cold calling

Reflections of a Rainmaker

January 15, 2015 By Barbara Giamanco 4 Comments

Yesterday, I attended the inaugural Rainmaker 2015 event in Atlanta produced and hosted by Kyle Porter and his SalesLoft team. To say that I was impressed is an understatement. I’ve followed Kyle’s path since 2011 and have been incredibly impressed with all that he has accomplished in building his business. In fact, late last year, I had the opportunity to interview Kyle as part of my Sales Mastery podcast series. Take 20 minutes out of your day to listen to that conversation, because Kyle shared his thoughts on business acceleration and what it takes to move your company to new heights.

So, back to the conference. And, yes, that’s me in my Rainmaker t-shirt getting ready to make some phone calls.

What I loved about the conference was the passion, the energy and the high value speakers and presentations. There was a palpable buzz when you walked into the conference area. Everyone was there to talk all things sales development. That buzz morphed into energy overdrive as the conference was kicked off in one of the most unique ways I have ever seen. To get things started, we were treated to a presentation by the Atlanta Falcons drum line. Wow doesn’t even begin to describe how great they were!! With that amazing act kick starting our morning, you just knew that more goodness was on the horizon.

Rainmaker 2015 themes

The overarching theme was that business development is a critically important part of the sales process. But expecting sales reps to do the chasing and the closing might not be the most effective approach. Establishing a BDR (business development rep) team whose sole job is to find new opportunities and set appointments is what led to the fast paced growth experienced by the companies highlighted throughout the conference.

Other themes that emerged, which I was thrilled to hear, were:

You cannot wait for someone else to give you the information you need to succeed.
Buying lists is a waste of time, as they are generally out of date the moment you purchase them.
Don’t rely on marketing to understand the ideal buyer, business development reps need to own the buyer persona.
The best sellers understand human behavior and leverage clarifying and confirming when talking to prospects.
The best sellers do not talk about products and services. As Steve Richard of Vorsight said, these sellers talk about common truths, which mean you need to know what the buyer cares about.

Almost every single speaker talked about:

Identifying an ideal client profile, including both the account and the contact within that account.
Understanding how your target buyer buys.
Understanding the decision making process and when talking to a potential customer, you need to know exactly what phase of the decision process the prospect is in at any given time.
Determining your cadence for contacting potential buyers. You have to test, adapt, and test again to determine what’s right for you.
Message matters. Haven’t I said this for years? Personalize messages that speak to what your prospective customer cares about. That means doing some homework, and this is where tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and InsideView can play a huge role.

There was too much great learning to force into one blog post. Stay tuned for more highlights from the Rainmaker event in subsequent posts.

I’ll close with this final thought.

More than one speaker made a point to say that a key characteristic they look for in sellers is the openness to continual learning. Naturally, this is near and dear to my heart, because I believe that the most successful salespeople (well, people in general) are those people who devote time to learning something new each day. I’m often asked about age in relation to using social media as part of selling. People want to know if the younger folks are the ones who are most successful using social channels as part of their work life. After all, all things digital was their pacifier. My answer is absolutely not. Age has nothing do with it. Anyone can learn something new. The rainmakers in life embrace learning and never think they know it all.

Time is a precious commodity, and I’ve been to more than one conference that wasn’t quite worth the investment of time or money. Not Rainmaker 2015. Hats off to Kyle and his team!

5.5 Reasons Sales Stall Out

November 13, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

With so much talk about becoming a social seller, adapting to the buyers journey, developing a personal brand to demonstrate credibility or the need to use inbound marketing strategies that bring buyers to you, you would think that sellers are crushing their quota goals. They aren’t.

Various experts insist that becoming proficient in the tenants of social selling is what will break the log jam of only 60% of salespeople achieving their revenue targets each year. Mike Drapeau at Sales Benchmark Index has boldly predicted that from this point on we will see a 15% increase in sales quota attainment each year. In other words, 75% of sellers will hit quota goals, and social selling is the reason why. Me, I’m not convinced.

