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Five Tips for Converting Cold Calls into Sales Meetings
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“By sharing with the prospect what it is that they know about their role and responsibility, their business and/or department, their current and/or future projects and goals, salespeople can quickly and easily demonstrate credibility and pique the prospect's interest.” Your call plan will also provide context for your value proposition, the reason you're asking for the meeting and the value the prospect will get from meeting with you. This simple and straight-forward call plan can have a dramatic impact on the quality of your conversations and increase the likelihood for successful call outcomes. 3. Is Your Value Proposition Strong Enough? This is where most IT staffing sales professionals struggle, because they don't have a value proposition or the value proposition they do have is weak. In order to have a value proposition that is strong enough to compel your prospect to commit to meeting with you-remember your prospects are insanely busy- one first needs to understand what it is that IT hiring managers and corporate decision makers value. Let's start with with what they don't value including some of the industry buzzwords and jargon that turns them off. These words and phrases include: "I'm going to be in the neighborhood next week, can I just stop in real quick to introduce myself?" This sounds really weak, desperate and needy. "I'd like to schedule a meeting with you for just 15 minutes to discuss your upcoming needs and understand your culture." This line or some variation of it has been used since the beginning of time so if you use it, just keep in mind that you're not doing yourself any favors to differentiate yourself. More importantly, what's in it for the prospect to meet under these terms? What value will they get out of the meeting? In this scenario the sales rep has made their personal agenda and self-serving needs the focal point of the call. "We're local, we're a small boutique firm and we're relationship focused. I'm also right down the street from you and we have the best screening and recruiting process and I would like to share with you how we only submit candidates and you will interview and hire one of them." Boooring! They've heard this all before and know that talk is cheap.
Your value proposition must speak to how you have helped other like minded customers solve the same or similar challenges your prospect is facing. In general, all IT hiring managers want to accomplish the following: Reduce costs Improve efficiency by utilizing their assets more effectively Increase revenue, profitability and/or market share Improve customer retention In general the common challenges IT hiring managers face with accomplishing these objectives include: Managing IT projects Managing people Delivering products on time, to spec and under budget And a whole host of others Your value proposition needs to speak to how you and your service help your clients solve these types of challenges and how your solution contributed these types of results. Finally, what corporate buyers and IT hiring managers are really interested in hearing from IT staffing salespeople is how they're working with their existing customers and approaching these types of challenges with them, and how their service is impacting the customer's business, department or project. Think about it, if you live in the north and your pipes freeze due to arctic cold temperatures and you're not sure how to go about fixing your pipes, what would you do? Most likely you're going to want to talk with friends, co-workers and family members not to mention a plumber! You're going to want to hear their input regarding what their experience has been in dealing with frozen pipes. You will want to know how they have solved this problem, and what their approach was to solving it. Why? Because it is valuable insight and advice. You want a solution, not to reinvent the wheel. Your prospects and customers are no different. There is real, genuine value in IT staffing sales professionals sharing with their prospects how they're helping their customers solve problems. If you want more meetings, you need to be able to share these types of stories. You need a value proposition. “When it comes time to ask for the meeting, make sure that you clearly articulate the goal or objective of the meeting and that you clearly articulate the value the prospect will receive from meeting with you.” Skeptical prospects will meet with you off of the cold call but the salesperson has to be persistent with asking asking probing questions, offering a credible rebuttal and asking for the meeting multiple times. Don't back away just because they said no the first time. After you overcome their concern, reiterate the value they will get from meeting with you and ask for the appointment again. Make them say no three times before conceding. You will get them next time and you don't want to turn them off. Neutral Prospects:A second subset of prospects will appear neutral or noncommittal. You won't know for sure what their interest level is in meeting with you because they're "holding their cards tight to their vest." In these cases you can take a soft, disarming approach by asking in such a way as "how do you feel about getting together for an introductory discovery meeting to learn more about how we're helping other like-minded customers achieve similar goals to the one's you're trying to achieve?" Notice that by using this question I'm not actually asking for the meeting but insteadI'm asking how they feel about meeting with me based on what has been discussed up to this point. The value of this question is it allows me to "get a read" or "take the temperature" of this neutral prospect so I can understand where I stand with him or her. How they respond will tell me exactly what I need to do next. If they don't agree to a meeting then I will need to ask probing questions to uncover their concern. Enthusiastic Prospects:For prospects who are openly enthusiastic and engaging, you should just be straight forward and ask them for the meeting. You might say "when would be a good time for us to meet to discuss this in more detail?" Or, you can give them two options, neither of which is a no by saying "How does Tuesday at 10 or Wednesday at 1 sound to meet for an introductory discovery discussion?"