Fanatical Prospecting

Prospecting not only still works, but it's the fastest and most effective way to accomplish exactly what this book's subtitle promises: opening sales conversations and filling the pipeline! (Location 401)

Today he transforms sales organizations by helping them accelerate performance and speaks to hundreds of companies across the globe (Location 404)

Nothing is more important than securing discovery meetings, conversations, appointments, and sales calls with potential customers. (Location 408)

Superstars are relentless, unstoppable prospectors. They are obsessive about keeping their pipeline full of qualified prospects. They prospect anywhere and anytime—constantly turning over rocks looking for their next opportunity. They prospect day and night—unstoppable and always on. Fanatical! (Location 453)

What's the secret that separates superstars from everyone else, and why do they consistently outperform other salespeople? Fanatical prospecting. (Location 457)

The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe, and, the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to prospect. (Location 479)

Seven Mindsets of Fanatical Prospectors (Location 550)

These are their success clues. Duplicate these mindsets and you'll guarantee yourself success in filling your pipeline and crushing your number. (Location 566)

If you want sustained success in your sales career, if you want to maximize your income, then you've got to interrupt prospects. You'll have to pick up the phone, walk in the door, send an e-mail or text message, or ping a prospect on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, or Facebook and interrupt someone who is not expecting you to contact them (Location 625)

The problem is, most companies can't create enough qualified inbound leads to keep the pipeline full. And, by the way, the reps that work for companies that do generate enough inbound leads to keep the phones ringing are making far less than sales pros who are reaching out and interrupting prospects to create opportunities. (Location 639)

The only way they can achieve their number is to make targeted outbound calls. (Location 643)

This past year one of my clients wanted to set up an outbound prospecting team to call and reactivate dormant customers. They hired a few young, inexperienced reps to make the calls. (Location 656)

The customers who answered the phone were receptive, and other than being initially irritated at being interrupted, took time to talk to me about their next buying window. Over the course of 25 dials, three of these former customers indicated that they were ready to buy again. (Location 664)

A few months back I was working with a group of insurance agents from one of the most well-known companies in the industry. They were tasked with calling a list of clients that were already doing business with their agency. The objective was simple: Set an appointment with the client to review their coverages and ensure there were no gaps. The goal of the appointment was to find opportunities to cross-sell additional financial products where it made sense. (Location 673)

“Hi, Roger, this is Jeb from XYZ agency. The reason I'm calling is, in reviewing your current coverages, I noticed that you have your cars and home insured with us, but we don't have an umbrella liability policy set up for you. I want to schedule a short meeting with you to review your current situation and identify any coverage gaps that could create a risk for you and your family. How about Thursday morning at 11 AM?” (Location 677)

Interrupting your prospect's day is a fundamental building block of robust sales pipelines. No matter your prospecting approach, if you don't interrupt relentlessly, your pipeline will be anemic. (Location 697)

Balance simply means that to get the best return from your prospecting time investment, there should be a mixture of telephone, in-person, e-mail, social selling, text messaging, referrals, networking, inbound leads, trade shows, and cold calling. (Location 744)

The key is designing your prospecting regimen based on what works best in your industry and with your product, service, deal complexity, customer base, and tenure. (Location 758)

There are three core laws of prospecting that, when heeded, will ensure that you are moving a steady stream of prospects into the pipe: The Universal Law of Need The 30-Day Rule The Law of Replacement (Location 786)

Prospects and customers naturally repel salespeople who are needy, desperate, and pathetic. Instead, they gravitate toward sales professionals who exude confidence. (Location 807)

The 30-Day Rule states that the prospecting you do in this 30-day period will pay off for the next 90 days. It is a simple, yet powerful universal rule that governs sales and you ignore it at your peril. When you internalize this rule, it will drive you to never put prospecting aside for another day. (Location 852)

Here's a math question: Becky has 30 prospects in her pipeline. Her closing percentage is 10 percent. She closes one deal. How many prospects remain in her pipe? (Location 878)

The lesson the Law of Replacement teaches is that you must constantly be pushing new opportunities into your pipeline so that you're replacing the opportunities that will naturally fall out. And, you must do so at a rate that matches or exceeds your closing ratio. This is where a fanatical prospecting mindset really begins to pay off. (Location 890)

Ninety-nine percent of sales slumps can be linked directly to a failure to prospect. (Location 894)

