Learned Something Today…Keep it Short!

While working on my prospecting today, I decided to take advantage of a training perk my company offers and signed up for a 30 minute 1 on 1 with our sales coach, Lori Richardson.  

Considering myself a pretty polished sales professional, I thought it would be worthwhile to exchange ideas with Lori and see if I could tweak some of my intro emails.  I had been getting some pretty good results, receiving responses on about 1 out of 10 intro emails.  10% response isn’t bad…….

I had sent my templates to Lori prior to our discussion and awaited my feedback.  We talked back and forth about certain verbiage, much of it surrounding our individual styles.  I have always felt that if you can walk away from a training session or seminar with one concept or technique to help improve your skills, it was a worthwhile expenditure of your time.

Lori gave me a great suggestion.  After I expressed my concern over the length of my emails, Lori pointed out that today’s buyers are typically getting the first view of my emails on a mobile device.  In order for me to gauge the effectiveness and impression my emails were making on my prospects, she  suggested I send them to myself and see what the message looks like on my own mobile device.

I followed her advice, sent myself the message, and was I surprised!  While I thought my messages may have been a little long, when I saw them on my mobile device, I almost deleted it myself it was so long.  I immediately began revising the messages and by day’s end I had crafted a new, condensed message, with far less substance about my own company, and left more anticipation about my company’s “Story” that I couldn’t wait to share.

I sent out about 15 of the new version this afternoon and the results were wonderful.  I received almost instant replies on 6 of the 15.  A response rate of 40%, compared to the 10% I was getting with the longer message.  

My next 2 days are already booked with intro calls with qualified prospects.  I have ample time blocked off to send another 20-30 “feeler” messages tomorrow, hopefully filling up my calendar for the following week.

If you want to improve your prospecting results, try this simple exercise and send yourself your message and review it on your mobile device.  You might be surprised what you find……

If your company offers a similar benefit and make a sales coach available, use it.  No matter how good you think you are in sales, you can always learn something new.  I did.  You will too.

Lori Richardson is a professional sales coach and the President of Score More Sales.  She can be reached at lori@scoremoresales.com