The Lost Art of Prospecting

Prospecting and new business development are the lifeblood of growing any successful business. By the same token, they are usually the activities that are dreaded and avoided at all costs by most salespeople. The greatest deterrent to effective prospecting is fear coupled with the lack of control and expertise.

There is no skill set in sales that requires more expertise and constant practice than prospecting. Starting around the year 2000, no area of sales has changed more dramatically than prospecting and securing appointments by phone. We now have a national “do not call list”, caller ID, prospects who never answer their phones, and electronic voice secretaries that announce your name. To make matters worse, other prospecting options such as unsolicited faxing and emailing are in some cases illegal or rendered useless because of spam guard.

Generally, initial calls are treated by prospects with a high level of skepticism, and the average duration of a telephone sales call has dropped by at least 70%, making it even more difficult to build rapport.

Nowhere will you find prospects more self-absorbed and impatient than in your initial phone contact. While you are trying to grab their attention and gain rapport, they are concurrently either in a staff meeting, emailing their boss, texting, or conducting another conversation on their cell. In the past you had 40 seconds to state your purpose. Today it is less than 10 seconds in many cases.

So the landscape has totally changed, requiring salespeople to come up with new tactics and strategies to level the playing field. The predominant thought pattern that is now rushing through your prospect’s mind when you make your initial call is: “Who is this person and how can I make it clear that I am not interested so that they will never bother me again?”“How can I throw them for a loop so they lose their will?”“They all look the same and sound the same so why waste my time?”

To combat these realistic and prevailing perceptions we designed an initial call to tackle these issues head on. Our strategy relies heavily on reverse psychology:

• Make it easy for them to believe they are in control and have the upper hand
• Announce that we may or may not be a good fit
• Be courteous and ask for their time
• Tell them about the problems we fix and address, instead of all the great things our products can do for them
• Be neutral in our tonality and balanced in our approach
• Because prospects are uncomfortable with prospecting calls, be subtly negative to prevent any compulsion on their part to exert their will
• Prospects are so hardened to us trying to impress them with references of companies we have done work with that it just doesn’t work well anymore. Impressive references are a dime a dozen
• Allay some of their fears and anxieties that we are going to steamroll them with a one-sided sales approach

STEP 1

Because prospects are so hardened to our message and so conditioned to not believing anything we say, we are going to take the exact opposite approach to what they expect. Here is an example of the start of an initial approach on the phone:

“John, this is Dave Jones with Metropolitan Corp. and we’ve obviously never spoken before so I’m not sure if it makes sense for us to talk. Would it be alright to very briefly tell you why I called and you can tell me if we should go any further?”

At this point we are jockeying for position to get their attention for another 30-60 seconds of their time. The strategy is to patiently and incrementally earn the right to larger blocks of time to advance your sales case. By reeling them in slowly we are building the initial stages of trust and confidence. A gesture of extending goodwill and trust will go much farther in advancing your cause than an appeal to generate interest, differentiation, and product superiority. The whole idea behind this strategy is to lower the walls of resistance and to make an appeal to look and sound different so that you can earn their elusive and hard-earned attention and time. One out of a hundred calls will end during Step 1 right away with them telling you they are not interested. That is fine. Since our goal is to disqualify prospects as quickly as possible and since that prospect did not respect or have time for our professional approach, then there was no trust and basis for continued dialogue. Move on, knowing that you will not appeal to everyone because you cannot control the variables of timing, interest, and mood.

The following represent some optional verbiage to use on your initial approach:

• “We have pinpointed a series of very specific challenges and issues that many companies in your industry face. Would that be of interest to you?”
• “I don’t know if you are open to having an informal conversation to see if there is any fit here.”
• “You probably are sick and tired of getting hammered on by over-eager salespeople promising you the moon. Let me make this very easy for both of us so I won’t put you in that awkward position. We don’t have all the answers.”
• “Can I tell you exactly why I’m calling? I’m looking for people who are open to having a candid conversation about potential challenges in their business. You may or may not fit this profile.”
• “This is a cold call. I hate making them and you undoubtedly probably hate receiving them even more. Let’s try to make this quick and easy for both of us.”
• “I won’t pretend to know your business as well as you do, but I might have some innovative ideas that can complement what you already know.”
• “I don’t want to stick my neck into your business if it isn’t wanted. If you like my ideas maybe we can talk more. If not, I’m okay with that.”

