Prospecting For Contact Gold

An ancient Chinese saying goes that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. While it is unlikely that Lau Tzu was thinking of Lead Generation when he said that in the best traditions of timeless wisdom it leaves us free to draw from it what we will. I look at this to mean that in the long sales process a considered first step is of critical importance to ensure success. Especially in B2B sales that first step being the creation of a prospect list of-course. Whether you call it a contact list, a prospect base or a database it's quality will ultimately determine how effective your contact efforts are. You want a database populated with names, contact and all other relevant information of decision makers and other influencers from your target organisations and here are a few rich seams that can be mined for these nuggets of information.

Look Here..

1. Company Website : Once you have identified the organisation you wish to target the first port of call is it's website - obvious I know but you would be surprised how many "contact discovery" efforts ignore this basic first step. The "Management" tab on the website offers up a complete list of the officers for you to pick those most likely to be receptive to your specific message.

2. LinkedIn - The inevitable next place to look in this age of social selling. There's been enough and more written about the search capabilities within LinkedIn - I will just add that I have found LinkedIn most valuable in seeking information about middle level contacts and perhaps not always so when looking for the "C" level contacts. These mid-level managers are the people not usually represented on the company website or other such sources. The well known capabilities of LinkedIn to search for an extended network of connections allows an almost organic growth in the contact list once the first few contacts are unearthed.

3. I have personally found events a great source to mine for contacts and information. The list of "speakers" has double value - not only can you get information about the speaker (name, title, role in the organisation) but also their specific area of expertise. 

4. Company Publications : This is a great place to look for people in your target companies with very specific areas of interest. Given the emphasis on Content Marketing most companies have an abundance of publications in the public domain like Papers, articles, technical papers & filings, blogs and the like and these will almost always be credited to specific individuals. If their area of expertise coincides with yours then an obvious match-making opportunity exists with a ready-made opening line to go with it.

5.  Other social media channels : In building a contact list LinkedIn is no. 1 to no. 10 in the top 10 social networks to consider but there are other channels also that can be useful on occasion most notably Twitter. Looking down the list of people who follow your target company's official Twitter handle or are listed as contributors to the Twitter feed could throw up some names worth researching and adding to the contact database.

6. Something I have found useful sometimes is "News" from your target companies especially about things like product releases. Such news is often accompanied by quotes from the officers directly connected to the product line - useful from the point of view of being able to pin down a name as well as a likely area of interest. 

While these are great places to look for names of decision makers in your target companies that's just the first step (there's that first step again) - there is a lot of good practice associated with keeping the database accurate, fresh, updated and, well alive but let's leave that for another day. For now let me end by asking what do you think of this list ? Are there any other sources not listed here that you have mined productively while building a prospect list ?

             

‘Tis The Season To Be Campaigning

Selling into the US and International market from India the festival season starts in early November and carries on in fits and starts through till the middle of January - over a career in sales I was often conflicted by how to approach the holiday season. While this was a time of great personal joy I used to struggle with ideas to keep the sales effort going. Conventional wisdom is that no one takes any decisions then anyway and given the number of days off even when people were at work it would be challenge to get any meaningful “face time” from any prospect. It is, of-course, not possible to “give up” on this period given that many organizations finalize budgets for the upcoming year. The end of the year often coincides with the end of the Financial Year bringing with it all the attendant pressures of sales targets to meet.

Colours Of The Holiday Season

Here are some ideas for campaigns that I have personally found to have a fair chance of working over this season:

1.       By far the most effective campaign that I believe could be run is to reach out to your own network. In most cases the true extent of one’s network is larger than one imagines – what is needed is a systematic approach to reach out to them with a well-designed, targeted message. The fact that most people shy away from campaigns at this time works in favour of this tactic because it reduces the “noise”. The campaign objectives should, of-course, be well calibrated to reflect the limitations of the period – don’t expect too many “hot” leads but aim to get in front of people and set yourself up for the busier period coming up.

2.       This may also be a good time to try and revive dormant contacts – people you have been in touch with in the past where the discussions have stalled. Reaching out to such contacts to catch-up, offer some new information or an update on where you and your company may be just the thing. This may not necessarily serve to revive specific sales opportunities but can definitely help revive relationships. In the long run these could prove more profitable than a single sale.   

3.       There’s perhaps some cosmic significance to the holiday season in the US starting with Thanksgiving – I would suggest this is pointing us towards a campaign to give thanks. There’s no time better than this to thank all the stakeholders – current and past customers, partners and associates and also employees. A simple, heart-felt message to give thanks to them for their support and reminding them that this support is extremely valued goes a long way to cement the relationship.

4.       One email campaign that I recommend to everyone is an end of the year campaign focused around “Seasons Greetings”. This is a wonderful platform to recap the significant achievements of your company over the year that has gone in a subtle, non-salesy manner – who could ask for more ? Companies, their range of offerings and capabilities grow with time and sometimes this is not visible to everyone – current customers are more fixated on the immediate needs being serviced and old customers may still hold an image of you as you were “back in the day”. An end of the year email outlining the most recent events of importance could provide substantial evidence of this growth and help change this impression.

