4 Turn Strangers into Customers

There is no such thing as chance.

—Henry Ford

Picking up the phone to call a list of total strangers or going

around knocking on doors is a brutal way to make a living.

That is pure, unadulterated cold calling. Many salespeople do

it, and in some situations it really is the only option.

For most salespeople however, there are strategies available

that tremendously improve the odds of success by giving

you targets that are easier to hit. We have found the three most

useful strategies are:

_ Cold to warm

_ Shotguns and rifles

_ Leverage

Cold to Warm

Warm calls work better than cold calls. In a cold call, you are

a perfect stranger contacting a prospect out of the blue. In a

warm call, the prospect has some sense of familiarity with you

and will be more open to a discussion. Your objective, then, is

not to make as many cold calls as you can, but to turn as many

cold calls as you can into warm ones, thereby increasing your

chances for success before you pick up the phone or knock on

the door.

How to turn a call from cold to warm? There are several

ways:

_ Reference someone inside the prospective company.

_ Reference someone outside the prospective company.

_ Reference common customers.

_ Refer to a flattering story in a newspaper or magazine

about your company or the prospect’s company.

_ Ask prospects to attend an event they would find interesting

and worth their time.

Any time you can move your approach from cold to warm

before making the call or requesting the appointment, your

chance for success improves.

Warm Calls in Action

”How does she do it?” one salesperson asked

another. When leads came in the door right after a

trade show, this company’s sales reps would call

the people who stopped by the booth to request

more information. Their success rate was low: They

were able to reach the prospects or get them to

return messages less than 10 percent of the time.

“Guess they were just window shoppers,” the

salespeople surmised.

Judy, however, was getting people to call her

back at an astonishing rate of 30 to 40 percent. “My

secret is to call the boss,” she explained. “ Bosses are

the ones who approved expenses for these

prospects to travel to the show. If they sent their

people to the show, they must have perceived

some need. So why not ask bosses why they spent

the money?”

Judy has two additional reasons she likes to talk

to the boss first:

1. “It’s harder to go up the organization than

down.”

2. “Whether I reach the boss or not, when I call

the show attendee I always mention that I

have spoken with or left a message for the

boss. That gets their attention.”

Judy’s “secret” was no secret at all. She just

turned cold calls into warm ones.

Shotguns and Rifles

A shotgun spreads a broad pattern, but even so, you still have

to aim. You don’t just walk outdoors and start blasting into the

sky, hoping to hit a duck. You have to pick a lake, a field, or

some other place where you think the ducks are. Then you

have to point the gun in the direction of the ducks before you

pull the trigger. The same strategy applies in prospecting.

Even when you’re using a shotgun you must be both broad and

specific. If you want to hit a prospect, go where good prospects

are most likely to be before you start shooting.

Use the shotgun approach to target a broad market. It

could be a vertical market, like the automotive industry. It

could be a geographic market, like the city of Phoenix, or it

could be customer-oriented, as in “past customers who have

bought Product X from us before.”

Rifle techniques allow you to refine your approach and

become more productive. Here are three of them:

1. Create goals. “How many by when?” is the key here. All

of your prospecting goals should include the specific numbers

of contacts you will make and when you will make them.

Goals that use words like “soon” or “a lot” will probably not

be met, because “soon” is not a date in your calendar. Write

the goals down. Studies show that a written goal is three times

more likely to be obtained than a goal that is not in writing.

2. Be timely. Work to the prospect’s time frame, not yours.

The best times to reach prospects are early in the morning, in

the evening, ten minutes before the hour, and ten minutes before

and after the lunch hour.

3. Create influence. Turning cold calls into warm calls

has already been discussed, but think “rifle” by warming up

your calls as specifically as you can. This will require additional

homework, but for a major prospect it is worth the effort.

Do you know somebody who also knows the prospect and

will let you use him as a reference? If you do some research,

can you find that newspaper article about the prospect’s company

instead of just happening to see it? Is there someone in

your company who has specific contacts or information that

you can use to get through to a top prospect?

Leverage

You can gain leverage by adopting one of the following three

tactics.

_ The Expert. If you are an expert in your field, say so. If

there is any way you can position yourself or your company

as having some special expertise, do it, do it, do it.

_ “I am the leading real estate salesperson in the city.”

_ “I have been in this industry for twenty five years.”

_ “My company is the _1 supplier in the world for

form brackets.”