Some prospects get unnerved if they think you randomly picked them out of a hat off a mailing list. You minimize this potential tension by doing general research on an industry to better understand the common problems or frustrations that are besetting that industry in relation to your products or service. However, I advise not doing individual research on companies unless you have a very small and defined market with limited opportunities. Research of this type rarely finds out if they have pain they are willing to admit to you, and if they have the time, the will, the money and the authority to change. Most research by salespeople before making prospecting calls is just plain old avoidance activity.

STEP 2

Now that you have successfully gained 15 seconds of their time, your next objective is to create or find pain. If your prospect is not willing to admit to any problems, then they have disqualified themselves. Without pain there is no reason for them to consider changing. Your pain statements or pain prompters should have an emotional appeal and should only describe the problems you address and fix. Before you present your pain statements, you need a transition or a bridge to ease them into your tough questions.

Example: “We work with companies like yours in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of their sales organization. Typically if someone is going to want to meet with us it is because they are frustrated with their salespeople not prospecting enough to grow the business and growth has stalled because of it, or they are constantly getting commoditized and beaten up on price where their margins are being eroded, or their costs of sales and selling cycles are increasing because their people do a lot of wasteful quoting and proposing. Are any of these issues worth us having a meaningful discussion today?”

Be prepared for a less than stellar response here. Depending on your industry, anywhere from 30%-70% of your calls will realistically end here with the prospect saying they have no interest, to literally hanging up, giving you no chance to move forward. If you have a prospect you are absolutely certain, due to tonality and conviction, has no interest, try to do some post-intelligence gathering so you at least come away with some useful information. Depending on your market and product you can try to ascertain future viability and suitability (current usage, volume, current vendor and backup options). These non-threatening questions also could open the door to continuing dialogue if a gap exists.

If your prospect has not yet been willing to admit to any problems, yet you sense they are somewhat still not close-minded, you then can ask more detailed pain questions or pain prompters.

Some prospects are not willing to admit to problems but are willing to admit to things not being perfect. You can pose your pain questions or statements with a positive spin. For example: “I am assuming since you have veteran salespeople that they are very effective in consistently bringing in new accounts, they sell at healthy margins, and they don’t waste a lot of time doing useless quoting and proposing. Is that a fair overview of your situation?” It is classic reverse psychology appeal. As soon as you tell them why things are so positive, they now argue on your behalf and to your advantage. You should note that prospects are very smart today. If your appeal is not realistic, too transparent, or it is too pie in the sky, you will do yourself more harm than good.

STEP 3

Here are some examples of questions and statements that are used in my business to find additional pain after their initial reluctance. Notice some questions are framed in the negative and some are framed in the positive. Mix it up. It makes your appeal less predictable.

A: 1) Negative Pain: “Do you ever find that your prospects take all your valuable information: price, creative ideas and proposal, and then they play their cards very close to the chest, giving your people very little in return? They stall you and misappropriate your time. They get enough information from your people so they can skillfully shop you. They pit you one against another, squeeze you on price and leave you hanging high and dry.”

2) Positive Pain: “You may not be having problems in those areas because you have a niche product with leading edge technology. You are not in a price sensitive marketplace. Your people are generally following up only on highly qualified leads. And because of your reputation and strong ironclad relationships that you have nurtured over the years, your closing rates are very high. Is that a fair overview?”

B. 1) Negative Pain: “Sometimes I hear companies like yours are successful because their salespeople overly rely on management to provide costly leads and they spend a lot of time helping their salespeople close big deals, consequently eating up a lot of time and resources, while at the same time paying out generous commission to their salespeople. Do you run into that at all?”

2) Positive Pain: “Do you find that you don’t have these issues because you have veteran salespeople who only sell value and they can command premium pricing because of your leadership and dominance in the marketplace?”