That’s the list of things that usually make it onto my own “To do” list for the holiday season – sometimes with good results. What do you think ? How do you fill the time over the holiday season and what results do you get from these efforts ? Oh and before you leave – please accept my best wishes for the holiday season wherever in the world you are !   

Your Price is Too High - This Q May Be the Answer

As a sales guy one of the things that you are almost inevitably going to encounter is the price objection. This is always a tough one - not least because it usually crops up at the fag end of what is often an exhausting sales cycle. After months of effort in getting the prospect on board, understanding their specific business issue, building consensus around the solution you are providing and ensuring all technical and logistical objections are addressed it is sometimes deflating to hear something along the lines of "We like what you are offering but your price is too high.". In most cases this prompts a rush back to HQ with a frantic "We need to drop our price if we want to get the business." I have been guilty of such panic attacks as much as any other sales person but somewhere along the way I learnt to ask a Question that I believe dramatically improves the chances of success of any follow-up action. The next time just when you are expecting to close a sale if a prospect tells you "Your price is too high." ask them "Compared to what ?" The answer to that Q will give you a crucial guide to what your response should be.

Look Closer To See More

1. The obvious one is you are more expensive compared to a similar solution from a close competitor. To an extent this is a solved problem - there is enough material out there on what to do in such a  situation to prove your solution better or yourself more deserving than your competitor or failing that a calibrated discount. 

2. It could be that your price exceeds the available budget - this is a tougher one to solve. Assuming that not much room is available for dropping your price or for stretching the budget you would have to look for creative solutions - maybe break your offering or the billing across multiple budget allocation periods or make a distinction in the offering between Capital & Ongoing Maintenance or services that can be budgeted for under separate heads.  

3. Another possibility is the price is higher than what the prospect was assuming he would have to pay - this is usually the result of an expectation mismatch. This situation is better avoided than addressed in that it's far easier to ensure early on in the sales cycle the prospect gets a reasonable understanding of what this is likely to cost him than to try to convince them otherwise once the objection is raised.

4. In some cases the price offered may be more than what the prospect is willing to pay to solve the problem he is facing - basically just not worth the money. There's really no solving this - this is a case of improper qualification at a much earlier stage of the sales cycle.

5. A variation of the previous theme is the prospect may not agree that the solution should cost so much. I had heard an old story about a space agency using a pencil instead of developing a pen that wrote in zero gravity. That being said the agency may have been willing to spend hundreds of thousands of $s to develop the pen but it is unlikely they would spend the same kind of cash for the pencil even though it solved the problem. This is human tendency - we ascribe intrinsic value to things so we feel something simple should cost less. Like a magician keeping the mechanics of his trick under wraps maybe the best way is to retain some of the mystery if you want to avoid falling into this particular trap.

Assuming you have done most of the earlier steps in the sales cycle right the answer your prospect gives you to this particular "loaded" Q and your subsequent reaction may prove the difference between a futile last ditch discount that may or may not work and a carefully calibrated response that provides a very specific solution to a genuine objection. After-all don't you need to know what is the Question is before you Answer it ?          

Random email tips that have worked for me !

In a previous post I wrote about some general email campaign do's & don'ts - in this one I thought of sharing some tactics that have shown good results in campaigns that I have run. A word to the wise though - these are not prescriptions so use carefully only when the situation is appropriate.

1. Many people use mail clients like Outlook & view the mail box in split screen - a list of mails with basic info. & often a preview of the first line on one side & an actual preview of the mail on the other half of the screen. This suggests a couple of tactics - for starters I try to keep the actual mail short enough to get all the "meat" as close to the top of the mail & hence appearing in the portion that would fit into the half screen preview with the sign-off & the signature going "below the fold".

2.  Now almost all mails are addressed to the recipient by first name but I also try to name the target segment they belong to in the first sentence to reinforce that the mail is topical - so something like "I thought it would interest you to know how other Medical Insurance leaders have addressed customer support challenges...". This also helps get this reference into the preview that comes up on the mailbox list - seeing something interesting there may mean the difference between the mail getting opened or canned.

3.  A few personal rules about the content of the mail - I try to keep my claims realistic & as obviously sincere as possible so no hyperbole like "perfect", "raving customers" & the like !    

4. As far as possible I look to include no more than 1 hyperlink in the mail. Ideally that link should be to a specific section in the site that holds some very relevant information to the target segment. As a general rule I try not to direct people to a home page or something as generic as that. In those cases we are depending on the prospect making the effort to look for something more appealing & then clicking through. Chances are that is not likely to happen.

5. It sounds obvious but the mail should be tailored to invite the desired CTA - if that is to click through a link then the mail should specifically drive towards that, if the mail in intended to convince the recipient to give time for a demo or a meeting then one tactic I have found useful is to provide just enough information to pique interest but not enough to tempt the prospect to think they have all the information  they need to take a decision on their own.

