COLD CALLING PUTS THE PROSPECT IN CHARGE
How do you drum up new business? If you’re like many radio stations (and businesses of all kinds) you do it the Old School way: by cold calling. This can take the form of a simple walk-in when a salesperson sees a likely-looking business. Or it can be that time-worn favorite, pounding the phones.
Either way, there is NO less-productive way of finding new business.
Since this runs counter to a great deal of Old School practice, let me put it like this: traditional cold calling is expensive, wastes time and—worst of all—puts your prospect in charge of the business relationship. And that is absolutely the last thing you want.
In my book, The Zero Turnover Sales Force: How To Maximize Revenue By Keeping Your Sales Team Intact (AMACOM Books, 2010—see order link on the right side of this page), I share that you want a salesperson who is:
- A valued business partner, someone who is at least as important in the business relationship as the prospect
- Irreplaceable as a business asset, someone with specialized knowledge to offer
- A knowledgeable professional who already knows and understands many of the prospect’s issues
- Solution-oriented, an answer-provider who can uniquely benefit the prospect’s bottom line
Early in my career selling radio, I learned that any time I appeared in a prospect’s life, whether by an unexpected phone call or an unscheduled visit, I might as well have placed a cardboard sign around my neck that read
Here is a desperate person. He doesn’t know you
but he wants your money.
What will almost every prospect’s response to that be? “WHATEVER IT IS, GO AWAY!”
Why put the customer in charge of the selling process? That’s exactly what happens with traditional cold calling.
Fine, you say. How DO we get a new prospect’s attention, with a marching band?
A little over the top, I think, but fun if you can pull it off.
YOUR Zero Turnover Sales Force can mine for new business without traditional cold calling by presenting your salespeople as invaluable business tools. And you establish the policy that you’re going to compel prospects to call YOU rather than the other way around.
I’ll explore ways to do this in future Monday Sales Memos.
For now, make this a focus of discussion with your sales team: How would YOU get prospects to call US? What if I said, “You may not make a single telephone cold call or drop in anywhere without an appointment?” How would you bring in new business?
You should receive a number of helpful ideas. Everyone should be excited at the prospect. If either of those things doesn’t happen, maybe we need to talk about sales force hiring!