The first rule of holes is when you are in one, stop digging, and the first rule of sales slumps is when you are in one, start prospecting. (Location 928)

When you prospect consistently—and that means every day—amazing things happen. The cumulative impact of daily prospecting is massive. (Location 943)

So go hit the phones, knock on doors, send e-mails and text messages, pound LinkedIn, ask for referrals, attend networking events, and talk to strangers. (Location 951)

As soon as she sat down at her desk that same morning, she ran a list on her CRM and started dialing. An hour later she'd made 53 calls, spoken to 14 decision makers, and set two appointments with qualified prospects. Then she sent 39 prospecting e-mails. It wasn't perfect. (Location 1078)

Perfectionism is highly correlated with fear of failure (which is generally not the best motivator) and self-defeating behavior, such as excessive procrastination.” (Location 1085)

The late, great Zig Ziglar said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” I've always believed that messy success is far better than perfect mediocrity. (Location 1088)

Top performers organize their day into distinct time blocks dedicated to specific activities, concentrating their focus and eliminating distractions within those blocks. (Location 1174)

Horstman's Corollary Parkinson's Law states that work tends to expand to fill the time allotted for it. Horstman's Corollary is the converse. (Location 1309)

If you invest just an hour a day to make 25 to 50 teleprospecting calls and another hour for e-mail and social prospecting, I can absolutely and unequivocally guarantee that in less than 60 days, your pipeline will be packed. (Location 1334)

What makes prospecting blocks so productive is the concentration of all of your power on a single focus. (Location 1353)

The next day they averaged 47 dials an hour. What changed? It was a simple concentration of power. (Location 1381)

With all their prospecting calls for the day knocked out in just an hour, they were able to concentrate their power on other activity blocks like lead generation, social selling, outbound e-mail prospecting, discovery meetings, proposals, and closing. (Location 1390)

The two biggest prospecting derailers for sales professionals are e-mail and mobile devices (text, social media, e-mail, web surfing, apps). (Location 1402)

E-mail is the derailer of all derailers. The time-sucker of all time-suckers. If you are itching for a few unproductive hours that you will never get back, just open up e-mail and dive in. (Location 1423)

Blocking out the first one to two hours of each day for a focused telephone prospecting block is the mark of fanatical prospectors. (Location 1446)

Top-earning sales pros set aside time early each morning or late each afternoon to attack important nonselling activities before the demands of the sales day kick in or after they've been addressed. They use the Platinum Hours for: (Location 1459)

they spend their time on activities that are far below their pay grade, and this holds them back. (Location 1511)

The Law of Triviality describes the human tendency to waste time on unimportant activities while mission-critical tasks are ignored. (Location 1515)

Just take your annual income goal and divide it by the total number of Golden Hours in each year and you'll find what you are worth per hour. (Annual Income Goal)/(Number of Working Weeks × Golden Hours) = What You Are Worth an Hour (Location 1519)

The bottom line is you've got roughly eight Golden Hours each day to sell and make a living, and you have a choice. (Location 1526)

how to be both efficient and effective with prospecting. (Location 1546)

There are four core prospective objectives: Set an appointment. Gather information and qualify. Close a sale. Build familiarity. (Location 1554)

If the product or service you are selling can only be purchased during specific buying windows, like when a contract expires or within a defined budgetary period, gathering information to qualify the buying window will be your primary objective and building familiarity your secondary objective with most calls. You don't want to waste setting an appointment with a prospect that cannot buy because of contractual or budgetary handcuffs. Once you have identified the buying window, your primary objective will shift to setting an appointment. (Location 1568)

Prospecting is not for building relationships, selling, or chatting up your buyer. It is for setting the appointment, qualifying, building familiarity, and when it makes sense, moving into the sales process right on the spot. (Location 1580)

You have no time to waste on small talk, chitchat, or long-winded scripts (or e-mails) written by some dude in marketing who has never been within 50 feet of a prospect. You've got to get to the point, ask for what you want, and move on to the next touch. (Location 1583)

The most valuable activity in the sales process is a set appointment—no matter where you are in the pipe: initial meeting, discovery meetings, presentations, closing meetings, and so on. (Location 1587)

Savvy sales professionals are super disciplined in qualifying prospects. They understand that time is money and it is a waste of time to work with prospects that are not going to buy. (Location 1646)

