Who remembers a cold call? Revisited

I wrote this post 2 years ago and as I re-visited it recently I was struck by how much more I believe this is true today. Thankfully, the “social seller/spammer” has stopped emailing me, but I noticed there were still a number of really bad cold emails in my Inbox.

Bad emails can linger like the takeaway leftovers in the back of the refrigerator. Most cold callers aren’t good enough at what they do to make an impression (either bad or good) that lasts. Cold Calling isn’t for every application or every salesperson, but you should spend some time figuring out why it isn’t before you discount it.

Bonus points for realising, “my market is different” is not valid in any way.

Here’s the post repeated

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The blogosphere is full of commentary that Cold Calling is dead. You don't have to search far to find someone, usually someone selling a course, that will be pushing this angle.

A quick Google search shows 73,300,000+ Results. 

Normally, their variation on the theme is a coordinated social media strategy that allows prospects to find you and contact you when they are interested. Supposedly the nirvana for salespeople everywhere.

Then there is email marketing. Spurred on by the zero cost of delivery, salespeople have been on a decade long quest to get your email address and "get you in their sales funnel". 

With no real cost associated, they blast out messages (jab, jab, right hook?) and wait for responses to flood their inbox with interest.

Reality is that all three approaches have their merit.

My question to salespeople (and buyers) is really pretty straightforward. Who was the last person that cold called you, good or bad?

How much specific detail can you remember about the caller, even the really horrible ones?

If it happened today, maybe a little.

If it happened last week, not much.

If it happened last month almost nothing.

This is as much a fault of the caller as anything, but my point is that no damage was really done if the buyer/recipient doesn't remember the person calling or the company they were calling from much less the whizz-bang product or service that failed to interest them.

Contrast that with my experiences of late with a certain email marketer. I've been on his list for quite some time, but usually just delete his emails. Not long ago, I realised that I was actually on his list twice so was deleting twice the amount of email that I needed to.

I decided to unsubscribe, but despite having the same email address on both "accounts", I could only get off his list once.

I then setup a rule to send his emails to a folder to see what the true volumes were. As I wasn't deleting them daily, I kind of forgot about until it recently.and checked on the folder. After 90 days here is what I saw:

That's right, 229 emails in 90 days. Many with the same headlines imploring me to save money on a deal that was expiring soon.

How is that "less intrusive" than a cold call?

How is that "more effective" than a cold call?

I guess it comes down to "for whom". 

Cold emails and social media posts spare the poster the direct feedback of a no.

Do you think the guy who sent me 229 emails in 90 days is sitting  at his desk bemoaning his lack of success in getting me as a customer? I doubt it.

In fact, he will continue to send me emails until I unsubscribe yet again or buy something. If I buy, it's proof that his system works. If I unsubscribe, there is no direct rejection despite me saying no to receiving any further communication.

Contrast that with picking up the phone, talking to a potential prospect and getting a direct no. 

Is there a difference?

We're back...

We’ve renamed this section of the Site, ‘Latest Thoughts” which means we should make sure to document more of them more regularly. Nothing like a little internal pressure to get things moving.

Stay tuned to this space to catch up on our current thinking.

Are questions the answer?

We've been spending time on Gong.io's fascinating study of objection handling in sales calls. To learn more about this study, you can go to their blog -

We talked before about the power of slowing down. This can be especially true when dealing with objections on the phone. How you define an objection is subjective, but we feel that any time a prospect starts to ask you multiple questions, you should treat them in this manner.

Prospects asking questions is a great thing, as it demonstrates they are attempting to listen to your presentation and care enough to interrupt the conversation to seek clarification. What we have to be mindful of is losing control of the call. When you get multiple questions, either in one breath or one after the other, you must be careful not to spiral out of control of the conversation.

As you can see, their research shows that Top Performers are better at gaining control of the conversation by asking questions in return.

For example, if someone comes back at you with "the price is too high" an average performer would immediately try and justify their price.  Top performers will hone in on this response from the prospect and start asking questions to better understand what is really meant.

The questions don't have to be fantastic or even totally related to the objection. What is needed is to get control back on your side and keep the conversation going.

Your price may be way too high, but until you have context how can you know what is truly being said?

Something as simple as, "Is price your most important consideration?" can get you back in control and lead the prospect to start justifying their position giving you more time to think and more information to use to your benefit.

We'll cover the types of questions to ask in further blog posts.

Until then, use the data to pause, slow down and then ask a question. Make sense?