You might be wondering why I’m a bit skeptical. After all, I was one of the earliest evangelists of using social media in conjunction with selling. I’m skeptical because of my years of experience selling and managing sales teams, and because the conversations related to social selling have largely been distilled down to simplistic sound bites that ignore the larger systemic issues that plague sales organizations.

Why is it that roughly 40% of salespeople won’t hit their sales targets? Two words come to mind: sales basics.

Here are 5.5 reasons why sellers keep hitting a wall:

1. Inability to secure a sales meeting with the true decision maker(s).

While you can use social selling tactics to identify decision makers, I’m often surprised that sellers still take the path of least resistance. They find anyone, at any level, who will talk to them. Just get your foot in the door is the mantra. The belief is that this approach will eventually help them land a meeting with the person who actually controls the budget. Not only is this a waste of time, you will find yourself pigeon holed at lower levels in the company where a deal will never materialize.

2. Prospects aren’t responding to email messages or phone calls.

The reason they are not responding is because you haven’t given them a reason to invest their time. You believe your sales pitch rocks the house, but guess what, the buyer doesn’t. Your message has to focus on what the buyer cares about, which means you’ll have to put in some time to figure that out. The payoff, however, is worth it. After all, isn’t your goal to get them to meet with you? Boilerplate sales messaging is not an effective strategy. It isn’t the quantity of emails you send or phone calls you make, it is the quality and relevance of your message that gets buyers to pay attention.

3. Lack of follow up and tracking to ensure that opportunities don’t stall out.

As a whole, salespeople give up pretty quickly. 94% of them have given up by the fourth call, and Herbert True, former Professor and Marketing Specialist at Notre Dame who studied and researched sales behavior also discovered that 60% of all sales are made after the fourth call. What is even more astounding to me is that 44% of sellers give up after making one measly call! Percentages are probably even worse for sellers who rely so heavily on email. In addition to being consistent in your follow up, you need a tracking – CRM – system. Small business owners, in particular, often tell me they don’t need one because…well, they are small. It doesn’t matter if you are a business of one, you need a way to schedule your follow up, track opportunities in the pipeline and evaluate what led to wins and/or losses. Investigate what Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can do for you.

4. A demo dolly mindset.

This is an especially tough challenge for salespeople selling technology solutions. They confuse demoing a product with actually selling a solution. Of course, they are hardly to blame. That’s what they have been taught to do. The problem is that when you rely on the demo to sell for you, you are expecting the buyer to make the leap between what your product does and how it resolves the challenge they are faced with fixing. Features do not close deals.

5. Poor communication, listening and presentation skills.

This is the single biggest reason why I don’t believe the prediction that 75% all of salespeople will now achieve quota versus the 60% we’ve come to expect. Expanding your network, sharing content, creating lead lists or sending LinkedIn InMail does you no good if you cannot hold an articulate, consultative business conversation with a buyer when the time comes. If you don’t understand the buyer’s business, their pain points or all you do is pitch without listening, the social selling tactics that led to a meeting did no good at all. Even the basics of leaving coherent, relevant voice mail messages seems to be a lost art.

5.5 Contacts not relationships.

You have a lot of contacts, and contacts don’t exactly equate to relationships that open doors for you. A foremost authority on referral selling is Joanne Black, and you should read her book – No More Cold Calling or her latest – Pick Up the Damn Phone! Spend time cultivating relationships not collecting contacts. When you are referred into an account by someone the buyer knows and trusts, your ability to secure a meeting is roughly 50%. This also means that sales cycles shrink because an initial level of credibility has already been established for you. However, getting in the door is one thing. Earning the right to stay there is another.

Yes – sales basics matter in a big way!

There is no question that sellers need to incorporate social media into their sales mix. Are a few social selling tactics all it takes to successfully hit sales objectives? Absolutely not. If increasing the percentage of quota attainment among sales reps is the goal, it might be wise to invest in training and reinforcing the basics of good selling.

p.s. I really gave you six reasons but 5.5 is catchier -:)

The Art of the Cold Call: A Sales Mastery Interview with Daniel Francès

November 27, 2012 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

WHAT? I interviewed someone about a cold calling approach? Well, yes, I did!