It begins with gathering information during prospecting. While setting an appointment is your primary objective with prospects you have already prequalified as potential buyers, gathering information is your primary objective with prospects you have not qualified. (Location 1649)

Your drive as a sales professional should always be to spend your time with the most qualified prospects in your database. This means that you will want to: (Location 1660)

The first step in qualifying is to clearly define the strike zone. Far too many companies (especially start-ups and small businesses), sales organizations, and sales professionals fail to develop a profile of a qualified prospect. (Location 1679)

They'll likely have the information you'll need—decision-making roles, account size, buying windows, budgetary windows, contractual obligations—to build a profile of your ideal opportunity. If you work for a small company or start-up, start by analyzing your product and service delivery strengths and weaknesses. Look for patterns and commonalities among your best customers. Analyze the deals you are closing and gain a deeper understanding of trigger events that open buying windows. Based on the information you know, gauge how soon you need to engage prior to the buying window opening. Uncover common buyer roles. Then develop a profile of the prospect that is most likely to do business with you and, over the long-term, be a profitable, happy customer. (Location 1683)

Build Familiarity Our data and data that we've gathered and analyzed from a diverse set of sources indicate that it takes, on average: (Location 1714)

Problem is, they don't know you and you don't know them. Many of them may have no familiarity with your company. In this scenario, it may take multiple touches over a long period of time to get one of these potential buyers to engage. To gain their attention you might develop an SPC that includes phone calls and voice mails, e-mail, social, targeted trade shows, and industry conferences. Your primary objective is to create enough familiarity that these cold prospects are more likely to engage. (Location 1733)

Top performers have no interest in hunting and pecking for opportunities, so they design their lists to make prospecting blocks efficient and effective. They segment their prospects by potential or size of the opportunity and the probability the prospect will convert into a sale. They organize their prospecting block to get themselves in position to win with highly qualified prospects who are in the buying window. (Location 1797)

When you build powerful lists, you get powerful results. Lists should be constructed based on the following filters (or other methodologies depending on your unique situation). Use these elements in combination to structure your prospecting lists for maximum impact. (Location 1836)

Start each morning with a prospecting block focused on a list of these top-of-pyramid prospects while you are fresh, feeling your best, and motivated. (Location 1852)

Once you have exhausted your high-potential prospects, focus your prospecting activity on qualifying and nurturing activities with conquest accounts. Follow that by focusing on qualifying the hundreds or thousands of prospects lower on the pyramid. (Location 1856)

Your CRM is the most important tool in your sales arsenal because it: (Location 1875)

It's a mindset issue. These salespeople see themselves “working for the man,” whereas fanatical prospectors believe that they are the CEO of their territory. They are working for themselves. (Location 1900)

When it comes to building a powerful prospect database, my philosophy is simple: Put every detail about every account and every interaction with every account and contact in your CRM. Make good, clear notes. Never procrastinate. Do not take shortcuts. Develop the discipline to do it right the first time and it will pay off for you over time. (Location 1917)

The Five Levers of Familiarity (Location 1945)

The first step in creating familiarity is through persistent and consistent daily prospecting. (Location 1951)

“Ron, you mentioned that you still have close ties to your former company. Do you know who makes the decisions on sales training over there?” I was speaking with the decision maker at one of my top clients. (Location 1956)

The most powerful and direct path to familiarity is a referral or introduction. The referral gives you instant credibility because you get to ride on the coat tails of a person who is already trusted by your prospect. There are three basic types of referrals: (Location 1964)

It's relatively easy, low key, and low risk to ask a happy client for a referral. It goes like this: “Patricia, thank you again for your business. I'm glad to hear you are happy with us. I'm working hard to add more customers like you. Would you be able to introduce me to other people in your network who might want to use our product?” (Location 1989)

Finally, ask your prospects and customers which events, conferences, and trade shows they attend. (Location 1997)

You don't go to networking events to sell. You are not there to set appointments, get leads, or close business. You are there to create connections with other people. You get those other things after the connections are established. There should be no quid pro quo attached to your conversations. You create connections when you ask questions, listen, and become genuinely interested in other people. (Location 2003)

