How to be the Trusted Adviser your prospect is seeking.

In the previous post, I committed to writing a method to guarantee you never fail on another cold call – where the seller initiates contact by telephone, email or face-to-face visit.

This post addresses the topic of those initial contacts where the prospective client makes the first move. 

The classic incorrect assumption by salespeople receiving an enquiry from a prospect is that the prospect is “half-sold already, and therefore I should quickly get into my sales pitch.”

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

This reaction confirms the prospect’s pre-conceived ideas about the level of self-orientation of all sellers – and any hope of establishing the first stage of a Trust-based relationship is destroyed.

Regardless of who initiates this first contact between seller and prospective client, the salesperson should employ a mini version of the steps of the Trust Building Sales Process:-

     T – Talk to me.

     R – Really listen.

     U – Unanimous on Issues.

     S – Share the future

     T – Take action.

For more explanation , see the August 30 post entitled Trust Paced Selling, http://business-trust-relationships.blogspot.com/2010/08/trust-paced-selling.html

To encourage the prospect to “Talk to me”, the salesperson needs to ask the minimum number of questions to encourage the prospect to talk openly about their issue / problem / challenge / opportunity that prompted the contact.

Something along these lines should achieve the desired result, but importantly, provided it does not sound like a “script”:-

“Thank you for making contact (name). I hope we may be able to provide an appropriate solution for you.

Please tell me about the challenge you have that prompted you to pick up the phone.”

And be prepared with follow up questions , asked conversationally and with genuine interest in the prospect’s unique circumstances, to encourage the flow of information you require before being able to formulate and offer your solution :-

“And what are the most significant consequences of that issue?”

“What level of impact does this situation have on your bottom line?”

“What other benefits do you envisage from a timely fix to this problem?”

But steer clear of those insulting and manipulative “closing” questions such as :-

“If I could guarantee a minimum million dollar improvement to your bottom line, would that be of interest?”

And remember – You do have the right to remain silent!   

Don’t feel you must immediately jump into every “awkward silence” with another question, or worse still, by attempting to present your solution – before you have “really listened” to the prospect talk through the issue that prompted them to make contact.

So, regardless of who made the first move and initiated contact, the seller’s objective is the same – to guide the first steps towards a business relationship based on mutual Trust, and establishing your role as the Trusted Adviser in that relationship.

How to never fail on another Cold Call -- Guaranteed!

During a recent presentation to a Client’s sales team I was asked how to apply the principles of Trust-Paced Selling to their least-liked and least-successful client acquisition activity – cold calling.

I gave the team a guaranteed method to ensure they never made another unsuccessful “cold call” – whether by telephone, email or face-to-face visit.

Here’s the method – Never, ever make another “cold call”. Remove the activity, totally and permanently, from your vocabulary, and your client acquisition process.

The definition of “cold” (relating to other than temperature) includes :-
“lacking in passion, emotion, enthusiasm”, “not affectionate, cordial or friendly”, “unresponsive”, “depressing, dispiriting” and “ineffective”.

What business owner or sales manager would want their sales team to attempt an initial contact with a new prospect that conformed with any part of that definition of “cold”?

So, does that mean I’m proposing you never again initiate contact with a prospect within your target market?

That depends on your marketing effectiveness.

Peter Drucker declared “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous”. So until your marketing activities provide the quality and quantity of incoming enquiries from prospects within your target market to achieve all your business growth objectives, contacts will need to be initiated by your sales team – but no “cold” contacts please!

Ultimate sales success is an ongoing business relationship based on mutual Trust, where the seller authentically places higher value on the relationship than the next transaction. A relationship based on a genuine “fit” between the buyer’s needs and the seller’s solution.

The single most powerful variable affecting trustworthiness in new business relationships is the perceived level of self-orientation of the seller.

The traditional cold call script or pitch is a perfect example of seller-orientation – emphasising the seller’s expertise, without the necessary pre-call investigation to “invert the focus” and pinpoint a specific need of the prospect, which your proposed solution addresses.

It is often said that “selling is a numbers game”, in other words – “Don’t worry about the quality of the conversations you initiate – just make a high quantity of calls, and a few will proceed to a sale”. Cold calling is a numbers game, and the numbers don’t add up.

Every initial contact should be a mini version of the steps of the Trust Building Sales Process:-
T – Talk to me.
R – Really listen.
U – Unanimous on Issues.
S – Share the future
T – Take action.
For more explanation , see the August 30 post entitled Trust Paced Selling, http://business-trust-relationships.blogspot.com/2010/08/trust-paced-selling.html

So the bottom line is this. Until you identify an issue, problem or challenge specifically relating to the prospect you are intending to phone, email or visit – and you are able to propose and deliver a viable solution --DON’T phone, email or visit!

Does that mean your sales team will make a lot less initial contacts? Certainly.

Does it mean they will initiate two-way conversations leading to a lot more commercially satisfying business relationships based on mutual Trust and authentic customer orientation? Even more certainly.

In the next post the principles of Trust-Paced Selling will be applied to the handling of incoming enquiries.