Are you prospecting by email? First of all, the phone is - almost - always better. But, you don't have every prospects' phone number.

So, if you find yourself sending prospecting emails, here are four rules:

1. Keep it short: It can't be longer than a blackberry screen.
2. It better be tailored: If you're sending generic emails, don't expect to hear back.
3. It often takes more than one: Count on sending three, four, or more before hearing back.
4. Get permission: If you're just sending emails without gaining permission, you're probably spamming.

Let me share two examples of recent emails I've received. One good. One bad.

After requesting some information from a professional services firm we're considering engaging, I received this message:

Hi Jeb,

Since you requested information about our work last night, I thought I'd first send you the attached case study. It highlights a project we recently completed with an HR Training firm. I've personally worked with a handful of training firms (candidly, no sales training firms) and have found a number of ways we can help. Let me know a good time to call. If I don't hear back, I'll try to reach you by phone tomorrow.

[Name]
[Phone Number]
[Company]

Why is that so great? First, it's short - I could read it on my iPhone. Second, it's obviously tailored to me - he knows I'm in the training business. Third, he's pre-prepared me for his multiple contact approach. Fourth, I'd already requested his contact. Also, I like this one because he's provided something for me to review. Chances are, I won't. But it's still nice to get it.

Here's a bad one that I received . . . on the SAME day from one of his competitors.

Your request has been received. One of our experts will cnotact you shortly.

Sincerely,
[Company]

P.S. This email address is not monitored. Please do not respond.

Why is that so bad? I don't think I have to tell you.

Do you have any effective email prospecting tips? If you've got some emails that generate results, please share them in the Comments Section below. How do you use email to get someone to call YOU back?

-@JebBrooks

]]> http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/index.php/2012/01/07/prospecting-by-email/feed/ 1 http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/17/prospecting-tool/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=prospecting-tool http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/17/prospecting-tool/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:51:59 +0000 Jeb Brooks http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/?p=3403

The hardest part of selling is getting in front of a qualified prospect.

The other day I had the chance to speak with Rally Marketing’s Co-Founder Mike Cannon about this problem and the solution he has developed. He introduced me to their very straightforward Sales 2.0 prospecting tool. The tool allows salespeople to identify qualified prospects via email.

Here’s how it works:

Rally sends short emails, under a salesperson’s name, to prospects asking for help finding the right person to talk to. It’s an old technique, wrapped in blackberry-sized email messages.

It's important to note that these emails are all Can-SPAM Compliant, by the way.

By capitalizing on people’s innate desire to help, Mike and his team use quick emails to identify who, within an organization, is the right person to speak with regarding an offer. Their “simple and soft campaigns” are fully customizable and yield response rates of up to 6%.

Rally Marketing is asking your prospects for a simple favor. By acknowledging their ability to help and asking for that help, Rally can learn a lot. They then analyze the responses to gather good information to pass along to you. Whether it's an out-of-office reply, a true response, or some other information, they're gathering prospecting data.

With that said, Rally Marketing's offer is one approach. A truly strong prospecting effort requires a lot more than any one tool. The most effective salespeople are the ones who have many paths leading from qualified prospects to themselves. Consider this tool as one of those paths. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

@JebBrooks

Last May, my good friend and fellow sales trainer here at The Brooks Group, Tony Smith, wrote that Cold Calling 2.0 was really about making “warm calls.” But I’m going to take it a step further and say that...

Cold Calling Is Stupid.

Here’s why.

Prospecting is the lifeblood of your sales career. Finding solutions to their problems is the lifeblood of your prospects.

Making phone calls with the hope of building a relationship is wasteful. Allow me to explain...

• It’s a waste of your time because you can invest your time in efforts with far greater returns. According to Peter Drucker, you stand a one-in-fourteen chance of selling something to someone who has no relationship with you or your company. Surely we can agree that building a relationship with a random phone call to your prospect is a...stupid...way to build a relationship? How many marriages began with an out-of-the-blue phone call?
• It’s a waste of your prospect’s time because they've got better things to do than dilly-dally on the phone. Earlier this year, I wrote step-by-step instructions about how you can sell something to me. As I said, "The chances of a cold caller calling me when I'm able to pay attention to their offering is unlikely." The same is true of most prospects. Now, more than ever, people are being asked to accomplish more in less time. Find smarter ways to help them than taking more of their precious time.