Anyone who follows me, anyone that has read a comment of mine in a LinkedIn Group or read a post over on our Facebook Fan Page knows that I am quite vocal in my belief that “cold calling” – in its currently accepted form – does not work.

What do I mean by currently accepted form? I mean the Boiler Room mentality of giving salespeople a list of names and told to “dial for dollars”, in order to meet some mythical, magical quota number that, I guess, tells management that things are alright in the revenue generating department. Oh, if they really knew the truth and that’s a subject for a future interview!

So, Daniel has followed me and he is a member of our Facebook community – thank you, Daniel! When he reached out to me to say that he espoused a better way when it comes to cold calling, I decided that I needed to interview him.

It is a terrific interview and reaffirms my belief that it is the COLD approach – making calls with a selfish, me focused sales agenda – that doesn’t work. Daniel offers up some great advice and shares his own experiences with cold calling – what makes it work and what doesn’t. It’s a interview you’ll want to share with your colleagues and folks in your network.

As I interview sales professionals like Daniel, it is all with the goal of helping you and your sales team radically increase your sales, improve the profitability of those sales and close those sales far more quickly than you are today, I want you to learn from the best in sales and social media, because selling today requires an entirely different approach and new skills are required!

Let me tell you about Daniel…

Daniel Francès, author of The Cold Call Bible and experienced Cold Calling Trainer, was born with sales running through his veins. While other boys daydreamed of becoming firemen or famous soccer players, Daniel knew instinctively from the age of seven that he aspired to sell. Beginning his career in New York, he became first acquainted with the phenomenon of cold calling, and was intrigued and inspired. He immediately internalized this form of marketing as second nature. After studying, fine tuning and practicing his craft, Daniel became a master of the Cold Call. In 2010, obsessed with training others to master the Cold Call, he established The Cold Call Company dedicated to the art of cold calling. He now custom designs and delivers corporate cold calling training programs and is an adviser on how to gain new business using cold calling.

During my conversation with Daniel, we talked about:

Why cold calling still has sales merit these days.
How Daniel got started in cold calling and what he learned that you can benefit from knowing.
What you’ll discover when you read his book, The Cold Call Bible
What it means to be the Ambassador of Cold Calling and why that is important to the profession of sales.

And more…

Enjoy the interview!

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The Big Sales Disconnect

June 16, 2012 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In one of my LinkedIn groups, a question posed was whether or not when cold calling you should leave a voicemail message. And, if you do leave a message, what type of message do you leave?

Oh, where do I begin?

Let’s not debate whether or not cold calling works or doesn’t. I don’t believe that it does, because B2B buyers continue to say – some 92% of them of according to InsideView – that they are not going to take a meeting with someone they do not know. Same goes for that cold email you may be about to send.

I realize that plenty of companies out there train on cold calling techniques and are strong advocates for the viability of this approach. Me, I think it is a waste of time. Time is precious and I can think of much better ways to use it to achieve my end goal…more meetings with the right decision makers in the companies that I’ve targeted.

I don’t argue the need to make phone calls to try to secure a sales meeting with your prospect, although statistically speaking, you still have a much higher rate of return on closing that meeting request when you are introduced either by someone credible inside the company you’ve targeted (84%) or through an external introduction by someone your prospect knows and trusts (44%). These numbers come from extensive research done by Selling to the C-Suite authors, Bistritz and Read.

Getting back to that phone call.

Yes, when making phone calls, leave a message if you do not immediately connect with your prospect. These days, pretty much everyone has caller ID, so if you keep calling and do not leave a message, that sort of feels like stalking. And, frankly, I think it is unprofessional. Sure, it would be great to be able to get people directly, but with people’s schedules so overloaded, that’s a tough proposition. Leave a professional voicemail message…every time!

So about that voicemail…

This is the world of social selling and massive amounts of information are at your fingertips that you can leverage. Are you?

