someone elses loyal customer

Yesterday I made a cold call to a prospect and the receptionist told me that they have had the same vender for 30 years and are loyal to them. How do I get them to listen to my pitch or to even think about change?

Yesterday I made a cold call to a prospect and the receptionist told me that they have had the same vender for 30 years and are loyal to them. How do I get them to listen to my pitch or to even think about change?

Why are you having extensive conversations with the receptionist? The only person you want to have an extensive conversation with is the prospect.

.. it can't be argued that mail and call does work, as it can warm up that cold call ...

Those of us that are trained in the Sandler Method of sales know that even the best cold callers can expect a success rate of less than 10% ...

Referrals, done in the correct method in which I'm trained, approach 90%. Thus, the quickest way, in b-b sales, to increase income is thru referrals ...

I know people that only use referrals at this point.

... "look up the contact on their website or trade journals and ask for them directly".

Funny thing about gatekeepers too, many of them turned out to be allies of mine. Even had a few call me when opposition appeared on the scene. Maybe it depends on what you are selling ?

... I called and explained to the "gatekeeper" what I was calling for, something like, "we have this product or system that (state benefit), who would be the person to talk to at your company __________ ... (I would ask this even if I thought I knew who I needed to talk to)

If the __________ enquired more I'd get a BIT technical about the product and they'd often reply with, "that's beyond me, I'll put you through to ________".

Greg, I want to be very clear with my response and up front;

Trying to say that the suggested rule of engagement of TOP DOWN is invalid because you did not call the Australian Prime Minister to get approval to begin discussion in a B2G situation when I was sharing the reasons why in a B2B sale we do one thing or another is clearly comparing Apples and Oranges.

Shall I now similarly make a pooint by suggesting people should call a man's wife to get approval to speak to her husband about life insurance, which is a B2C sale? Come on now, this is stretchign a bit isn't it???

Perhaps you are taking things a little too personally? This is just a suggestion as I don't know you but if we are to try and understand what the highest probability for concluding a B2B sale is beginning with a phone prospecting call, we have to stay on point and ... well ... refrain from making wild comparisons.
what else is confusing in your post? Names in B2B sales ... Managing Director instead of President ... Australia/U.K. vs. North America ... yah, we know. Many of us have called on many a U.K. and Australian companies and know that culture in terms of names is different (I was born in the U.K. and do business there every week), in terms of who makes the final decision about major decisions - it is not.

Reaching the wrong person 35% of the time in my line of work is considered a very high failure rate, not a low one. And by this I do not mean you convert that many into appointments, I mean you don't reach teh right person nearly EVERY TIME you get through ... !


This is a confusing statistic at best.

Reaching someone who would listen to you is not really selling. In terms of serious sales propositions you might say the point is that senior executive MUST be involved in the final decision, thus you must interact with them as well as any other party involved in that process, such as engineers. But really, to us, the point is; are we wasting our time ... or;



Knowing that most decisions must be made at a higher level, you can be making a huge mistake with almost all but the most minor decisions by NOT starting out at or near the top. The main reason why is; if you get approval at a lower level, meaning that middle management person has shown a desire to buy, that is all you have, it is not an order!

If this middle management person does not have the ability to convince the senior management of your product's benefits you are unable to go over that person's head without creating animosity and internal political situations.

IN ALMOST EVERY CORPORATE CULTURE IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, UNITED STATES OR THE U.K. EVERYONE WHO WORKS IN A BUSINESS DOES NOT WANT TO APPEAR STUPID OT TO SEEM TO HAVE MADE A MISTAKE.

I work with an Industrial Consulting firm (one of my clients), they are working in all four countries. The President of that firm and I had a few pints at a pub last week and spent half an hour talking this culture thing out. It is clear that though terms are different people feel the same about themselves.

There are other reasons why you start at the top and work down. But admitting that you deny yourself the ability to sell because you rely on a non sales person to sell for you inside their organization is really the first step in understanding why we don't start where the operator points us.

But you started out discussing a website to get the names of executives. I use them and Hoovers.com ... and can tell you that the use of such information would not prevent screening. As you almost always run into an Executive Assistant at top levels. This person may not be instructed to screen calls but they might and you cannot risk it.

In other words, it matters not where you get the name, what matters is you may incur screening at any level during a call. Thus you need to know as much as you can before the call but, ultimately, this is irrelevant. Totally irrelevant ... if you cannot be creative to get past the person who may or may not end up being a PALACE GUARD then you are dead right there - the party is over before it began.

Listen, mate, listing 50 top companies that bought is not an argument that you should not use the best possible odds to succeed, not at all. It only goes to prove what we have always known in our industry about the law of averages.

I could make this point by saying "I have seen engineers get orders who knew not one thing about sales." But even that, though telling, is not a strong enough argument to win a skeptic over. What does put the nail in the lid of the coffin on this argument is the law of averages itself ... take this example ... the sale sindustry has thoroughly proven that even if you are unable to speak, if you make enough calls, you will get orders!

In case you think this last statement is not in the spirit of this website and forum, think again. I am not kidding. This is how our most popular sales training session begins, seriously!

I am never impressed by who has who as an account. I have a client who has never been taught a thing about selling that got himself into R.I.M. (BlackBerry) last week and I know he is good at his consulting gig but he sure ain't anything in comparison to me as a sales guy.

Trust me or trust research, I could care less. But I tell you now; if you want to succeed beyond your wildest dreams, learn to apporach senior executives and work down, I promise, you will kill everyone else on your sales team except those who do the same.

If you are an order taker, this post and all my posts aren’t for you. I do not specialize in small sales. But if you are a B2B sales rep who is making serious approaches ... to medium to large businesses ... no matter where they are in the English speaking world, use that which has the highest probability of success, which is doing your own selling. Don't rely on middle management to get approvals for you.

Bets of luck always.

I believe a good sales person has to be extremely flexible, hence I have a disdain for scripts and dogmatism.

Let’s remember, this all started with Daran’s post which stated, “Yesterday I made a cold call to a prospect and the receptionist told me that they have had the same vender for 30 years and are loyal to them.”

Why are you having extensive conversations with the receptionist? The only person you want to have an extensive conversation with is the prospect.

My recommendation is to stop giving gatekeepers so much information that they (instead of your prospect) make the decision that your services are not needed.

Ask for your prospect by name. If a gatekeeper says, "What is this in reference to?" it is perfectly fine (and actually quite effective) to simply say, "This is something I need to discuss with (prospect's name). Is s/he available?"

I believe a good sales person has to be extremely flexible, hence I have a disdain for scripts and dogmatism.

FYI:

If you get past the gatekeeper and get the sale - please don't forget the "Post sale" in this situation.

Mr. Smith, thanks for your order but before I take payment, can we take a second to talk about whats going to happen when Mr.Competition hears about this. What are you going to say to them?

If he/she is a long term client and the competition comes back to whine or yell, and they aren't prepared - watch out dont even cash the check yet.

my .02

Tom, compliance and regulatory issues are, of course, a different matter. My comments had to do with the selling process/conversation.