Cold Calling

There is a lot of talking and blogging going on about cold calling and whether it is a necessary or even desired part of the sales mix. I can't resist putting in my two cents on this discussion.

I have recently seen a couple of studies and listened to somepresentations about the changes taking place in how sellers and buyers areinteracting that are worth considering as we leap into the fray. In general,the trends discussed are reflected in the 2010 DemandGenand Genius.com study titled "Inside the Mind ofthe B2B Buyer."One of their key findings was that more than 80% of B2Bcustomers/buyers said that on their transactions that they had initiatedcontact with the seller. Only 10% said that they were contacted cold by theseller.

Personally I'm not convinced that the 80%, is an accuratereflection of the sales situation today. But that is really beside the point.The key takeaway is that it is an indicator of how your customer's perceptionof the role of sellers has changed and how the actual role of sales iscontinuing to evolve at a rapid pace. The Internet and social media haveirrevocably transformed how conversations with some significant fraction ofyour prospects are initiated. And, even if you, as a seller, initiate contactwith a prospect, chances are high they are going to possess some level ofpre-education and pre-qualification on your product and service on that firstcall (or they are going to acquire it by browsing your website while on thephone with you.)

What does this mean for cold calling? In an ideal world, coldcalling wouldn't be necessary. In our fantasy, marketing departments wouldprove capable of generating well-targeted (or "sales worthy" toborrow a term from my friend Nancy Nardin) in-bound sales leads in suchlarge quantities, week after week, month after month, that all available salestime would be consumed with responsive follow-up. Wouldn't it be great if theworld were handed to you on a silver platter like that?

Unfortunately, that dreamy ideal world doesn't exist for mostcompanies. Using the figure from above as an example, even if you meet 80% ofyour sales goal today from prospects that originated as sales worthy in-boundsales leads, where will you find the remaining 20%? You will find them fromproactive prospecting (i.e., cold calling.)

If you're in Sales your job boils down to this: doing the hardwork required to meet your goals. Whenever there is a gap between in your pipelinebetween the number of qualified prospect your need to meet reliably meet yourgoal and the number of qualified prospects in your pipeline generated fromin-bound sales lead conversions, and there will almost always be one, it has tobe filled in by prospect activity generated by you. This means fulfilling yourresponsibility as a salesperson to do what you have to do in order to meet andexceed your assigned goal. If this means spending a portion of every dayfollowing a disciplined prospecting process (i.e., doing some research to picktargets, making connections online, getting on the phone or going out andmaking calls) then that is what has to be done.

In my first professional sales job out of college, in thepre-Internet dark ages, I was selling big computers. Everyday involved gettingkicked out of the office at 8am and venturing out to make cold calls out in myterritory. I have to admit it didn't come naturally to me. So I developedanother approach. I hit upon a system of hosting a seminar in our branch officeevery Wednesday afternoon at 4pm during which I would demonstrate our system. Iused business directories to research names of potential prospects in myterritory and mailed out 10 postcards with a hand-written invitation everyThursday. I'd follow up with everyone on the following Monday morning and againon the morning of the seminar. Usually I'd end up with one or two attendeeseach week. Within months I had a strong, constantly renewing pipeline and waskilling my numbers. After a couple years, I was getting two thirds of mybusiness from existing accounts and referrals. But every Thursday, I was stillsending out 10 postcards and every Wednesday I was playing host to newprospects.

No matter how many leads you receive, cold calling, or proactiveprospecting, remains a necessity for most salespeople and most sales teams.Clearly the amount of time a salesperson has to devote to cold calling couldshrink as increasing numbers of prospects pre-educate themselves online andinitiate connections with potential vendors. But the role sales prospectingplays in building a strong pipeline of qualified prospects to ensure that youmake your numbers is will never go away completely.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

This is not a trick question.

Are you selling or is your customer buying? The answer is both.There is both a sales cycle and buying cycle(s) occurring concurrently on everydeal. Understanding the balance between the two is essential for every seller.

Why is this important to you? Because the sole purpose of asales cycle is to support the buying cycle by helping the customer accomplish asingle task: making a fully informed decision to purchase the right product orservice for their needs. If you, as a seller can also, at the same time, enablethe customer to make that purchase decision in the shortest time possible thenyou will have created value for the buyer, established credibility, builttrust, and put yourself at the head of the pack competing for their business.

The Balance of Power has Shifted

In the olden days, in the pre-Internet world, buyers of product,your prospects, were completely dependent on sellers for information about theproducts they wanted to buy. There were no websites to search and very fewreliable third-party sources of information about products that you could useto guide your purchase decision. The result was a much more casually pacedbuying cycle as the customer had few options to control the pace.

Then the Internet upended that whole cozy arrangement. Within amatter of years the customer was no longer dependent on the seller for productinformation. Brochures were replaced with websites that were usually full ofmore information than even the salesperson knew. Online communities providedusers with a forum where they could voice their unvarnished opinions aboutproducts and services to all who were interested. Buyers had access to a wholespectrum of information that hadn’t existed before or that had been shieldedfrom them by the sellers. Suddenly, the buyer was in charge of his or her ownbuying process.

Do Not Pass Go

There can be some debate about how many steps there are in acustomer’s buying cycle. Personally I believe that there are six steps in thebuying cycle. But no matter how many steps the prospect has to complete intheir buying cycle, one fact remains: a buyer won’t progress from the currentstep in their buying cycle to next until their information requirements for thecurrent step are fully satisfied. This means that each step of a buying cyclecarries with it certain requirements for information that must be received bythe prospect before they will move forward to the next step.

Sellers Control the Pace of Deals

When sales cycles get stretched out salespeople always pointtheir fingers at the buyer. To them it is always the customer who’s the culpritwhen the sales cycle stalls. In truth, the opposite is true. It is nearlyalways the seller’s fault when the buyer stops making progress towards anorder. Why? Because the seller didn’t provide the prospect with the informationthey needed to move on to the subsequent step in their buying process. If thedeal you are working on suddenly loses momentum, take a look in the mirrorbefore you begin pointing fingers at the customer. Then, you must quicklydetermine what data the customer needs from you to satisfy their requirementsfor the current step of their buying cycle and get back on track to an order.

We Are Not Alone

As a seller you must also understand that there is a good chancethat there will be more than one buying cycle occurring simultaneously. Yourprospect will have a separate buying process for every seller in a competitivedeal. This is extremely important for a seller to understand. If you can becompletely responsive to your prospect’s information requirements then you cangain a competitive advantage over your competitors.

What the Successful Seller Does

The successful seller is the one that most closely aligns theirselling resources (i.e., their product knowledge and industry expertise) withthe buying needs (i.e., information requirements) of the customer to enablethem to make the optimum informed decision in the least time possible. Thismeans that you have to place your people with the deepest product knowledge andindustry expertise closest to the customer.

To help the prospect move through their buying cycle in theshortest time you have to eliminatethe “get-backs”from your selling. Everytime a salesperson can’t answer a prospect’s question and says, “I’m sorry I’mgoing to have to get back to you” he or she is slowing down the buying cycle.Having the right salespeople on your team who can be completely responsive tothe prospect’s need for information and help them move through their buyingcycle in Zero-Time will definitely enable you to win more orders in less time.

The First Seller with the Answers Wins

A buying cycle is nothing more than a search for information in the form of answers to questions. How a seller conveys that information to the prospect will be the difference between getting an order and losing a customer.