Following up after networking events is the key to anchoring your new relationships and familiarity. Use handwritten notes to remind the other person of your conversation by referencing something you spoke about. I make it a habit to keep a stack of prestamped envelopes and thank-you notes in my car. I write my notes while the conversations are still fresh. When I've had a positive conversation, I will also send a short text to thank the person for taking time to speak with me, followed by a LinkedIn connection request to further anchor familiarity. Finally, I log any leads in my CRM no later than the next morning. If I promised to send something, schedule an appointment, or introduce them to someone else, I schedule a task and take action within 24 hours of the event. Then I follow up on a regular basis until I move my networking prospects into the pipeline. (Location 2008)

For this reason, small company and start-up sales teams are intrinsically an integral part of the brand-building and market-awareness process. (Location 2025)

The bottom line is, when you are in a small organization, it is almost always all hands on deck and it is a given that sales and marketing are a mash-up rather than separate silos. (Location 2031)

There is, however, a personal branding methodology that is so little used, I consider it a secret weapon in the war for familiarity. It has an extraordinary track record for producing results and creates instant familiarity, credibility, and leads. The secret: Speak in public, regularly. (Location 2042)

I believe that for the sales profession, social media is the most important technological advancement since the telephone. There has never been a time in sales when so much information about so many buyers was so easy to access. (Location 2072)

What I am going to focus on in this chapter is giving you a framework for becoming more effective and efficient with social media in your prospecting routine. I'll help you understand the core objectives (Location 2089)

I've created a rich set of resources that are constantly being updated. (Location 2108)

Contact and conversion rates from phone and e-mail dwarf conversion rates on social media. (Location 2119)

To be sure, I used social media too. I sold two deals when the prospects called me back after I left a voice mail, sent an e-mail, and then pinged them on LinkedIn. (Location 2141)

The bottom line is people don't want to be pitched or “sold” on social media. They prefer to connect, interact, and learn. For this reason, the social channel is better suited to building familiarity, lead nurturing, research, nuanced inbound prospecting, and trigger-event awareness. (Location 2162)

On which social channels should you be active? Where should you invest your limited time? The simple answer: Go where your prospects hang out. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Foursquare, Swarm, Ello, SoundCloud, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, SlideShare— (Location 2179)

Take a step back and answer these two questions: On which social channels will I find my customers and prospects? On which social channels do I feel most comfortable? (Location 2189)

Do you hear that giant sucking sound? That is social media stealing Golden Hour time from salespeople across the globe. (Location 2209)

A best practice that I highly recommend is posting the same headshot on all of your social media profiles. Your image is like your logo. You want it to stick. (Location 2267)

Writing a perfect summary that connects with the reader requires thoughtfulness and effort. It's your story, and it should make people want to meet you. It should be well written, compelling, and truthful. Write in the first person and make it conversational. Your bio should explain who you are, what you are all about (values), what you do best, and why customers and clients count on and trust you to solve their problems. (Location 2284)

Engaging means liking, sharing, and commenting on their posts as well as content they are commenting on and sharing. You also need to post content that is of interest to them, congratulate them on achievements, and be present in groups where they participate. (Location 2312)

The very best outcome of the investment you make in social media is to entice prospects to contact you. (Location 2324)

Sharing and publishing relevant content that is intriguing to prospects and helps them solve problems, answering questions in groups, and posting thoughtful comments can also open the door to prospects contacting you for more information or to ask you questions—especially when these posts position you as an expert. (Location 2328)

I use a more subtle method. When I publish original content or link to a blog page, I include links to white papers and reports embedded in the content. (Location 2334)

Providing insight and education to prospects is also a brilliant way to nurture high-value prospects as part of a strategic prospecting campaign (SPC). Strategic prospecting is a long-term, comprehensive effort that spans multiple prospecting channels. SPCs are designed to warm up and nurture contact relationships in anticipation of a future buying window. The core objectives of strategic prospecting are: (Location 2338)

A complete dissertation on developing effective SPCs is beyond the scope of this book. However, you may download the Ultimate Guide to Strategic Prospecting at FanaticalProspecting.com. (Location 2350)

Trigger events are disruptions in the status quo that open buying windows and compel buyers to take action. For some prospects, buying windows are predictable because they're based on set budgetary or contractual time frames. (Location 2355)

For social search shortcuts, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Sam Richter's book, Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling. Sam's book is the bible on using online and social resources to gather information. (Location 2369)

You can message them directly through the platform—for example, in a LinkedIn mail, Facebook message, or a direct message on Twitter—or just pick up the phone and call. A surprising number of people include phone numbers and e-mail addresses on their profiles. (Location 2373)

