The Power of Calculus in Cold Calling
'It's a numbers game!'
Seasoned veterans and credentialed gurus alike mouth these words over and over and over. They are right. And, we all know it.
But, how do you deal with it? Just how much can you play cold-call cowboy without getting saddle sores on your bottom or cracked callouses on your hands that put you in the bunkhouse for a week or more?
According to Lone Survivor author and decorated Navy Seal, Marcus Luttrell, the US Navy Seals have one simple concept that drives the majority of their achievement: “The human body can take damn near anything the head tells it to.”
That, my selling friends, is exactly how it works in cold calling.
So, what do we do? 'Make it a game.' 'Set a goal for this hour, today only...' 'Establish short-term goals with specific rewards, things you like.' How many times have you a) said, b) heard, c) thought these words and used these tools? Did they work? Maybe, probably, depending on if you made it work.
Did your head tell you to cold-call and do it with style and skill? If so, you prepared for that event and you completed your objective. Plain and simple. And, maybe you won the big prize – landing a large account, finding six new prospects in an afternoon, whatever was important to you.
I've done them all, tried them all. Some with more enthusiasm than others. Some worked well as long as I kept my head in the game.
But, nothing has ever impacted my cold-calling experience like calculus. Yes, calculus. The science of establishing numerical values/algorithms that represent intangible entities in order to enable the user to project an event and proceed to a goal. (that's just my working definition – save your emails – stay with me here)
I'm talking about SW³/N.
It's simple. It's easy. It makes sense. And, it works. Each time, every time. It's a constant.
Some will.
Some won't.
So what?
Next!
In cold calling, you know no one beforehand. You have no idea of their personality, dreams, family or any other uniquely individual attribute that defines them. You have targeted them for a contact, to suggest an idea, concept, service or product. Somebody's going to buy your widget. In the long run, do you really care who?
Often many of our best clients/customers turn out to be no one we would have projected at the outset, right? Why get worked up over this call? What if he is not interested? So what if she bought last August? NEXT! I'm moving here, I'm not hanging around to cry over missing the sale at Acme Production, Inc., because I've got 45 more companies on my list and I know somebody is going to buy. I just don't know who, not yet anyway.
SW³/N. It keeps me moving, rolling along. It leads me forward, enticing me, daring me to make that next call, because the next call is what right now is all about.
Put the power of calculus to work for you.
Chris
Next post: Quantum positioning metrics
Chris Cooper has been cold calling friend and foe alike for over 25 years. His experience runs from the financial industry to manufacturing to high-end consulting services, entry-level sales to VP and beyond. Somebody's going to hire him this week for another great project – he just doesn't know who yet.
Seasoned veterans and credentialed gurus alike mouth these words over and over and over. They are right. And, we all know it.
But, how do you deal with it? Just how much can you play cold-call cowboy without getting saddle sores on your bottom or cracked callouses on your hands that put you in the bunkhouse for a week or more?
According to Lone Survivor author and decorated Navy Seal, Marcus Luttrell, the US Navy Seals have one simple concept that drives the majority of their achievement: “The human body can take damn near anything the head tells it to.”
That, my selling friends, is exactly how it works in cold calling.
So, what do we do? 'Make it a game.' 'Set a goal for this hour, today only...' 'Establish short-term goals with specific rewards, things you like.' How many times have you a) said, b) heard, c) thought these words and used these tools? Did they work? Maybe, probably, depending on if you made it work.
Did your head tell you to cold-call and do it with style and skill? If so, you prepared for that event and you completed your objective. Plain and simple. And, maybe you won the big prize – landing a large account, finding six new prospects in an afternoon, whatever was important to you.
I've done them all, tried them all. Some with more enthusiasm than others. Some worked well as long as I kept my head in the game.
But, nothing has ever impacted my cold-calling experience like calculus. Yes, calculus. The science of establishing numerical values/algorithms that represent intangible entities in order to enable the user to project an event and proceed to a goal. (that's just my working definition – save your emails – stay with me here)
I'm talking about SW³/N.
It's simple. It's easy. It makes sense. And, it works. Each time, every time. It's a constant.
Some will.
Some won't.
So what?
Next!
In cold calling, you know no one beforehand. You have no idea of their personality, dreams, family or any other uniquely individual attribute that defines them. You have targeted them for a contact, to suggest an idea, concept, service or product. Somebody's going to buy your widget. In the long run, do you really care who?
