Front Line Prospecting Staccato training notes

This sales training reminds me of training I received at Secureworks. I believe a lot has to do with attitude on the phone and your knowledge of the business solution that is being positioned. At the end of the day sales is a numbers game.

However the trainer is basing their recommendations off 1.8 million customer interactions. Referred it to a golf game. Sales people all prospect relatively the same but what if you can do something a little different that makes your stats be better than the next guy...

So prospecting is the calisthenics of selling. prospecting needs a mental change from sales to lead farming. It is activity to get more Meaningful Interactions (MIs). Organizations need your or your competitor's solution to solve a problem. They need to talk to someone. You need to unlock the social DNA of the company to make the Key Person (KP) to want to talk to you.

Prospecting is your process and approach to more than just the gatekeepers of the organization. You want them to become your tour guide to who else would need to know about your business solution.

Proper prospecting is a campaign for MIs. MIs are 20-30 minute conversations where you and the KP talk about a business solution and selling finally starts. You want to have 2-3 Touch Points (TPs) with KPs to get to a MI. 5 TPs is better than 4 but not as good as 6.

TP are referrals, quick conversations, email, voice mail, even faxes. Each TP has a pro and a con; such as a phone call; KP's pick up the phone around 5% of the time and 99% of that time the KP is doing something different than wanting a phone call.

The correct campaign to get a MI has rounds of TPs. The best wait time between rounds is every 3 business days. The first round is reaching out to the most KPs and having as many TPs as possible. The bell curve of success is around 3 to 4 rounds with 5 beginning of diminishing returns. 90% sales people do not get past second round.

Keys to Secure MIs is to disarm and disengage the KP. You can disarm the KP by identifying yourself, explain if referral, and lastly ask for help. Most company employees will want to help get you correct company information. State your purpose: set up 20-30 minute meeting at date/time. Ask question: what is best way to do that?

Prospecting is finding right contact and getting MIs. Then comes the selling. Prospecting and selling are two separate ideas. Stick to the template. People are busy and do not need to be sold during prospecting. When they ask, "what is this call about again?" it is probably b/c they were not paying attention, they are not needing more product details.

Why do we start with the top of the organization? You want to enable the social DNA of the organization working for you in-between campaign rounds.

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