What does the data say (Part 2)?

I wrote a few weeks back about the fascinating study that the folks over at Gong.io have done about what actually happens on sales calls and how it relates to successful calls. You can see what I said here - https://www.apigroup.co.nz/news-notes/2018/5/24/what-does-the-data-say

Among the many points they make in the article, is that you should embrace objections. Anyone in sales has heard this concept, but I'm not certain that we really understand what it means. What they are saying in the article is that successful sales calls only happen when there are some objections raised in the conversation. 

We all want to have sales calls where the prospect just says Yes and then asks where they can send the money. These happen from time to time and are your reward for all the other calls that you make.

The real test is getting your prospect to express "negative sentiment" as the Gong article refers to it. They are referring to real objections here, not the standard "I'm not interested" or "Too busy" knee-jerk responses we hear at the beginning of a call.

Their research suggest that these "negative sentiments" are signs that the prospect is listening to you and should be embraced by the salesperson. I wholeheartedly agree.

Again, we're not talking about the prospects who just want to tell us to go jump in a lake. We're talking about situations where you are presenting your solution and looking for a decision.

In fact, their research shows that you should inject some "negative sentiment" into your calls if the prospect hasn't already. Make it a game to ensure they are listening.

Our goal in sales, especially on the phone, is to get the prospect engaged and listening to us. If you are finding yourself having trouble closing sales, take a moment to gauge if you are getting negative sentiment in  your calls and if so, how are you reacting to it.

The best way to do this is to listen to your own call recordings. The next best way is to have someone else listen to your call recordings. If you're not recording your calls, that's the subject of a whole other blog.

Who remembers a cold call?

The blogosphere is full of commentary that Cold Calling is dead. You don't have to search far to find someone, usually someone selling a course, that will be pushing this angle.

A quick Google search shows 73,300,000+ Results. 

Normally, their variation on the theme is a coordinated social media strategy that allows prospects to find you and contact you when they are interested. Supposedly the nirvana for salespeople everywhere.

Then there is email marketing. Spurred on by the zero cost of delivery, salespeople have been on a decade long quest to get your email address and "get you in their sales funnel". 

With no real cost associated, they blast out messages (jab, jab, right hook?) and wait for responses to flood their inbox with interest.

Reality is that all three approaches have their merit.

My question to salespeople (and buyers) is really pretty straightforward. Who was the last person that cold called you, good or bad?

How much specific detail can you remember about the caller, even the really horrible ones?

If it happened today, maybe a little.

If it happened last week, not much.

if it happened last month almost nothing.

This is as much a fault of the caller as anything, but my point is that no damage was really done if the buyer/recipient doesn't remember the person calling or the company they were calling from much less the whizz-bang product or service that failed to interest them.

Contrast that with my experiences of late with a certain email marketer. I've been on his list for quite some time, but usually just delete his emails. Not long ago, I realised that I was actually on his list twice so was deleting twice the amount of email that I needed to.

I decided to unsubscribe, but despite having the same email address on both "accounts", I could only get off his list once.

I then setup a rule to send his emails to a folder to see what the true volumes were. As I wasn't deleting them daily, I kind of forgot about until it recently.and checked on the folder. After 90 days here is what I saw:

That's right, 229 emails in 90 days. Many with the same headlines imploring me to save money on a deal that was expiring soon.

How is that "less intrusive" than a cold call?

How is that "more effective" than a cold call?

I guess it comes down to "for whom". 

Cold emails and social media posts spare the poster the direct feedback of a no.

Do you think the guy who sent me 229 emails in 90 days is sitting  at his desk bemoaning his lack of success in getting me as a customer? I doubt it.

In fact, he will continue to send me emails until I unsubscribe yet again or buy something. If I buy, it's proof that his system works. If I unsubscribe, there is no direct rejection despite me saying no to receiving any further communication.

Contrast that with picking up the phone, talking to a potential prospect and getting a direct no. 

Is there a difference?

Frame Control Redux

We wrote about Oren Klaff and his book Pitch Anything a while back. I gave my take on Frame Control. As usual, Oren has summed it up much better than I could.

Every conversation we have is a battle of frames. Just knowing that will make you a better salesperson over the phone. 

I use a basic exercise to practise my understanding. After every conversation, try and label the frame(s) that was being used by the person on the other end of the line. It will challenge you to listen better and give you a better idea of how you project yourself on the phone.

Happy labelling and think about which side of the collision you ended up on..