Let’s go back to the LinkedIn discussion for just a moment. One person commented that he does recommend leaving a message and it looks like this…

“Hello ______! My name is ___________ and I’ve been studying your company for some time now and I am sure I can help. Call me @ ____________.”

He goes on to say that he learned this technique in a workshop and that it works about 90% of the time.

This is just so wrong. I’m not sure who this person targets (the receptionist maybe…someone in marketing…who knows), but I can tell you that the Sales VP that I’m looking to meet is not going to be impressed with this type of message much less agree to meet with me. Here’s what I’m thinking if I’m listening to this voicemail. I’ve studied your company. Who cares? Why are you studying my company? Who are you anyway? Why would I waste time calling you? I have no idea who you are.

The depressing fact is that someone actually earns money to teach salespeople how to leave a message like this when they are making sales phone calls. Worse, these same salespeople believe that this works.

How about something a tad more relevant? With just a tiny bit of thought, you can create a message that gives your prospect a reason to call you back. Here’s a quick example of what I mean.

“Hello, Samuel. We haven’t met yet. I’m Barb Giamanco with Social Centered Selling. Samuel, in doing my homework before I called, I notice that you’ve built quite a name for yourself in your industry. I see that you are not using video yet to promote your company and you might be interested to know that video has proven to capture awareness from prospects roughly 5 times more often than simply text on a page. That increased awareness has led to a 60% increase in sales revenue for the majority of our clients. I’m not sure if our solution is a fit for you, but if you are willing to chat for 15 minutes, we could explore whether or not there is the potential to work together.” Again, Barb Giamanco. You can reach me at 404-949-0199. Thank you so much and have a great day.”

Selling is hard work. There is no quick fix. It would be nice if salespeople stopped looking for one!

Take our Sales and Social Media survey. We want to find out how salespeople are using social media to drive sales revenue.

Can the Spam

June 26, 2011 By Barbara Giamanco 3 Comments

If you’ve ever read a blog post of mine, heard me speak or follow some of my musings on LinkedIn and Twitter, you know that I really hate it when I receive sales spam in my email and/or LinkedIn inbox from people that I do not know. Whether it is a cold call or a cold email, it is still cold.

The effective use of technology presents huge opportunities for the savvy salespeople who get it. These rock stars know that using social media gives them an avenue for building relationships and demonstrating expert credibility BEFORE sales opportunities present themselves. There are however, too many salespeople using technology as a way to send the same boring, boilerplate sales spam to anyone with an email address.

Aside from the fact that the emails are unsolicited junk, they also violate the email marketing CANN-SPAM act, which requires that you give people an easy way to “opt out”. Sending email means I can only get off your list if I block your email. Random emails like random sales phone calls aren’t likely to net you anything of much value. Yes, I know there are raving fans and believers of cold calling who also think there isn’t a thing wrong with slamming out random emails to people that don’t know them. Maybe I won’t change your mind, but over time, when you realize that your sales efforts could be put to better use, maybe you’ll try a different tact.

I thought that I would share a few of the recent emails that have shown up in my inbox lately. Included with each one are my thoughts about the message and approach. Since I’m a professional, I am not including the individuals name and company, though I’ll admit, I’m tempted. But I don’t want to be a jerk about it; I just want to show people that this is NOT the way to sell. I’d love to hear your comments!

Sales Spam Message # 1

Subject Line: Can We Meet Next Week?

Hello Barbara,

I know your time is valuable so I will make this quick. I provide quality custom clothing for ready-made prices.

My suits start at $295, trousers at $169 and shirts at $88. No company around is like us and if you’re interested, I would like to meet you. Please visit our website (link below) at your convenience. It will answer some immediate questions you may have.

Do you have any free time to meet at your office next week? Do you need clothes for the summer or have issues with your wardrobe? Please contact me to schedule an appointment.

Sincerely,
XYZ Salesperson

Barb’s comments: If you know my time is valuable then why are you wasting it sending me unsolicited email? I took a minute to browse the website referenced and frankly, I was not impressed. It looks male oriented and even though they say they have a line of executive suits for women, there is not a single testimonial from a female client. Message to said male salesperson…clothing is uniquely personal. Dude, you are a stranger. Do you really think I’m going to allow you to show up at my office and take my clothing measurements? What are you thinking? Biased perhaps, but that’s how it is.