_ “We have forty-six out of the top one hundred medical

device companies as customers.”

_ “I have been ranked _1 by the XYZ organization in

providing assistance and services to the food and

beverage industry.”

TIP: Find Your Expertise

How can you or your company leverage your

knowledge or capabilities into expert status? Here

are a few examples from this book’s authors.

As of this writing, Skip Miller’s book ProActive

Sales Management is ranked # 1 out of more than

60,000 books in Amazon.com’s sales category.

Skip doesn’t know and doesn’t care where Barnes

and Noble or anyone else ranks it; because Amazon

says it’s # 1, he ends up being an expert.

One of Ron Zemke’s books, Delivering Knock

Your Socks Off Service , has sold more than 750,000

copies. That number alone makes him an expert.

_ The Question. What are the one or two burning questions

for which your top customers need answers?

What is really bugging them? What is happening in

their day-to-day life that you can assist with?

_ “What are you doing to take advantage of the current

interest rates?”

_ “Eight out of ten people in your position ask us,

‘Why is this the time to invest in capital equipment?”’

_ “What is happening for the holiday season, and how

can you capitalize on it?”

These are ways to catch buyers’ attention and generate interest

in what you have to say or why you are calling them. If

they have no interest in a well-crafted question or two, the

buying window may be closed right now, and you should try

again in a few weeks or months. If your questions are valid, it

will be only a matter of time before the need that your question

brings up arises.

_ The Value Statement. A value statement tells buyers

that by taking action, they can get some value over and

above their expectations.

_ Many people have asked for this, and we have now

packaged it so you can get the most popular features

immediately and at no additional charge.

_ It now offers twice as many cycles as previous

models.

_ Because of demand, you now can get this at the lowest

price in the industry. The thing to remember is

that the value you offer must be special in the

buyer’s mind, not just in yours. Your new model

may be a marvel of engineering, but if the buyer

doesn’t care how many cycles it has, you need

another value statement. What kinds of things do

buyers value?

_ How can I get more for the same money?

_ Can I can get it without waiting?

_ What do I have to do to get this installed without a

lot of risk and effort?

To understand value, you must think like a

buyer, not like someone who would just like to

make a sale.

There is no such thing as chance.

—Henry Ford

Picking up the phone to call a list of total strangers or going

around knocking on doors is a brutal way to make a living.

That is pure, unadulterated cold calling. Many salespeople do

it, and in some situations it really is the only option.

For most salespeople however, there are strategies available

that tremendously improve the odds of success by giving

you targets that are easier to hit. We have found the three most

useful strategies are:

_ Cold to warm

_ Shotguns and rifles

_ Leverage

Cold to Warm

Warm calls work better than cold calls. In a cold call, you are

a perfect stranger contacting a prospect out of the blue. In a

warm call, the prospect has some sense of familiarity with you

and will be more open to a discussion. Your objective, then, is

not to make as many cold calls as you can, but to turn as many

cold calls as you can into warm ones, thereby increasing your

chances for success before you pick up the phone or knock on

the door.

How to turn a call from cold to warm? There are several

ways:

_ Reference someone inside the prospective company.

_ Reference someone outside the prospective company.

_ Reference common customers.

_ Refer to a flattering story in a newspaper or magazine

about your company or the prospect’s company.

_ Ask prospects to attend an event they would find interesting

and worth their time.

Any time you can move your approach from cold to warm

before making the call or requesting the appointment, your

chance for success improves.

Warm Calls in Action

”How does she do it?” one salesperson asked

another. When leads came in the door right after a

trade show, this company’s sales reps would call

the people who stopped by the booth to request

more information. Their success rate was low: They

were able to reach the prospects or get them to

return messages less than 10 percent of the time.

“Guess they were just window shoppers,” the

salespeople surmised.

Judy, however, was getting people to call her

back at an astonishing rate of 30 to 40 percent. “My

secret is to call the boss,” she explained. “ Bosses are

the ones who approved expenses for these

prospects to travel to the show. If they sent their

people to the show, they must have perceived

some need. So why not ask bosses why they spent

the money?”

Judy has two additional reasons she likes to talk

to the boss first:

1. “It’s harder to go up the organization than

down.”

2. “Whether I reach the boss or not, when I call

the show attendee I always mention that I

have spoken with or left a message for the

boss. That gets their attention.”