Often many of our best clients/customers turn out to be no one we would have projected at the outset, right? Why get worked up over this call? What if he is not interested? So what if she bought last August? NEXT! I'm moving here, I'm not hanging around to cry over missing the sale at Acme Production, Inc., because I've got 45 more companies on my list and I know somebody is going to buy. I just don't know who, not yet anyway.
SW³/N. It keeps me moving, rolling along. It leads me forward, enticing me, daring me to make that next call, because the next call is what right now is all about.
Put the power of calculus to work for you.
Chris
Next post: Quantum positioning metrics
Chris Cooper has been cold calling friend and foe alike for over 25 years. His experience runs from the financial industry to manufacturing to high-end consulting services, entry-level sales to VP and beyond. Somebody's going to hire him this week for another great project – he just doesn't know who yet.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Shari Greer on -
I was never good at math... but.. although cold calling is a numbers game.. I want to make a statement to those who feel it is the only way to find business. As a seasoned veteran, I find that making uneducated guesses about someones ability to make a decision is a waste of time. Not knocking the 'cold' issue, but when you do what you should do and know who to speak with, what you are going to say, and how you are going to get into the door, is a warm call.
Picking up a list of random names and associates and start dialing... that is cold.. and can be very debilitating.
When you have compiled information, you know the product, and you seek a face to face with the decision maker...
warm calls will turn into sales. Some companies, and I have worked for a few, hand you the phone book and move on..
Others have bought 'lists' that are usually outdated, rarely have the right information, and expect you to 'purge' it to find out
if there is any business in the mix.. As a good seller, a great negotiator and a powerful closer.... this is a complete waste
of my time. And as salesmen, we are not paid for our time, we are paid for our sales. We are unpaid consultants in many arena's... Ex.. Draw against commission.. : You learn the product... you research the pros and con's... you
are more likely than not, entering everything you know and find on a CRM.... You make the calls, you make the appt.,
you go to the appt., you try to develop a relationship... and for all of this you are on an interest free loan from the company that hired you. All of these efforts are important to the process, and yet, you are only paid if it results in a sale.
But WAIT... you were paid a draw.. so now you owe the company money.... win or lose. I don't know who made these
decisions long ago.. but that is why sales has the highest turnover of any position in the planet. If the metrics is more important than the result... bail now!
That's my take on it anyway.. Cheers!~!~
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Savage on -
Shari:
Great points - I agree 100% with your statement about seeking a face-to-face with the decision-maker. It's a great frustration to me (and a reminder that I have not done a proper job of qualifying a prospect) to have a face-to-face meeting with someone who tells me that they do not have the buy decision, and that I actually have to meet with so-and-so.
I also agree 100% with your comment about lists of random names. With the expolsion of information on the internet, and with the seemingly exponential growth of sites like LinkedIn, if I need to mine for prospecting information, a handful of carefully-constructed searches usually provides me with enough to begin another round of cold-calling.
Thanks for your comments!
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Permalink Reply by Shari Greer on
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Nice to meet someone who agrees with me on this. I hate being told in numbers how many
calls I NEED to make. I make smart calls and they take research. I will never work for
someone on straight commission again. I have PAID my dues and my calls are well thought
out. Albiet COLD, they are thought thru.
Thanks ...
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Permalink Reply by Edward E. Williams III on -
Ahhhh! Discussion abounds...
Shari, I thank you for landing in the thick of things and giving all some good stuff to think about... be right back.
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Lionz on -
All,
I think the points posited by Chris Cooper are absolutely valid as are the responses by Shari and Kevin. The problem with any new sales campaign we engage in regardless of the amount or lack thereof of "advance prospect profile data" is that one must leverage the time it takes to initiate a conversation with the "right contact" against the real world forces that drive any sales professional: quota, motivation, income, territory expansion, peer competition and more. In other words Chris is right some will, some won't so what & next. The issue is how one maintains their momentum and focus when intended prospects say NO than okay or yes... that is where the numbers slogan really comes into play. The other major challenge in the calculus driven scenario Chris discusses is when we don't have any conversation for a while (i.e. VM) then what? In our 21st century mobile device world the creative challenge for effective cold calling is how to break through these invisible barriers effectively?
Jeff LIonz
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Permalink Reply by Chris Cooper on -
I really appreciate the posted comments. It's a great to toss a ball out there and see the swings people take at it!
I believe in the motivational power of 'my' formula (I stole it from Don Uhl, the well-known accounting sales expert) but the only way it becomes the sole driver in a sales campaign is if I am selling to any and every body, hence the phone book is as good a target list as you can get.