Sales Spam Message # 2

Subject Line: Unbeatable Business Phone Service – Summer Sales

Hello Barbara,

I wanted to let you know about the unbeatable business phone service offer available during 8×8 Summer Sizzle Sale, which starts now!

There has never been a better time to sign up for new business phone service.

Check out the details of this offer:

– Unlimited calling for the unbeatable monthly price as low as $19.99 / extension

– Free account setup

– Free shipping

– Free first month of service

Call today to take advantage of this great offer! Offer expires at midnight June 30th, 2011.

Thank you,
XYZ Salesperson

Barb’s comments: There is nothing here that tells me why I’d want to do business with this person or this company. What does she know about my business? I guess this sales gal thinks “cheap” is all it takes. Why is the service unbeatable? If price is the sole sales strategy then it’s going to be a bumpy ride for her during her sales career. Well, that’s if it lasts at all. Seriously, you can’t do any better with your sales proposition? How do I know that this deal is the best for me? Have you analyzed my business needs? Do you know what telephony tools I use today? Nope, because if you did, you would know that I use Google Voice, which is FREE and includes a voicemail box and a transcription service. All of my voicemails are transcribed and sent via text to my mobile phone. Hard to beat free missy!

Spam Message #3

Subject Line: Fw: Linkedin Groups – The Psychometric Froum

Many contributors to this forum have now criticized aspects of psychometric methodology and have referred to authors that have done so for the past 60 years or more.

Yet common practice still entails the use of limited experimental designs, mostly random controlled trials, weak quantification, weaker assessment methodologies, causal inference based on correlational models …etc. We end up with a rigid theoretical structure and measurements that filter out some of the critical aspects of what we are interested in. But still many psychometrists, statisticians in the field and test designers happily apply their linear approach… Blah, blah, blah… it is a lengthy psycho-babble diatribe that would have just taken up too much space in this post.

Barb’s comments: This is spam, but this time the woman wasn’t selling me anything. I’m including it because it just annoys me. This gal got my name from a coaching website about 18 months ago. Though I have repeatedly said that I’m not interested in her assessments – I sell my own! – she still sends me random crap. For starters, if I was interested in this LinkedIn group, I would have joined myself. What really bugs me is that I don’t know why she is sending me this information at all. What does this have to do with me? Why do I care? No opening comments defining the purpose…she just simply forwarded me the post. I did send an email asking AGAIN that she stop sending me this kind of thing. Her response…”Sorry you feel that way, but I haven’t sent anything all year.” Clueless just got junked!

What’s my point?

For decades, the sales profession has gotten a bad rap. It is unfair, but totally understandable when you encounter people who are completely ignorant to the principles of great selling. I don’t know about you, but I’m not buying from a stranger who sends me an email with today’s “great deal” out of the blue. If you are in sales and feel compelled to send an unsolicited sales pitch to someone, perhaps it might be prudent to stop for a minute and think about what you are doing before you actually hit send.

Burr…Cold Calling Breaks the Rules of Social Sales

August 27, 2010 By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

When I originally started this post, I was quite firm in my belief that “cold calling” as a tactic for driving sales was largely ineffective. I still am for the most part. But to be fair, I may have generalized a bit too much. Perhaps I’m jaded. As a business owner, I receive some of the dumbest phone sales calls imaginable. Everything from mortgage brokers trying to sell me refinancing for a building that I do not own, budding rap stars looking for their next big break, people selling products that compete with what I offer…really?…the list is endless. Didn’t check the website and clearly didn’t listen to our corporate voicemail message.