Judy’s “secret” was no secret at all. She just

turned cold calls into warm ones.

Shotguns and Rifles

A shotgun spreads a broad pattern, but even so, you still have

to aim. You don’t just walk outdoors and start blasting into the

sky, hoping to hit a duck. You have to pick a lake, a field, or

some other place where you think the ducks are. Then you

have to point the gun in the direction of the ducks before you

pull the trigger. The same strategy applies in prospecting.

Even when you’re using a shotgun you must be both broad and

specific. If you want to hit a prospect, go where good prospects

are most likely to be before you start shooting.

Use the shotgun approach to target a broad market. It

could be a vertical market, like the automotive industry. It

could be a geographic market, like the city of Phoenix, or it

could be customer-oriented, as in “past customers who have

bought Product X from us before.”

Rifle techniques allow you to refine your approach and

become more productive. Here are three of them:

1. Create goals. “How many by when?” is the key here. All

of your prospecting goals should include the specific numbers

of contacts you will make and when you will make them.

Goals that use words like “soon” or “a lot” will probably not

be met, because “soon” is not a date in your calendar. Write

the goals down. Studies show that a written goal is three times

more likely to be obtained than a goal that is not in writing.

2. Be timely. Work to the prospect’s time frame, not yours.

The best times to reach prospects are early in the morning, in

the evening, ten minutes before the hour, and ten minutes before

and after the lunch hour.

3. Create influence. Turning cold calls into warm calls

has already been discussed, but think “rifle” by warming up

your calls as specifically as you can. This will require additional

homework, but for a major prospect it is worth the effort.

Do you know somebody who also knows the prospect and

will let you use him as a reference? If you do some research,

can you find that newspaper article about the prospect’s company

instead of just happening to see it? Is there someone in

your company who has specific contacts or information that

you can use to get through to a top prospect?

Leverage

You can gain leverage by adopting one of the following three

tactics.

_ The Expert. If you are an expert in your field, say so. If

there is any way you can position yourself or your company

as having some special expertise, do it, do it, do it.

_ “I am the leading real estate salesperson in the city.”

_ “I have been in this industry for twenty five years.”

_ “My company is the _1 supplier in the world for

form brackets.”

_ “We have forty-six out of the top one hundred medical

device companies as customers.”

_ “I have been ranked _1 by the XYZ organization in

providing assistance and services to the food and

beverage industry.”

TIP: Find Your Expertise

How can you or your company leverage your

knowledge or capabilities into expert status? Here

are a few examples from this book’s authors.

As of this writing, Skip Miller’s book ProActive

Sales Management is ranked # 1 out of more than

60,000 books in Amazon.com’s sales category.

Skip doesn’t know and doesn’t care where Barnes

and Noble or anyone else ranks it; because Amazon

says it’s # 1, he ends up being an expert.

One of Ron Zemke’s books, Delivering Knock

Your Socks Off Service , has sold more than 750,000

copies. That number alone makes him an expert.

_ The Question. What are the one or two burning questions

for which your top customers need answers?

What is really bugging them? What is happening in

their day-to-day life that you can assist with?

_ “What are you doing to take advantage of the current

interest rates?”

_ “Eight out of ten people in your position ask us,

‘Why is this the time to invest in capital equipment?”’

_ “What is happening for the holiday season, and how

can you capitalize on it?”

These are ways to catch buyers’ attention and generate interest

in what you have to say or why you are calling them. If

they have no interest in a well-crafted question or two, the

buying window may be closed right now, and you should try

again in a few weeks or months. If your questions are valid, it

will be only a matter of time before the need that your question

brings up arises.

_ The Value Statement. A value statement tells buyers

that by taking action, they can get some value over and

above their expectations.

_ Many people have asked for this, and we have now

packaged it so you can get the most popular features

immediately and at no additional charge.

_ It now offers twice as many cycles as previous

models.

_ Because of demand, you now can get this at the lowest

price in the industry. The thing to remember is

that the value you offer must be special in the

buyer’s mind, not just in yours. Your new model

may be a marvel of engineering, but if the buyer

doesn’t care how many cycles it has, you need

another value statement. What kinds of things do

buyers value?

_ How can I get more for the same money?

_ Can I can get it without waiting?

_ What do I have to do to get this installed without a

lot of risk and effort?

To understand value, you must think like a

buyer, not like someone who would just like to

make a sale.