definition.  And if what you’re doing/saying isn’t important to you, why should it be important to the customer?  If selling is important to you, the truth is that you don’t “just” do anything.  You do it.  Eliminate the “just calling” stuff from your communications, and you’ll have more impact.

“I’m seeing if you have any questions.”  This is a great one, usually used after a salesperson has delivered a proposal.  “I’m calling to see if you have any questions about my proposal” really means “I’d like to have the business,” but the salesperson doesn’t have the guts to ask for it.  Guess what – if your prospect has questions, they’re probably smart enough to call you and ask.  So why are you trying to diminish the importance of the act of asking for business?  The truth is that you have fear, and you need to let it go.

All of these communications habits have something in common – a salesperson who is uncomfortable with the role and task of selling.  If you’re using them, take a deep look inside yourself and ask why.  You might be startled at what you find out.  There’s nothing unimportant about the act of selling, and you shouldn’t diminish the importance of your job with comments like the five common sales call killers above.