There are five behaviors/activities that define social selling. Mastering these behaviors and activities makes the time spent on social channels effective. (Location 2377)

Everything on social media begins with a connection. When you meet prospects by phone and in person, you've opened the door to familiarity. At that moment, after they've just met you, you have the highest probability of them accepting your social connection request. (Location 2386)

On LinkedIn, once a person connects with you, you gain the ability to see all of their connections, (Location 2391)

Your professional network can be more powerful than any other means of prospecting. (Location 2395)

Creating high-quality content is powerful, but is very, very difficult. It requires a significant investment of time and intellectual resources. (Location 2423)

In the social channel, the primary way you provide value is through content that educates, builds credibility, anchors familiarity, and positions you as an expert who can solve relevant problems. (Location 2433)

The challenge is that the social channel is a voracious and insatiable beast that devours content. It must be fed daily for you and your message to remain relevant and present. (Location 2437)

Instead of publishing your own original content, you leverage the content that is being created and published by others. (Location 2442)

Essentially, you become a maven who aggregates the most relevant content for your audience and shares it through your various social media newsfeeds. (Location 2443)

The beautiful thing about sharing content is even though you didn't produce it, some of the credit for the content rubs off on you. There are three pillars of content curation: (Location 2445)

The social channel leveraged the right way can and should generate inbound leads. Although it is somewhat an oversimplification, social prospecting is like building your own little inbound marketing machine. (Location 2458)

Social prospecting is a grind. It takes work. It is not easy, simple, or automatic. (Location 2462)

Time blocking and the deployment of tools that automate some of the activity are the keys to being efficient. You must block 30 minutes to an hour each day (preferably before or after the Golden Hours) to engage in planned, intentional social prospecting activities. (Location 2465)

You may feel that you are not accomplishing much in short daily social prospecting blocks, but the cumulative impact of daily activity is enormous over time. (Location 2468)

Because of the dynamics at play, I am providing a limited list of tools in this section. (Location 2484)

Social Prospecting + Outbound Prospecting = A Powerful Combination (Location 2503)

posts). If you are starting from the ground up with no followers or a small audience on established social platforms like LinkedIn, it can take from six months to two years to create enough gravity to pull prospects in to you. (Location 2506)

Social selling impacts familiarity, is an excellent for research and trigger-event awareness, and will generate inbound leads. It is, however, a long-term, passive strategy that requires patience and nuance and is unlikely to produce immediate results or to ever scale to a size that generates enough inbound leads to allow you to reach your sales and income goals. (Location 2512)

Combined with social prospecting, outbound becomes enormously powerful. The combined benefits include: (Location 2518)

Prospects meet with you for their reasons, not yours. You must articulate the value of spending time with you in the context of what is most important to them. Your message must demonstrate a sincere interest in listening to them, learning about them, and solving their unique problems. This is how you break down initial resistance so that you earn an appointment, gain the opportunity to gather qualifying information, or engage in a sales conversation right in the moment. (Location 2567)

What you say (the words you use) and how you say it (nonverbal cues) are critical to your success. (Location 2575)

Confidence and enthusiasm are the two most powerful and persuasive nonverbal messages you send to prospects. (Location 2589)

You are interrupting your prospect's day. If a salesperson were interrupting your busy day, what would you want? Think about it. (Location 2622)

Your prospecting message must be quick, simple, direct, and relevant. (Location 2627)

This is why, for example, it is more difficult to get a yes when requesting an hour-long meeting to do a full demo than when asking for a 15-minute discovery meeting to determine if there is enough interest and reasons to move to a next step. You lower the risk for your prospect by answering WIIFM—the most important question on their mind: (Location 2629)

In his book Smart Calling, Art Sobczak calls these assumptions about WIIFMs (Location 2635)

Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling, (Location 2638)

Konrath suggests that there are three key parts to a winning VP: (Location 2643)

You'll want to craft a well-laid-out case that is specific and germane to your prospect. (Location 2651)

On the flip side, if you work for a well-known brand and are meeting with small business owners who regularly use products like yours, asking for a few minutes to “learn more about their business” can work like a charm. Why? Because small business owners like to talk about themselves and the risk of taking a few minutes to meet with you is low. (Location 2656)

I'm a fan of Mike Weinberg's Power Statements and sales story development process, detailed in his book New Sales. Simplified. (Location 2660)