In my first year in the sales training business, I literally spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours putting together well-crafted answers to every imaginable objection I heard of and even archaic ones that I never heard. I had perfected objection handling as well as anyone I knew in my business. I was truly a master. To make matters even easier for me, for the first six months I had all the answers to common objections posted on my cubicle. Then one day I took them all down because of a startling discovery I had made. I realized I had over-learned and over-perfected objection handling to a fault. All the answers that I had so cleverly crafted, which were reasonably effective, were not addressing the real issue. They were addressing the symptoms and not the real objections. Regardless of the stated objection, I started to notice I was answering objections fruitlessly, because they were only a mask for the real objection that was never outwardly stated, which is, we don’t have any pain or problems. Or worse, we have lots of pains and pressing problems but we are not going to share them with you, Mr. Salesperson, but we are more than willing to have you waste your time and momentum and irritate us by trying to answer our objections.

So I had a smart attack and streamlined my answers into one answer for any objection that was ever thrown out to me. My success rate dramatically increased, but just as importantly, I didn’t have to spend so much time memorizing and scripting out all these cumbersome answers to all their non-objections. It really simplified my sales tactics and it became the bedrock for my entire sales strategy.

The following are five of the most common objections one hears when prospecting. Notice each answer to each objection is basically the same. So no matter what the objection was, I only had one response because all objections in sales lead to the perception or the fact that pain doesn’t exist.

OBJECTION: “Send information”

“I’d be more than happy to send information (which I never do); usually I find that my information will be useful to you if you are experiencing problems in the following areas...” Then I enumerate their potential pains and ask if they are experiencing any of them to see if it still makes sense for me to send them some information.

OBJECTION: “I’m not interested”

“I can appreciate the fact that you have no interest. It sounds like you aren’t a good prospect. The reason you probably aren’t interested is because you aren’t experiencing any problems in the following areas...” Then I enumerate the problems and ask if they are experiencing any of them to confirm that their lack of interest is well founded.

OBJECTION: “Call me back in one month when I’ll have more time”

“I’d be more than happy to call you back in one month. Usually I find if we are going to have a meaningful conversation in one month’s time, it is because you are experiencing problems in the following areas...” I list the problems and I ask if they are experiencing any of them to see if it still makes sense for me to follow up with them in one month.

OBJECTION: “We are happy with our existing supplier”

“I can appreciate that you are happy with your existing supplier and you have no interest in changing. Usually I find that if there will be any reason at all for you to consider changing, it is because you are experiencing problems in the following areas...” I list the problems and ask if they are experiencing any of them so we can both be very clear that they are well suited in staying with their existing supplier.

OBJECTION: “Call me back in 12 months when we do our annual contract review”

“I’d be more than happy to call you back in 12 months when you do your annual contract review. Usually I find that if you’ll have any reason to talk to me then, it is because you are experiencing problems in the following areas...” I list the problems and ask them if they are experiencing any of them so we both know if it will make sense for them to seriously consider us when their contract comes up for renewal.

I also find this strategy useful at every step along the sales cycle when I run into roadblocks and stalls.

OBJECTION: “I haven’t had the time to talk to my boss to get an answer for you”

“Maybe the reason you haven’t had time to talk to your boss about our proposal is because the original problems we discussed that you were experiencing (you enumerate the problems again) aren’t important enough for you to make the time to see him.”

OBJECTION: “We are tied up with another project now”

“The fact that you are tied up with another project: has that taken away from your motivation to resolve (enumerate the problems) these issues?”

The preceding responses to all prospect’s objections were made very easily because, other than the transition statement, each response was identical. The key is to be prepared to know what all the biggest problems, frustrations, insecurities, pains and fears of your prospects are. One method to obtain this is to list out all your features and benefits. Then determine what negative outcomes your prospect will experience if they do not use your product or service. Then formulate the pain experience into the form of a question to use as a prompter to gauge their fears, insecurities, and dissatisfactions. Keep in mind if they have no pain or are in denial of their pain, then they are a very poor prospect.

Option 1

The following are last-ditch questions and statements to assess the open-mindedness of your prospect when you are faced with their lack of interest:

• “Mr. Prospect, this is probably a very loaded question. Have you ever made the decision that what you are getting now, within reason, is as good as it gets, or as good as you can expect and there isn’t anything else out there that is any better?”
• “Have you made the decision that it is not worth the time or the energy and it isn’t in your best interests to periodically reevaluate new and different ideas?”

