Many of you have read some of my better threads, the ones I had an opportunity to spend the proper amount of time and trouble to get right, rather than being rushed.
If you have followed my involvement on this forum you know that I have been selling for 30 years and sales training/managing for 24 years. That my father has 45 years of sales training expereince and has been selling for more than 55~!
MySalesDad© is perhaps the greatest new business generator on the planet. In his 79th year he holds contracts with a huge software company in the U.S. and has as clients in both the Canadian & U.K. Divisions of an engineering efficiency company, as well as consulting for my business. He uses the phone as his only source for generating business.
Now let me switch gears.
I am the same man who opened a thread entitled Cold Calling Works Big Time. I am also perhaps the greatest student of various types or schools of sales training on the planet, including the ones that are way out in left field (as I want to know what their spin is, which should not to be misinterpreted as S.P.I.N.). Now, while I perhaps can't get away with saying that I'm the modest type I do back up my claims both with proof, from the outside, and in my written and spoken words, as I am sure you have noticed.
So humor me for a moment. Assume I am the real deal and that I am not anything other than what I have stated and see what this thread is really all about.
One of the sales trainers who is doing a pretty good job of self promoting recently that would not agree with me - who's training I would say I feel so strongly about that I despise - has put out a great deal of information and a few books, one with a similar title to the one I used to name this thread. I have just watched an AV presentation by him and this time, instead of guffawing and claiming he is barking up the wrong tree or going in the wrong direction, I did my homework properly and took notes.
Now I can refute his training. And here are this trainers statements in a nutshell plus my thoughts;
(1) Cold calling destroys your status as a business equal.
When I showed him the video MySalesDad© just about fell off his chair laughing at this statement. But I do not expect any of you to take this 2nd hand observation at face value as some sort of proof that this trainer's statement is a bunch of baloney.
Nor will I stray into the dark side of why this particular statement is effective, at least not till later in the thread.
Instead I will tell you that President's of companies not only do not think that people like us are not business equals, they are seriously impressed after our contact. In other words quite the opposite to this author/speaker's statement.
No, I am not about to magically flash a reference letter as proof of something that I know to my very core as the absolute truth, you will just have to beleive this part for a moment, as the latter parts I can prove easily. And, everything will be revealed in good time by me, a true master of communication.
(2) When you cold call you do not bring any value.
The inference is that all you do when you either walk in off the street or pick up the phone is prove you want a commission. Well, if you are a poorly trained sales person this may be true. You would not know how to bring value at all.
Real pros who understand prospecting know that no form of direct response marketing is any different than the job we do when we get on the phone with a well researched suspected prospect. We bring value in spades. And, if we did not, there would NEVER BE A REASON TO GRANT AN APPOINTMENT .... the numbers would not be low, as is suggested by this trainer, they would be non existent!
Top notch executives do not grant time to sales reps without good reason. They never have, not unless they are poor business people who suffer from loneliness to a degree that anyone is granted some of their time or simply are not bright enough to understand!
(3) The person who is in power is the person who can fulfill a need or deny a need.
This is the only part of this particular trainer's video presentation we previewed online that was 100% correct. However, he did such a poor job of proving his own ideology he actually proved that cold calling does work (sort of at the same time as trying to prove his own theories).
Anaylize #3. The first part says "the person who is in power is the person who can fulfill a need ...", well, damn straight. That is the seller. We are the ones with need fulfillment all locked up.
Now look at the 2nd part of the 3rd statement; "...or deny a need!" This is an inference that the buyer can deny the need we have as sellers to make a sale. That is true but it is also true when you use direct marketing skills to generate responses that do not amount to a sale or get your direct response letters thrown in the garbage can. Furthermore, it is also true when you receive referrals too, as they do not all turn into sales.
If you understand your value proposition, your U.S.P., you know what I am talking about. Your initial communications with a prospect, whether you surprise them with a call or call back after they respond or call them through referral - in all three cases - you still have to sell. That means, after the introduction, you have to open with; what is in it for them, even if they already read a letter and called you. They must be reminded!
The sales person who does not get this blows many of their cold calls, ruins a great many lead responses and gets no where with their referrals!
Actually, sales people who are less sophisticated don't get referrals, but that is another topic.
Pardon my French but ...It has been said many times that bull**** baffles brains. And when I am exposed to training that employs not very well thought out methods of taking advantage of human nature simply for the purpose of selling books/tapes/CD's/DVD's I cannot help but being incensed.
Sales people do not like rejection. The highest occurrence of rejection is felt in prospecting. Therefore anything that is even half way convincing that they need not suffer any longer is an example of dealing with pain, which is what we do as professionals. So why do so many sales people miss this and buy these training materials, why are they so desperate? The answer is so simple it is truly amazing that it gets overlooked. In fact, it is mundane, so I will leave to you the opportunity to respond and tell everyone who reads this thread the answer.
But I will say this; as a sales professional I can deal with your pain too, and in a far more professional way. First, I would not fill a sales person's head with misleading crap (but, then again, I prefer to work with people who know better - like you). Instead I teach not only how to generate responses from direct response advertising but how to do every form of selling and marketing, including how to be more effective with referrals, which by the way is one of the most advanced selling skills (one that few really master).
One selling technique that falls into the prospecting category is cold calling. When you know how to do it right it both communicates strong value and puts you, the seller, into a very elite power situation. Because you are one of the very few who knows what they are doing.
There are not many elite business people. Those in Donald Trump's league are few and far between. When you approach an Owner, a President or a CEO with the kind of professionalism that comes from being extremely well trained they appreciate your approach, even if the need(s) you can fulfill is/are not one(s) that apply to them. And, if you spoke to one of Donald's apprentices with a serious value proposition and they did not listen, he would fire them so fast it would make their head spin because it would cost him money.
Get the picture? You have a good reason to call and you MUST beleive that. If you do and you know how to communicate it you will not "destroy your status as a business equal." Far from it!
Don't be baffled, there is serious bull**** out there. And, unfortunately, while the Internet makes a lot of good and great information available to us in an instant, it is a perfect example of the Chinese philosophy often called YING and YANG as it also is a source of the opposite!
Cold calling doesn't work anymore!