Let's Talk Cold Calling

Let’s talk sales cold calls for a little bit……

Sales managers have been beating the concept of business development achieved through cold calls into sales professionals for decades. When I first started in sales at AT&T in the 1980’s, I had to go through a “role play” scenario where I made the initial appointment, sat with the client and fact found, then developed and presented a solution based program. My skills were “assessed” by a team of sales managers and trainers and I was hired because I followed what was considered proper process. I was practicing “Sales 101”.

When I was in my 20’s and starting out, this was overwhelming and I was brainwashed by the managers that this was the time proven method towards success in sales. After years of mediocre results following the classroom methods taught by sales managers, I learned cold calling is really a waste of precious time which a salesperson could better spend closing leads, not trying to generate them at a clip of less than 2% per attempt (and if you’re seeing 2% success rate on your cold calling, congratulations! You’re doing GREAT!)

Problem here is today’s companies typically have two types of executives:

The first type is people who have large capital to invest and fund the start-up of the organization. This is the true wildcard. Many of these people come from financial backgrounds, and feel the best way to run a profitable company is to watch every dollar and purchase the lowest priced product or commodity on the market. In the short term, this approach may save money, but the lowest price isn’t always the best option. In addition, most of the companies run by those with financial backgrounds look to buy low, and then sell their own product high. This inconsistent approach will in the long run, most likely cause the business model to fail.

The second type of executive is those that have worked their way up the corporate ladders, either through operations or sales. These are the most difficult folks to cold call. They’ve been through the ringer, know the “ropes”, and have used all the “tricks of the sales trade” that get taught to up and coming sales personnel.


Problem is this type of executive often manages today’s sales people, and employs yesterday’s sales management statistics (number of cold calls x close ratio = number of sales). This just doesn’t work. If you have a 2% success rate of presenting a proposal via cold calls, neither you nor the company will ever make any significant revenue. Think of the major league baseball player….if he had 2 hits per 100 at-bats, he’d have a 0.020 batting average and would be out of baseball within weeks. Why sales managers keep pushing the cold calling technique with results like this is puzzling?


So how do we develop new business leads, contact the appropriate decision maker, and close the sale?

Today’s intelligence explosion through the internet and other social channels is the wave of the future. Every show I watch on TV is trying to get their message (product) to “trend on Twitter” or be “liked on Facebook”. Many of us have fought the evolution of social media’s usefulness, but we need to accept the fact that it’s here to stay. Next time you’re sitting at home, watching your favorite show, pay attention to the “pop-ups” on the screen, telling you how to “follow” your favorite actor, or “like” your favorite product.


If social media is working for the most successful shows aired today, why can’t it be successful for your product and brand? It most certainly can.

Let’s look at a quick scenario…..last time you were interested in purchasing a new product, whether it be a TV, a car, a plane ticket, or almost any other commodity, how did you buy it? Did you run down to the closest store and buy the first one you saw? Maybe….but most likely you researched it on the internet and compared your options. This is what we need to accomplish for ourselves in our professional career.

If you are in sales (or looking to get into sales), sign up for Twitter. Start following a few people within your industry and before long you’ll begin to build a list of “followers”. As your list builds, you will see your name start to appear more prominently within the various internet search engines, creating a presence for yourself. If you work this over time, you will begin to see prospects contacting you, looking to buy your product. Most decision makers today will search on the internet for a supplier, and the more prominent you name is in the search results, the better your chances of being contacted.

I have written several previous posts about additional methods to assist on developing brands and increasing your search results. Check out “Can Twitter Really Do That for Me”, posted on 5/11/2011 and “Social Power by Use of Personal Sites” posted on 10/26/2010 for some more specific info on building a personal brand.

I’d enjoy hearing any suggestions you may have to help build a brand and drive customers to your sites. The more input we are get, the quicker we’ll develop new sales techniques to succeed in today’s information age.

Communities need to explore going Green…….

Today’s town and city budgets are growing tighter and tighter. Reduced tax revenues from high unemployment, rising medical and retirement costs for employees, and simple inflation causing ever escalating prices for the everyday items needed to operate a community combine to put a strain on any budget. As a result, any type of program providing a surplus of cash flow can be invaluable.