Still, during a recent sales program I facilitated, a senior sales executive challenged my assertion that cold calling gets you nowhere saying that, “Cold calling does work. I’ve brought in a number of large deals as a result of cold calls that I’ve made.” So, I couldn’t help but be curious. What makes it work for you, I asked. Listening to him answer, I realized that his success was due to his planning and preparation. This executive knew what he wanted to accomplish. He researched his target companies. He planned what he was going to say. And, when he did pick up the phone, he managed to successfully connect with his prospective buyer. So, I’ll change my tune slightly. Cold calling is generally a waste of time, and there are some people who are able to make it work.

For everyone else, here are 5 reasons why cold calling leads to sales frostbite:

It’s about relationships first, sales second. People buy from people that they know, like and trust. If they don’t know you, they are very unlikely to respond favorably to your unsolicited call. Cold calling runs counter to what the social revolution is all about. In the social sales world, it’s all about delivering value in advance of the sale. That requires getting to know a little something about your prospective buyer first and then offering to do for them without expecting an immediate return.
It is an interruption – think phone spam. To do lists are already tough enough to manage, so when you interrupt a busy executive that you have no relationship with at all, you risk blowing your sales opportunity altogether. Buyers are not looking to have information pushed at them from sources they do not yet trust. Use LinkedIn to learn about the people on your lead generation list. Find commonality and then use your social networks to facilitate warm introductions that lead to securing sales appointments.
The spiel is boring and focuses only on you. Worse than the practice of dialing for dollars (calling a list of people you know nothing about) is that sales scripts are usually not tailored to each person called. More often than not the focus is on the seller not the buyer. Sales scripts are nothing more than a verbal dump of the features of the product on the unsuspecting person who picked up the phone when you called. That isn’t likely to endear you to them.
The world is not your client. This concept is counter-intuitive for sales managers who believe that calling a lead list works, but you can accelerate your sales traction if you go narrow and deep within your particular market space. It means you must first be crystal clear about who your ideal client actually is. Calling a random list of 100 names is far less effective than figuring out who the top 10 right people to call on that list really are. If you are in sales, you want to move from lead to close as quickly as you can, right? Wouldn’t it be easier to determine where those 10 right people might be doing business online and start a conversation there? That moves you right to the head of the sales line if you do it well.
It’s about perception. If you can’t explain quickly, clearly and succinctly why someone would benefit from buying your product, service or idea, you will lose sales, no matter how great what you have to offer is. During a typical cold call sales scenario it is not uncommon for reps to rush through a rambling speech that annoys rather than engages. If this is the first interaction that your prospect has with your company, are you are creating a positive brand impression or harming it?

There was once a time and a place for the sales practice of cold-calling. Those days are long gone. Thankfully.

Cold Calling 2.0?

February 6, 2010 By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

Since the early days of John Patterson and his NCR sales playbook, “cold calling” seems to be ingrained in the collective sales consciousness as an expected part of the sales process. I still wonder why. Come on. Cold calling doesn’t work (it never has, and I don’t care what that last sales trainer told you).

This ridiculous notion of “dialing for dollars” is so yesterday. Sales people resist cold calling like the plague and with good reason. At some level, they know it doesn’t make any sense to call a stranger and expect them to buy within seconds of receiving their call no matter how charming they may be. Old school sales thinking is that you just call enough numbers and eventually somebody buys. What a waste of time and energy! Not to mention how potential buyers detest this approach. They don’t appreciate your rambling, inarticulate, blathering feature dumps and the evident randomness of the call. As a business owner, I can relate. Maybe I’ll create an audio book one of these days with the “best of the worst” phone calls that I’ve ever received. I save them. Hilarious and painfully sad at the same time. Hint: if you have to cold call then at least do some remedial homework. Make sure I’m in the market for what you sell. Everyone is NOT your customer!

Get over the notion of cold calling. Nobody likes it, it doesn’t work. Instead, what about using social media/social networks, email, Twitter, Facebook, referrals and the like to start paving the way for a great relationship? There is just NO excuse anymore for sales management to think that “dialing for dollars” has much chance at success. Instead, invest time in learning to use social media to augment and extend your sales reach. Insist that your sales people use social tools and social networks to begin conversations that will lead to finding common ground and getting to know each other. Then, when you do reach out to secure that sales appointment there will be nothing cold about it!

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