Last spring my employer decided to try “Blueprinting” which is a process of interviewing customers to determine their needs, NOT selling. I got the technical half of the job which promised travel, idea generation, and documenting suggestions for product improvements. I was paired with an experienced sales director who was supposed to have influence over field reps and would line up visits. But at our first meeting he stated “All that matters is that this sells product…. ” We went to one big trade show and for a month nothing happened, then I got emails that 4-5 sites had expressed no interest. He seems to have been lateralled into a different position “Because he wasn’t getting it done.” and now I find he left the company for another in my industry. Don’t know if he jumped or was pushed…
So now it’s just me and I suppose I have the opportunity to create my own job. How would a sales professional approach this? I’m seeing this as pretty much cold calling as an interested colleague.
Our charge was to visit various sites of the 3 largest user companies across the US which aren’t necessarily current customers. My buddy approached corporate at one of these and may have poisoned the well (or got an honest final “no”?). I’m thinking of approaching sites individually so that a corporate level executive doesn’t tell me to get lost. In any case I doubt corporate would issue a “warning” to local sites.
I have a Salesforce membership and can find previous sales and get local dealership contacts. However the local reps have no incentive to spend time with me on an already so-so sales prospect. So I’ve been doing the customer research then calling to ask for their help but not counting on it.
So – if you wanted to observe a factory and have a friendly conversation with a decision maker or maintenance manager – how would you approach your target? Here’s a basic question. Would it be more productive to call site managers and risk a definite “no” or to email information so they can email back a gentle “no”? I need to show some benefit to these potential customers and it’s hard to illustrate this. I need some action soon! Thanks
I find phone calls to be much more effective than an email. Email is great for follow-up, even if you just left a voicemail and want to reinforce it, but nothing beats actual contact for getting a chance to make your pitch on why they should talk to you.
The fact that you put this at the very end pretty much defines your problem. If you can’t answer the question “What’s in it for me?” to either the prospects or your local reps, then why should they give you your time.
From reading your link, I get the impression that blueprinting is used more with current customers than prospects. If that’s the case, it falls into a category of “strategic planning.”
Could you try it with a current customer first? You could probably get buy-in from your local rep by selling it as something like “Checking in to evaluate the client’s future needs and making sure we have products/services they’ll need in the future.”
And I agree with** txtumbleweed**. Email is where sales calls go to die.
Agree 100% with previous posts. Nothing beats real-time interaction. That doesn’t mean being pushy, it means listening to your customers needs, explaining the specific benefits to them and answering questions/objections. It does no harm to email as well, but that is not what will get you the business.
“Good afternoon Bob. This is Nefario from Rhymer Enterprises. Do I have you at a bad time?"
“No…”
"Very good, this won’t take long. Bob, I work with firms such as yours in the field of temporal transpositions and alternate history generating**, and I find that I’m going to be in Houston next Tuesday and Wednesday morning. I was interested in meeting you, shaking your hand, and learning more about Timewidget Inc, to see if there are perhaps any mutual areas of interest between our firms**. Are you or a member of your team be free Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday mid-morning?****”
“Uh… who did you say you’re with?”
“Rhymer Enterprises - we specialize in evil schemes and secret lair building.”
“Yeah… I don’t know. We’re pretty busy.”
“I completely understand as we deal with busy people all the time. How about this? Let’s meet Tuesday afternoon and introduce ourselves. At best, we might find areas where we can work together. At worst, we each will have another professional contact. Will Tuesday work, or do you prefer Wednesday morning?*****”
"OK, let’s do Wednesday morning… "
First thing you ask is “Do I have you at a bad time.” Not “How are you”, not “How’s your day”, but “Do I have you at a bad time.” This (a) shows that you’re concerned about their time and (b) gives those who like to say “no” answer a question to which the “no” is beneficial to you.
** - Your connector or bridge, that which gives you common ground with Bob. Other common ones are “I work with small businesses”, “My firm specializes in marketing for restaurants”, etc.
*** - The purpose of your call. Note that you’re not asking for a sales appointment, you’re asking for a meeting to introduce each other, but you do state that you will be talking business (the “areas of mutual interest” line).
**** - NOTE: I did not ask him a question that can be answered Yes/No. I gave him a choice of dates, assuming that the meeting will happen. DO NOT LEAVE THE QUESTION OF WHETHER THE MEETING IS TO HAPPEN IN BOB’S HANDS.
***** - You should go 3 objections deep. I like to add the language about “at best we can work together, at worst we’ll have another professional contact” because it shows Bob the meeting will have value no matter what and that you’re accepting of the fact that Bob may not do business with you.
You could do far worse than buying this book, which is possibly the best book for your situation. His entire point is this: unless you can take orders over the phone, all your job on the phone is to GET THE APPOINTMENT. Don’t sell. Don’t go into a list of benefits. Don’t mention product. Just say, in essence, “I’d like to meet you, are you free Weds afternoon or Thursday morning?”
If you called me with a proposal like that I would hear the following:
“Hi, Dr. Jackson! I’d like to come in and disrupt the productivity of you and/or your team for a day at no benefit to your firm. I will use the time and input from you/your team to generate ideas for my company, with whom you don’t do business, to develop a widget that we hope will immediately help your competitors who do use us and will generate a sales call to you from my company soon thereafter whether the widget works or not. Sound good?”.
If I was in a good mood and let you finish the spiel, the answer would be an unequivocal “NO!”. Your company has given you a Sisyphean task, I’m afraid.
And that’s fine, there’s no universal wording that one can use to guarantee an appointment, and techniques that work well on one person will fail completely on another.
However, the OP is cold-calling people to get appointments. If he verves from the goal of “getting the appointment”, he’s not going to get it. That’s the entire reasoning behind the book (and the script), and the Amazon reviews are instructive in determining if this approach is worthwhile. At the very least, it will give the OP a foundation to build upon until the time he(?) makes the script his own.
I will note that I keep daily counts of my dialing activity and I easily exceed 50% appointments-to-reaches with the above approach.
BY THE WAY, I noticed that I screwed up the link to the book. Here is the corrected link.
And another thing for the OP - write a script and have it in front of you. Don’t read from it, but have it so that if you lose your place in the conversation, you can quickly get back to the task at hand. Also have a script for the voice mail (assuming you wish to leave a VM - some do, some don’t.)
Just to clarify, my response was not to you and your script, it was to the OP in general. Given the scenario, I’m not surprised that the sales director couldn’t get it done.
” We went to one big trade show and for a month nothing happened, then I got emails that 4-5 sites had expressed no interest. He seems to have been lateralled into a different position “Because he wasn’t getting it done.” and now I find he left the company for another in my industry. Don’t know if he jumped or was pushed…