Option 2

The following are less assertive, less risky and better suited for the faint of heart. You don’t risk as much pull-back with the following questions:

• “What are the some of the biggest trends or potential threats that are facing your business?”
• “Who are your toughest competitors and why are they so? What is their edge and what can you do to close that gap?”
• “What is your current vendor best at, and what are the most important factors that make them so successful?”
• “What areas are you consistently improving in and getting better at?”
• “Can I ask you a quick question and I promise to leave you in peace? What kind of problems, if any, are you having that I haven’t brought up?”
• “I’m sure you have a lot of legitimate reasons why you aren’t interested. If there was one area you could get better in, what area would that be?”

Once you have a prospect admit to a problem, and if you have enough rapport, you close for the appointment. The following are some examples:

• “Does the issue happen enough where you’d be open to doing something different about it?”
• “Is this important enough that you’d be willing to spend an hour of your time meeting with me so that I can learn more about your business and your challenges? We can set up a meeting with the idea that I’m not sure if we can help you specifically, but after an hour we'll both have a pretty good idea if it makes sense to go any further. By the way, if it doesn’t I’ll graciously get out of your way and promise not to be a pest. I’m willing to invest some time if you are.”
• “Get out your calendar, what week are you looking at? Why don’t you invite me in for an hour and we’ll see if we have a good fit or not. If we don’t, I’ll be perfectly okay with that.”
• “I’m confident that when we meet you’ll know within the first 15 minutes whether or not we are a good fit. Worst case scenario, I can share with you some industry studies that will benefit your business.”
• “Would it make sense for you to invite me in with the understanding that we may or may not be able to help you, and after 30 minutes we both can decide if it is in our mutual interest to continue beyond that?”

Never ask for the appointment; always have your prospect invite you in. It sets the stage for a good guest/host relationship. If your prospect waffles, say, “This may not be important enough for you to take time out of your busy day. I’m curious.” Then ask the following questions to try and create pain and understand if the problem is actionable:

• “How long has it been a problem?”
• “What have you done to fix it?”
• “Who else is aware of it?”
• “How has it impacted your business?”
• “How has it impacted you personally?”
• “How does this issue stack up against other priorities you have on your plate?”
• “With or without us, how committed are you to changing?”

If you still are running into a wall graciously exit and pick a battle elsewhere.

RULES AND GUIDELINES TO HANDLING PROSPECTING OBJECTIONS

• Always agree to their position, i.e., “I can see you aren’t interested.”
• Use Stephan Covey’s strategy of always “bringing the future to the present” to maximize your time and resources, i.e., “I’d be happy to send some information. Usually I find this information will be useful for you if you have problems in the following areas; and if you don’t, it probably won’t be a good use of your time in receiving this information.”
• Always repeat their objection and then use it as a bridge to make your sales point. People need to be honored and feel they’ve been heard and understood.
• Be nurturing and neutral. This strategy will fail miserably if your tonality comes across overly enthusiastic and you are the least bit salesy.
• Always take a non-selling posture. Before they tell you why they are not interested preempt them by selling them on why they may not be interested, i.e., “Mr. Prospect, the reason this may not be of value to you is because you aren’t experiencing problems in the following areas...”
• Always make “no” a viable choice for your prospect. Inviting “no” is a very powerful selling tool that is greatly underutilized.
• Your job is not to answer objections. Get your prospects to answer their own objections.
• Your job is not to provide solutions; your job is to find or create pain.
• The best salesperson at the selling event is always the prospect. Let them sell themselves first and then have them sell you on their commitment to change.
• Give prospects the freedom to discover their own solutions as opposed to you selling them.

Prospecting would be a seamless task without objections and rejection. To minimize and stabilize your chances of getting objections you need to develop a prospecting strategy that doesn’t have you looking and sounding like everyone else out there. It is critical that you take a non-selling posture by stating the problems you fix instead of a description of your solutions and your superior product offering.

To engage prospects effectively you need to honor and acknowledge their freedom of choice in relationship to your offering. Instead of directly answering alleged objections that they randomly throw out to throw you off, redirect them to the real issues at hand. If they have no pain, no tangible concerns that they are willing to discuss, then there is no viable basis for continuing a dialogue. To prompt them or entice them to open up, prepare questions that cover the problems that you solve. You will find that in order to get pain from your prospect you will have to first give pain and that always is best accomplished in the form of questions.