In our sales training programs, we teach a front-end loaded process called IMPACT Selling. We call graduates of the course "High IMPACT Salespeople" because they invest their efforts in positioning, prospecting, and pre-call planning. They have High Impact! Their work is far more lucrative than "dialing for dollars." It's more lucrative since it reverses the relationship. If done right, it means that prospects call you. That's a lot more effective than salespeople who bang away at the phones hoping for someone to say, "Yes, I'll listen."

Now, let me acknowledge that cold calling is probably never going to go away. That's because (1) it will eventually work for a small percentage of prospects and (2) there are a lot of managers out there who built a book of business on cold calling and believe "that's the way I did it, so you should, too." However, can't we all agree there are more effective ways to sell!?

@JebBrooks

It seems more companies now than ever face a marketing v. sales debate.

It usually goes like this:

Marketing: "This sales department just ignores the leads we send them. They don't take advantage of the new collateral we've developed. And they certainly don't appreciate all of the work we did on the new brand. Why don't they get it?"

Sales: "Those marketers just don't get it. We want leads. Qualified leads. But they never send any. They're too busy building a brand. Customers don't care about a brand. Why do they keep wasting their time?"

High IMPACT Salespeople don't join in the debate. They don't point fingers. They don't cast blame.

Instead, they take action.

Regardless of what you sell (and the demands placed on you by "management"), you have some degree of flexibility in the "marketing activities" you can take on as a salesperson.

In most companies, the Marketing Department is tasked with a shotgun approach: Tell our company's story to as many people as possible. Share our offerings with a wide range of people.

Sales, on the other hand, is asked to tell that story to individual people (or people within companies) in order to gain their commitment to use, buy, or implement their offering.

In my opinion, we (sales) got the better end of that stick. I'd rather get the immediate feedback of a prospect than wait around for market research results. But, that's why I'm in sales. Regardless of which you prefer, the lesson here is that there can be a blurry line between "marketing activities" and "sales efforts."

Prospecting -- how and where you look for new opportunities -- could be termed "marketing," but you still do it.

For example, where do you go for referrals? People who've already bought things from YOU. That's not "marketing," that's a prospecting strategy you can employ to grow your book of business.

But we don't have to stop at Referrals…

What about collateral development? Is it possible for you to develop some material that supports your case? Yes.

Or article writing? Could you put together an article about your offering that provides some good, neutral information? Yes.

How about developing an email newsletter of your own? Might you be able to write a monthly newsletter and send it to your prospects and customers? Yes.

High IMPACT Salespeople just take action. They drive their own results.

@JebBrooks

"None of us on our own are as capable as all of us together"

I paraphrased my favorite Japanese Proverb to make a point: Too often, salespeople stall because they're afraid they don't have all of the answers. The truth is that they'd be much better off if they'd adopt the attitude that, by working together, they'll arrive at a better place.

Smart salespeople look to their colleagues, sales managers, prospective clients, customers -- anyone really -- for answers.

• A testimonial, for example, is an existing client telling a prospective client that you can do what you've claimed (or, ideally, more).
• A referral involves working collaboratively with an existing client to identify someone inside their network who can take advantage of your offering.
• A partnership is identifying someone you can work with to build business opportunities together.
• A network is a group of people looking to help each other create new business.

As we move into 2011 (and beyond) there will be more and more opportunities to collaborate. Could you partner with someone to write an e-book that would help your prospective clients buy from you? Could you find some experts in your field and coauthor a few articles together? Sure, these ideas may seem a bit far-fetched, but they could help you get discovered by a prospective client!

Are you taking advantage of online collaboration tools?

Are you on LinkedIn? Let's connect there. Are you on Twitter? Follow us.