According to Robert Cialdini, author of Influence, (Location 2669)

straightforward. In prospecting, all you really need to do is give your prospect a good enough reason to meet with you and they'll say yes. It doesn't need to be perfect—just good enough to get in the door. (Location 2673)

To be efficient at prospecting, you must pack lots of prospecting touches into a short period of time. (Location 2675)

You need a message that can be delivered in 10 seconds or less and gives your prospect a reason or a “because” that's good enough to get them to say yes. (Location 2682)

still said yes 93 percent of the time. It was a truly stunning finding. Saying the word because—giving a reason—was more important and powerful than the reason itself. (Location 2691)

For example, just saying, “I'd like 15 minutes of your time because I want to learn more about you and your company” works surprisingly well with many prospects. (Location 2696)

In the context of prospecting, your bridge is the because that gives them a good enough reason to give up their time to spend it with you. There are two types of bridges you'll use when prospecting: targeted and strategic. (Location 2704)

For example, if you work in business services and have a prospect database of 10,000 SMBs, taking time to research every prospect before calling them would make no sense. It is a better use of your time to make as many calls as possible to engage and qualify as many prospects as possible, in the least amount of time as possible. (Location 2709)

“Hi, Candace, this is Jeb Blount from Sales Gravy. (Location 2716)

Our software typically cuts onboarding time and costs for new sales reps by 50 percent, and makes it super easy to manage new rep onboarding, giving you the peace of mind that your new hires will start selling fast. (Location 2718)

To develop a bridge specific to your prospect, you will first need to determine the objective of your prospecting touch: (Location 2732)

Defining your objective in advance, so you know what you are asking for, will help you develop a bridge that gives your prospect a reason to take that step. Next, research your prospect. (Location 2735)

Craft your message to demonstrate that you can relate to their specific situation. Bridge to a specific problem they are facing using their language (gleaned from your research). An example: (Location 2741)

The real secret to crafting prospecting messages that convert into meetings, information, or sales is staring with a simple but powerful premise: People make decisions based on emotion first and then justify with logic. (Location 2753)

Prospects want to feel that you get them and their problems (emotional and logical), or are at least trying to get them, before they'll agree to give up their time to meet with you. (Location 2758)

The most effective way to craft the right message is to simply stand in your prospect's shoes. (Location 2768)

Start by answering these questions from your prospect's perspective: (Location 2770)

The most important element of any prospecting touch is the ask—what you are asking the prospect to do or give up. (Location 2794)

There is only one technique that really works for getting what you want on a prospecting touch. Ask. (Location 2804)

There are three steps to asking: (Location 2812)

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the Little Red Book of Selling, (Location 2820)

the words you use and how you structure those words send the message loud and clear that you assume you will get a yes or assume you'll get a no. (Location 2827)

even though you're paddling frantically just below the surface. (Location 2865)

Question: “How do you get a salesperson to stop working?” Answer: “Put a phone in front of him.” (Location 2943)

contact. For example, in the business services segment, contact rates are consistently between 25 and 40 percent. (Location 2973)

we are seeing clear trends that contact rates via phone have actually risen by around 5 percentage points. (Location 2977)

The Telephone Is, Has Always Been, and Will Continue to Be the Most Powerful Sales Prospecting Tool (Location 2990)

Let me say this one more time slowly. There is no other tool in sales that will deliver better results, fill your pipe faster, and help you cover more ground in less time than the phone. (Location 2992)

Here is the brutal truth: Salespeople who ignore the phone fail. They deliver mediocre results and cheat themselves out of hard cash. (Location 2995)

Before moving forward, though, let's stipulate a few things: (Location 3079)

The Ultimate Key to Success Is the Scheduled Phone Block (Location 3090)

The Five-Step Simple Telephone Prospecting Framework (Location 3109)

To do this effectively, your call must be structured so that you get to the point fast—in 10 seconds or less—and sound like an authentic professional rather than a scripted robot (Location 3127)

You also need a process that is consistent and repeatable. (Location 3130)

An effective telephone prospecting call might sound like this—a simple five-step framework: (Location 3134)

One point I want to be sure you get: There are no pauses. The moment you pause you lose control of the call. (Location 3147)

“Hi, Corrina, this is Jeb Blount from AcmeSoft. The reason I'm calling is you downloaded our white paper on creating more effective landing pages for lead generation and I'm interested to learn what triggered your interest. I work with a number of marketing executives who've been struggling to bring in enough quality leads to meet their growth objectives, and I've got a few best practices that my clients are using to generate more and better leads that I'll be happy to share with you. Can you tell me more about your situation?” (Location 3157)