But, few of us here actually do that. Rather, we represent a number of specific products or services where not every body in the world is a candidate. I once spent 7 months on a target list of just 35 companies! And, yet, I 'cold-called' those names and numbers over and over until I got to somebody that could speak with authority to my offer.
Like Shari, I prefer a situation where I can 'stalk' my target - more on that later, perhaps - but I need to know something about that prospect, at least enough to know if they fit the definition of being a real prospect. Even so, once I compile that list and get it displayed in a spreadsheet-style format (personal preference) then I can sit down and put SW3/N to my greatest benefit.
Jeff asked about breaking barriers. The level of managers I generally have sold into don't do business with companies or people they don't know. That's the secret. You have to get them to 'know' you. My first sales trainer was the premier west-coast trainer of new stock brokers in the '70s and into the -80's, Phil Broyles.
Phil's philosophy was 'Six Drips Before You Quit.' Six times you get your name in front of that person. Not six times dialing the number. Six times getting your name to that person. Today, we have many more methods for accomplishing that than we did when I started as a stock broker in 1981. We didn't even have fax yet!!
Telephone, regular mail, fax, voice mail, email in various formats (Powerpoint files are very large, much more so than Word files - tell the same story with Word and it emails easier), etc. Any way you can think of. Special delivery by gorilla ballerina messenger. Make a splash.
But, at some point, the target recognizes your name and you've got a fighting chance.
My standard procedure includes a phone call, a faxed message, snail mail, email and voice mails, all in an appropriate time frame and sequence. I never hesitate to tell a gatekeeper why I'm calling. At least he/she will write my name down and put it where my target can see it, even if briefly. Once I cold-called a senior vp and got his personal assistant. I told her who I was and why I was calling. She said: 'Tell me what you would tell my boss, and I'll see if he is interested.' So, I did. She responded: 'That sounds really interesting. I'll take your message into him as soon as he is through with this call.' She must have done a good job selling me, because I got a call two hours later from his regional manager.
We do business with people we 'know.' Make yourself known and your odds for getting in that door increase.
Now - voice mail: I've had several people ask me about voice mail - what, when, how often, etc. I leave a voice mail the very first time I call and get through to a voice mail box. I give it a 20-30 second shot, all as if I'm talking face to face. Voice levels, inflection, I even crack a small joke some times! I'm letting them get to know me, in the only way I can at that moment.
How often do I leave a voice mail? With nothing new to say, just trying to get in direct touch, about once every 7-8 business days. If I have something new to tell, something that adds to my value proposition, etc., I will call and leave a vm every day! It's just as if I'm face to face.
The cold calling I do these days is very different from what I did in the '80's, but it still works!
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Permalink Reply by Shari Greer on
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Funny.. when we didn't have all these devices we chose mail, then a call for followup.
during my dry period of unemployment I have made dozens of emails, phone calls, mail...
NADA... the only thing left is to network and get in the faces of those who are seeking
people who can create relationships and close deals.
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Permalink Reply by John Chepyha on -
Telephone prospecting, aka. cold calling, is all about numbers and if you think otherwise...well you are likely not reaching your full potential.
The problem with numbers are so few of us really track them or know which numbers even to track and if we do, we don't know what they are telling us or how to use that information to improve our efforts.
Truth is, our bosses were right, or I should say partially right. When they told us to make more calls, what they really should have told us was to make more calls per hour.
When you add it all up, researching a prospective lead before calling them, has its benefits, but at a cost. The difference between making 5 calls an hour to well researched prospects and making 20 to numbers of a list, some even without contact information is success or failure. From my view, if you have a full pipeline, well take your time and research to your hearts content. You deserve to, but if you are like many of us, well let me just say I got to get back to the phones.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Darling on -
Chris, I like your post, thank you.
The one thing I try to keep in mind is that prospects don't know me, they don't know how long I have been in sales, and they don't know how many calls I have made to finally get them on the phone.
My point is, every call (no matter the number) should is the most important thing on my mind at the time it is happening. If I want prospects and customers to engage me in conversation, then I must be engaging myself – and by engaging I mean providing them with relevant information. The goal for each and every call I make is “to provide value to the prospect’s day.” If I don’t add value, then I generally will never get a meeting nor sale. In addition I have added yet another point in that prospects mind as to why they should never take a call from a sales person.
With the above in mind, how do open a cold calls to ensure a chance of engagement?
Ben
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