6. I also try to anticipate the most common "objection" & deal with it in my closing - so something like "Many organisations with existing vendor relationships in this area have still found value in talking to us because of our unique combination of skill sets."

7. Perhaps most counter-intuitive but I have had some success with emails that include an error or an obvious mistake in the title or the early text - people often feel compelled to read through or even to write back & point the mistake out. This is a high risk-strategy though - mistakes can reflect on your brand so I sometimes hedge by including a reference to the mistake towards the end of the mail & make it clear that it was deliberate. 

So there you have it folks - some personal tips that I have found useful. I would be interested to hear from others if there are things they have tried that have worked for them - no doubt we can all use all the help that we can get ! 

  
(Image Courtesy - Wikimedia Commons)

What to expect when you are Emailing.

First things first - this post is for those still in the early days of flirting with email campaigns. There is plenty of great information out there about more advanced techniques, delivery rates, success metrics & the like but I thought it may be useful to set out first principles - well first !

For the uninitiated then there are 3 types of results that we can expect from emails - all of them useful in their own way.

You've got to Mail !

1. Email read - this is a perfectly valid response. In most cases when we first send an email this is the best result we can expect. The intention of the mail is to let new people know of us or remind people we have been in touch with in the past about us. Think of this as a Shout Out - useful to identify people with whom a longer conversation is warranted or possible but requiring follow thru'. 

2. Clicking through a link in the email - this is much more likely to happen when the email itself calls for that specific action, for eg. the mail campaign itself is talking about a whitepaper & inviting people to download it from the link. In some emails the link is provided only in support of the central message - for instance a link to a webpage. A lack of large nos. of people clicking through this should not necessarily be a cause for concern. What I would definitely recommend is staying connected with  people who do click through such. They are more likely to have some future need coming down the turnpike for which they may be at an early stage of exploration - hence the kicking of the tyres.

3. Email reply - in my personal experience follow-up campaigns sometimes stand a greater chance of eliciting this response than the initial email campaign. Broadly there are 3 kinds of replies - 

a) We like what we hear but we don't have any need right now

b) Don't bother me

c) Something specific in relation to a need or a query 

We have to take care to stay in touch & build a relationship with the people who give the first response, make sure that we do not send any more unsolicited emails to the second category & jump all over the third category. 

Something more specific, links to referenceable work, something cool to showcase etc. is much more likely to have an impact with the first category - there the need is to grow the initial interest so we should respond to their mail with something tailored to their specific area of interest.  

Coming to the dream response - people who have a specific need. To a large extent this is completely unpredictable given that this is only going to occur when there is a live opportunity at the prospect. We can only hope to maximize the probability of this response by covering as much ground as possible through well thought out & targeted email campaigns.

So to all the email campaign newbies out there - start drafting those mails & putting together those campaigns because if you are not reaching out to your prospects your competitors definitely are & chances are they're using mail to do so !  

How the butcher taught me to go up the Sales Value Chain !

Full disclosure - I have never visited a butcher but this story I heard about one tempts me to confer a Sales Guru title on the protagonist ! The story goes something like this - an old lady in a village went to the market to buy supplies for the home every week. She would buy meat from which ever butcher had the better product on the day at the best price. She was buying a Commodity which offered the sellers little opportunity for differentiation or for longer term customer retention.

Over time she started  buying meat more often than not from the same butcher because he seemed to usually have better quality goods & a reasonable price. This butcher had made the transition to selling a Product with some kind of assurance of quality & potential for garnering customer loyalty.

After a few weeks of this the butcher told the lady that he had noticed that on each visit she bought items from a few different shops & he offered that if she would give him a list of all the things she wanted in the week in advance he would buy all the items & keep them at his shop for her to pick up when she came to buy the meat. This would save her time & effort & she could still get everything she needed.  The lady eagerly accepted the Service the butcher was offering. The move from a Product to a Service allows much greater scope for differentiation & for tailoring unique benefits for customers that could potentially reduce the need for the customer to consider competitors.

It then transpired that the lady fell ill & could not make it to the market for a couple of weeks. While recuperating at home she was surprised by a visit from the butcher. He had with him a bundle of goods typical of those the lady usually ordered along with some portions of meat. In response to the lady's incredulity he said that he had inquired from one of the lady's friends at the market the reason for her recent absence & learnt of her illness. He thought of paying a visit to check how she was doing & of getting some supplies along since she would not have been able to stock up on provisions for two weeks. Clearly the butcher, apart from being a nice guy, was a true sales genius. In one move he stepped up the ladder to forming a genuine Relationship with his customer - something that most sales people dream of. After achieving this stage as long as one can consistently deliver value you could have a customer for life. 

The story of the butcher & the lady serves up a road map for those of us in sales - the aim should always be to move up the value chain from a Commodity to a Product to a Service & finally a Relationship. The higher one goes the greater the opportunity for differentiation & for cementing customer relationships that last. The other lesson to be learnt is to pay attention to those that we buy from - after all they're sales people too & may have a nugget or two of wisdom to offer !