The easiest, fastest way to get someone's attention is to use the most beautiful word in the world to them—their name. (Location 3169)

Important point: Notice that I didn't ask Julie, “How are you doing?” (Location 3173)

For example, if you are dialing a list of prospects for which you have little qualifying information, it might not make sense to leave a voice mail for those prospects. (Location 3252)

The callback rate on voice mail messages is very low. As in single-digits low. (Location 3258)

This is why when you leave voice mail, it has to count. For instance, when you are working a list of conquest prospects, you'll want to leave a voice mail on every call. The same goes with a prospect that you know or suspect is moving into the buying window. (Location 3260)

Five-Step Voice Mail Framework to Double Callbacks (Location 3267)

It is essential that you avoid overcomplicating this process. You need turnaround scripts that work for you and sound natural coming from your lips. (Location 3558)

Seven Keys for Dealing with Gatekeepers (Location 3650)

In his book The Real Secrets of the Top 20 Percent, the author, Mike Brooks, (Location 3653)

The salespeople-help-salespeople hack is an awesome secret weapon. (Location 3733)

Personally, I make it a practice to speak to every person I meet who is wearing a uniform or logoed shirt with the name of their company on it. (Location 3939)

Keep your eye out for business cards pinned to gas station and restaurant bulletin boards. (Location 3944)

It's also easier than ever to build a database of e-mail addresses. Besides just asking for them, you can grab e-mail address through Google searches, social media, scraping programs line eGrabber's E-Mail Prospector, various apps and browser plugins, and tools like Toofr and Prospect Ace that help you make educated guesses on e-mail addresses for prospects when you don't have them. (Location 3982)

Don't send bulk e-mail. Prospecting e-mail is one to one. It is one e-mail from your address sent to one individual, one e-mail at a time. (Location 4012)

The Law of Familiarity is always in play with e-mail prospecting. The more familiar your prospect is with your name, brand, or company, the more likely they are to open your e-mail. This is why leveraging the phone and social channels prior to sending an e-mail can increase the chances of getting your e-mails opened. For example, you might call and leave a voice mail, ping them on LinkedIn, and follow that up with an e-mail (or vice versa). This “triple threat” increases familiarity and leverages your persistence across multiple channels. (Location 4060)

Layering prospecting channels to open doors should be focused, targeted, intentional, and strategic. You need to plan your touches across the various decision makers and influencers to improve e-mail open rates without becoming annoying. (Location 4071)

The three most common subject line mistakes: (Location 4077)

Solution: Keep e-mail prospecting subject lines super short—three to six words or 40 to 50 characters including spaces. Remember—less is more. (Location 4084)

Solution: Connect your subject line to an issue your prospect is facing—especially if it is emotional or stressful—or compliment them on a recent accomplishment or something that you know makes them feel proud. For example, the easiest, fastest way to get me to open your e-mail is a subject line that reads: “Loved Your Book!” (Location 4097)

This is why experimentation and testing are the real secrets to success with subject lines. (Location 4112)

Sales e-mail prospecting, automation, and intelligence services like Yesware, Tellwise, Tout, and Signals give you instant insight into what happens with your prospecting e-mail after you push “send.” (Location 4119)

In other words, generate a response that leads to your desired outcome: (Location 4136)

Bad e-mails destroy your brand equity, credibility, and image. (Location 4159)

Consider who you are writing to: (Location 4171)

The most effective way to tailor your message to the person you are writing is to step into their shoes and ask some basic questions: (Location 4186)

The Four Elements of an Effective Prospecting E-Mail (Location 4193)

Here is an example of an e-mail to a COO of a bank. It leverages the four-step framework: (Location 4205)

Kendra Lee, author of The Sales Magnet, calls this the “glimpse factor.” (Location 4220)

Also, never use “Hi” or “Hello” or “Dear” or any other salutation in front of your prospect's name. No one in business does that except salespeople. “Hi __” is a complete turnoff for prospects. (Location 4227)

The most difficult step is training yourself to stop thinking about your product or service and alternatively step into your prospect's shoes, relate to their situation, and learn to speak their language. (Location 4300)

The best time to send a sales prospecting e-mail is when your prospect is most likely to open it and take action (convert). (Location 4310)