LED lighting is the latest program to be offered to the towns and cities throughout the United States. Not only does the installation of LED fixtures and bulbs immediately reduce energy costs, the lights have many more benefits than you might think.

Let’s explore a few of them….

Unlike CFL’s (compact florescent lights), LED bulbs light immediately, with no warm up period. LED’s have a life span of up to 100,000 hours of use, meaning there is less maintenance costs associated with them. There is little to no UV light production from LED bulbs, making them the perfect solution for anything that may be sensitive to light exposure. LED’s provide much better lighting than standard incandescent or CFL bulbs, improving night time visibility.

Perhaps the best part of LED (other than the savings in energy) is their durability. With no filaments to be broken, they are a great retro fit for street light and traffic signals. They can withstand the rigors of New England’s harsh winters with little problem.


 

incandescent street lighting

 The program is simple. With a quick 15 minute phone call, a preliminary quote can be produced with as little information as number of light fixtures and bulbs used throughout the community, the wattage of the bulbs, number of kilowatt hours used, and the rate the community pays the utility company.



LED street lighting



Within a few days, they’ll have a customized project quote for their community to take back to the appropriate approval personnel to review. Within a few months time, a significant cash flow savings can result. In addition, all rebates from the utility companies remain the property of the town or city.

Sounds great? It gets better. In a big city, it’s not uncommon to have 1 street light per 20 residents. In a city of say 500,000 people, that’s 25,000 street lights.  In today's economic situation, creating jobs is a primary focus of a city or town's managment, and this LED project will create jobs.
Contact me to get additional information on the program and to review available payment terms for the program.  From day1 of the installation, the city or town has realized substantial energy savings. The reduction in energy costs can exceed the monthly program costs often by as much as 40%. On a $200,000 monthly energy bill, they could see as much as a 40% reduction.

To find out more about this program (many commercial applications may be considered as well) or to set up a quote for your communtity, please contact me @DaveHanron on Twitter or via email at dave@davehanron.com

Capturing the Mobile Consumer…..Where Do I Start?

Today, there are more than 311 million people living in the United States and according to the CTIA Wireless Association, there are more than 300 million active subscription plans to some form of wireless service.

A wireless service subscription can be many different types. There are the wireless internet cards you can buy for your laptop, which gives complete mobile access to the internet from your laptop anywhere your carrier has an available network.

There are monthly plans you can purchase to obtain wireless access to public “hot spots” like coffee shops, diners, airports, etc. I have found these to be of limited value as the “hot spot” must be using the network you have enrolled in or else it is useless.

We are seeing a tremendous expansion of the mobile web seen on today’s cell phones. Most cell phone today come with a browser which allow you to access the internet with the add-on purchase of a data plan from your carrier.

Next we get to the “Smart Phones”. Today’s hot phone is the iPhone 5. Android, Window 7 phones, and yesterday’s favorite, Blackberry, all make smart phones which give access to the internet via the various carriers’ wireless data networks at speeds up to 4G. (4G stands for “4th Generation” of cellular standards for those of you who are wondering).

And let’s not forget tablets. Apple developed the iPad and launched the product in April 2010. The product sold 3+ million units within the first 80 days to market. Since then, we’ve seen similar products produced by companies like Blackberry, Sony, HTC, Dell, and many more. We are smack dab in the middle of the wireless revolution.

With the birth of the smartphone and tablets, a new channel of marketing has evolved to present product offers to wireless subscribers. Today’s consumers start their day at the kitchen table reading the paper online, continue to check email and stocks on their smartphone on the commute to the office, take their tablets to lunch to review the latest version of their presentation or check on tonight’s big game, then finish the day on their laptop again reading “tweets” on Twitter or posting to their Facebook accounts.

Sounds like a lot of wireless? It definitely is. But if a company manages their advertising budgets properly, they can take advantage of it. According to a recent US Census Bureau report more than 48% of total US retail sales were made online.

I strongly suggest to those business development professional that now is the time to embrace wireless, not run from it due to budgetary restraints. Direct some of your marketing budget towards starting a wireless marketing campaign. If you do nothing else, at the bare minimum, make sure your company has a mobile web friendly landing page. There’s nothing better to show off your business than having a professionally developed mobile page pop up for the consumers searching your product line.

I enjoy hearing back from my readers so please share any ideas you may have for marketing plans and any success you may have already had with your programs……