@JebBrooks

I'm a pretty good prospect for lots of people. I control three budgets (marketing, R&D, and operations) in a privately-held company and I don't have all of the answers to the problems I face.  However, I'm terribly, terribly - at times unbelievably - busy.

So, with that setup, why do people think a Cold Call will work?

The chances of a cold caller catching me at a time when I’m able to pay attention to their offering is unlikely. Even if it’s something I could actually benefit from, I’m probably not going to be able (willing) to stop what I’m doing to focus on what they’re selling.

Cold calls frustrate me, especially when the caller is selling something I really do need. If you’re going to provide so much benefit, PLEASE get my attention some way other than an interruption. Here are some ideas:

• Find out where I am, and be there. I attend a lot of conferences. Perhaps you can connect with me there.
• I’m awfully easy to find on social media networks. Let’s tweet, link, or somehow meetup.
• You've probably noticed that I like to blog. Perhaps you could comment.

I'm not alone; there are a lot of “Crazy-Busy” prospects (as Jill Konrath calls them) out there just like me. You can probably connect with them in similar ways.

The key to connecting with prospects like me  is to meet them where they are in a way that doesn’t interrupt them.

If you can do that…

…you’re doing a lot of good as a salesperson.

For the sake of my time, your time, and all time, stop the interruption-selling!

@JebBrooks

It's a Numbers Game

The ugly truth about sales is that it is, always has been, and always will be a “numbers game.” The more people a salesperson sees (or talks to), the more revenue. Period.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of new, different, and exciting sales tactics promising ammo to salespeople who want to avoid this troubling truth.

Sales is a ratio: Leads to Sales.

• The more leads, the more sales.
• The fewer leads, the fewer sales.

Even if you have bad leads, the more of them you have, the more sales you'll eventually make. Sure, it'll be harder, but the ratio still works.

Whether out of fear or laziness, there are some salespeople who refuse to move beyond excuses in order to get in front of more qualified prospects.

We teach that a qualified prospect has five, key characteristics. And the salespeople who fill their funnels with qualified prospects make more sales.

Technology

Regardless of the advances in Sales 2.0 technology, the number of clients your team wins will always be directly related to the number of people they get in front of. That being said, there are two things technology can do. It can either help the best salespeople increase the number of qualified prospects they see. Or, in the worst case, it can be a distraction -- or crutch -- to hide behind. Some salespeople even get bogged down in negativity that can appear in places like Twitter. Smart salespeople understand how sales has changed. They use technology to do things like...

• Find supremely qualified prospects
• Maintain meaningful contact with clients
• Identify prospects' needs and wants before they meet with them.

The Truth

So that’s the truth: At the end of the day, sales is a numbers game. And, if you’ve got the right salespeople in place, they’re constantly striving to raise both sides of the ratio (more prospects, which leads to more clients)!

Is there some other “ugly truth” to sales?

++++

Don't forget to download our highly popular (free) whitepaper called "The 21 Biggest Myths in Sales."

You may be surprised to learn that what you thought you knew about selling is not only untrue, but totally counterproductive! Read this special report for the truth!

@JebBrooks

In my last blog entry, I promised that I would provide insight into a revolutionary new system that will allow you to be more successful in your prospecting efforts.

Recently, I have heard several organizations express the need to teach their salespeople how to build and sustain more value in their sales interactions. In my opinion, simply telling a prospect or customer how your product or service can save them money, reduce costs or any other number of so-called ‘value building’ statements is not really providing them with any real value. I think such statements are, at their root, self-serving in that they place the entire focus on the salesperson and their products and services. Prospects have heard this same line of mumbo-jumbo over and over so many times before that they immediately want to hide once they start hearing it again.

Is there a better way?

Is there a way to build your credibility from the very beginning?
What about delivering real value to your prospects and customers?

Is there a system that you can implement to help you become a trusted advisor and strategic resource, as opposed to being ‘just another salesperson?’

