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How Salespeople Perpetuate Dysfunctional Buying Practices
The single biggest way that salespeople perpetuate this broken model is the manner in which we solicit opportunities (prospecting). At some point in your career, you have likely been told that if you make 100 phone calls, you will speak to 10 people, book 2-3 appointments and make one sale (or some similar version of this nonsense). You are told it's a numbers game. More contacts equates to more sales.
I argue that the more ineffective calls you make, the lower your chances of success in the long run. Out of the 100 people you call, how many of them will need your product or service over the next couple of years? Many of them probably will, but how many of them do you alienate and irritate using the methods we currently employ? More often than not, those opportunities are lost forever.
The fact is that a very small percentage of the people you contact are ready to buy today. However, by calling on these folks constantly you are putting yourself at risk of being categorized as the type of salesperson a prospective client avoids. In their opinion, you are just another needy salesperson about to waste their time (especially if they don't need what you are selling).
The consequence of this "tactic" is they don't call you back. In fact, this prospective client won't return any of your phone calls or emails. At some point during this one-sided exchange, something important happens that most of us fail to realize. That person makes a subconscious decision at that very moment...They will never contact you. Even six months later when they actually need what you are selling, they will not be calling. Why? Because they have ignored you for months and they actually feel bad about it. Not only did they ignore you, but you forced them to with your persistence. Your sales manager may applaud your persistence; your bank account will not.
The second reason you won't be hearing from them is because people don't like to admit when they're wrong. Maybe they should have called you and simply said that they didn't need your services at that time. They didn't because they see you as the stereotypical salesperson, and of course you'll be calling them again next week anyway. If you don't, another one will.
Ultimately, rather than returning your calls, they will avoid the situation all together and call on someone else, even if you have the best product for their particular needs, simply to avoid that emotion.
The best thing we can do is keep buyers away from that emotional pitfall. Sales are driven by emotion and if you don't believe that, then you probably haven't cracked a sales book in the last decade.
If you're like me, you have a limited number of companies that you call on. It might be your territory, a vertical or even geographic market. The point is, you probably don't have an endless supply of prospects. Every time you put one of your prospective clients in the situation I described above, you are essentially diminishing your territory. When your prospect list gets smaller but your quota continues to grow, what happens? You get desperate for sales. You practice below average sales methods and you alienate your prospects even further.
Traditional methods also elicit poor time management. The purpose of a cold-call (over the phone, through email or in person) is to deliver a message. Ninety percent of the time we never get that chance. This means that every 54 minutes of an hour spent seeking new clients yields no results, other than annoying the people we are trying to reach. If that same hour was spent on efforts that could reach thousands and build your Credibility Upon Entry (CUE), the results would be exponentially higher. Similarly, if that hour was spent calling on people who were actually in the market for your product or service, you could substantially increase your success.
There are three possible outcomes of cold-calling. You will not reach the intended contact, the person will not be interested in what you have to sell, or the person is ready to purchase your product or service.
None of those scenarios have much value to you. "But the person is ready to buy!" you say. Sure, but other circumstances need to be considered. Another salesperson (maybe more than one) is probably already leading the charge. They either had an inside line or they were simply in the right place at the right time. Maybe they even reached the client first because of a cold-call. The Passive Pipeline is about being in the right place ALL the time, and reaching opportunities with the right timing and credibility to win.
I'm not saying that cold-calling will not benefit your business. One sale out of 100 calls will certainly help (though I doubt the ratio is that high). What I am saying is that there are other ways to prospect and find opportunities. You must break the cycle of inferior sales methods while maintaining and building your professionalism and credibility.
Let your competition perpetuate the poor sales process so that when a buyer is ready, you will be the choice. There are better ways to find opportunities.
The beauty of The Passive Pipeline is that your prospects will begin to find and approach you, and while it was a result of your efforts, it never feels like prospecting (to you or the prospect). You build credibility before entering any sales process, and have clients who are grateful to be working with you (not the other way around).
The Passive Pipeline brings the client to you because of your knowledge, expertise, integrity and respectful nature. It creates a brand around your very name that tells prospects that you are someone we should do business with. They didn't find you by chance. They found you because of some very calculated efforts on your part in building your credibility and presence. It's a perfect example of how a sales effort doesn't have to mean being a salesperson.
Here are a few more examples of why traditional prospecting methods don't work:
- Real decision-makers rarely take time for pitches or cold-calls. The people who will take your calls don't have real power.
- You have no competitive advantage when you enter the sales cycle using these methods. You are constantly trying to prove your usefulness, simply because of the way you approached the opportunity.
- Gatekeepers are never going to connect you with the real decision makers. You will be passed off to someone who collects information, has little authority or manages vendors for a living.
- People prefer to do business with people they seek out, not the other way around. It puts the client in control.
If you're a subscriber to the 80/20 rule (it's hard to argue with), then 80 percent of your opportunities come from 20 percent of your efforts. So the question becomes: why don't you get rid of the other 80% and do the things that work 100% of the time?
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