ValueTouch Prospecting™ is the answer. Every time we communicate with a prospect or customer, we are ‘touching’ them in some way. We must always evaluate if this touch was a positive or negative experience for our prospects and customers. The way to ensure you are providing a positive experience with a prospect is to make sure that your communication actually delivers real value to them. In essence, you must deliver a ValueTouch!

In a nutshell, ValueTouch Prospecting is a system designed to help you create compelling value with new prospects and retain your value with existing customers. Here are six tips that will provide you with a quick overview and get you started on your way to better prospecting.

1) Ensure that every communication with a potential prospect or customer delivers compelling value that helps them do what they do better. The perception of value that prospects and customers place on you, your products and services, and your organization is in direct proportion to the value that you provide.

Example: You are targeting a small business owner to discuss their credit card processing equipment. You provide timely information on “the most effective ways to deal with delinquent customer accounts without having to pay hefty legal fees or tie up too much of your time.” Notice that this has nothing to do with your credit card processing machine product and instead is something valuable that your prospect may immediately use. How do you think you will be perceived by the prospect? Positively or negatively?

2) Focus on building trust, rather than pushing your products and services.

3) Employ blended prospecting/marketing strategies to maximize potential sales opportunities.

4) Update your selling practices to reflect the advancements of Sales 2.0

5) Position yourself as a trusted advisor and make sure you are in alignment with your prospect or customer’s buying process.

6) Take action now to refresh your knowledge of business principles.

If you would like more information on how you can implement ValueTouch Prospecting into your sales process, please click here to download our complimentary white paper entitled ValueTouch Prospecting: Finding and Maintaining a steady Stream of Buyers During Turbulent Times.

Submitted by:

Recently, I was having a conversation with a client who mentioned that, even in our current economy, his top salespeople were still leading the pack! They were doing so with numbers a bit lower than the previous year. In actuality, everyone's numbers had dropped across the board, although some drops were more severe than others.

The client went on to explain that some fluctuation was to be expected, and discussed how important it would be to make sure that next year's goals would be realistic for his team. The conversation quickly turned to why his top people were still at the top even in a down economy.

Were they all the same, or did they share certain attributes that contributed to their success? The common thread turned out to be that his top salespeople were all good at prospecting.

In the case of each stand-out performance:

1. A formal prospecting plan was in place (tailored to what worked for the individual).
2. Action was taken to implement the plan.
3. Personal goals were set (Not by a manger, but by the salesperson).
4. Regular personal reviews were established to determine if the right results were being obtained.
5. Flexibility was given to tweak the plan when needed.
6. The salesperson was disciplined enough to follow the plan.
7. They had mastery of more than one prospecting technique (there are many different strategies for prospecting; cold-calling is just one of them).

If you will mirror these seven steps, chances are you will find your prospecting efforts to be very effective. When times are tough, the key to success is to have a plan, take appropriate action and remain flexible to course correct if the plan isn't working. Above all, having the discipline to stay the course is critical!

Submitted by:

Can't it be hard to get appointments with prospects? We've all had the experience of leaving phone messages, or networking at events, for prospects we are fairly sure are good ones. I can't give you the magic tool that will make every prospect call back - or accept your next call - but I can make a suggestion that will improve your odds significantly.

When you call a prospect, what goes through his or her mind?

• Who are you?
• What do you represent?
• What's in it for me?

To answer these questions effectively - and quickly - use a Direct Value Statement. What's a Direct Value Statement? It's a fast summary of what value you bring to customers who are like the prospect you're hoping to sell to. It can be used in a voice mail, face-to-face, or over the phone.

Here's an example: "My name is Will Brooks, with The Brooks Group. We assist our customers in the long-term healthcare industry to build their sales cultures and grow census. We do this by providing customized sales and sales management training reinforced with practical, real-world coaching."

See how it works?

My name is ____________________________, with __________________________.

We assist our customers in the _________________________ industry

to __________________________________________________________________.

We do this by _________________________________________________________.

You should practice and practice your Direct Value Statement in your own words so that it flows easily and naturally for you when you need it - whether you're telephone prospecting, networking at an event, or just meeting a stranger at a party.