When developing a salesperson’s advanced selling skills, it's important to focus on not only what the prospect says but also what the prospect doesn’t say.

As many of you know, I am a music aficionado…and as such, I would be remiss if I did not note the passing a few weeks ago of the singer Meat Loaf at 74 years of age. Born with the name Marvin Lee Aday, Meat Loaf sold more than 65 million albums worldwide.

He also has something to teach us in terms of mastering advanced sales techniques around the topic of having clarity with the prospects in our pipeline. Go ahead and sing along with me:

And all I can do is keep on telling you
I want you
I need you
There ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad

Now while the name of that song is “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”, we can also refer to this as “The Dance of the Prospect.” Maybe it brings to mind a recent deal you chased. You know, the one you were sure you were going to win right up until the moment that you lost. I doubt you will disagree with me when I say that prospects can be quite elusive and quite vague when you meet with them.

When we are working to develop a salesperson’s advanced selling skills, we focus on not only what the prospect says but also what the prospect doesn’t say. Here is what they often say and all of this is enticing bait for salespeople:

• We have heard good things about your company
• We are open to new ideas
• We think you might be able to help us
• We would love to see in writing what you could do for us

That is your prospect saying, “and all I can do is keep on telling you…I want you…I need you”. But what you might need to consider is what they are not telling you, which is “there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you.”

But hey – for all you salespeople…don’t be sad. After all, two out of three ain’t bad.

One of the biggest sales challenges to overcome is a prospect who becomes indifferent when they decide that doing nothing is the easiest thing to do.

How do you challenge the decision and not the prospect to help them overcome their choice to maintain the status quo?

There is no question that the most disappointing outcome for a salesperson to receive after their presentation is the outcome where the prospect does nothing. Not only did you not get the business…neither did any of the other firms that pitched the deal. The prospect simply stayed with the incumbent provider. They did nothing.

Before we go any further, let me give you two acronyms:

PI = Prospect Indifference
CSQ = Cost of Status Quo

I would argue that those two things are perhaps even more powerful than the other firms that provide you with ongoing competition. Just like Reese Cups, potato chips, and certain adult beverages, the gravitational pull of doing nothing can be hard for prospects to resist. Prospects become indifferent when they decide that doing nothing is the easiest thing to do. But here is the reality – while it may be the easiest thing to do, it is not often the right thing to do. Here is a general life principle: the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are often the same things.

You have two options when your prospect does nothing (they simply stick with the incumbent):

1. Eat another Reese Cup and do nothing yourself (walk away)
2. Challenge the decision (challenge the decision, not the prospect)

How do you do that? You do that by asking the prospect if they have calculated the cost of maintaining the status quo (CSQ). Ask them what their tolerance is to continue to deal with the problems you uncovered during your discovery process. Ask them what those problems will likely cost them going forward.

I will close with two questions: when do you want to know about the likelihood of your prospect maintaining the status quo? And when do you want to know that the pull of resistive inertia will just be too powerful and will likely prevent the prospect from making a move? Don’t forget the set of questions you should be asking towards the end of your first call: does your prospect have a problem that they have to fix, and who gets to fix it?

Or you can do nothing. Just take a bag of candy to snack on during your ride back to the office.

One of the top challenges we discuss with sales managers and leaders is how to get their salespeople to start selling value and stop caving on price.

In this blog, we will discuss the best way to respond to a prospect who tells you that your competition has a lower or better price.

The death of value has come slowly…but you could see it coming for quite some time. Some might blame the economy. Others might blame technology or even hyper-competition from other providers. But do you know who rarely gets blamed? Salespeople.

When we are in front of sales leadership teams the number one challenge we wind up discussing is getting salespeople to start value-based selling and stop caving on price. Let me be clear about something – selling based on price is a sales strategy. It’s just not a very good sales strategy (unless you are Walmart). Seth Godin called selling on price “the race to the bottom” and he went on to say it is a race you can’t win and it is a race you don’t want to win.

John Ruskin wrote these words that will forever be true: “It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.”

So, what is the best way to respond to a prospect who tells you that ABC Company has a lower or better price? If you believe in the power of gradual self-discovery then you should ask the prospect one simple question – “why do you think that is?”

Or what about simply responding with “thanks for sharing that with me…what if I tell you I can’t do that…where would that leave you and me?”

I may have been born yesterday but I stayed up all night studying so here is my question for you: is it possible you wind up fighting on price because you offer to fight?”

And if you need to walk away, perhaps you should suggest to your prospect that they add a contingency factor to the lowest priced bid for when they figure out that what they bought is not capable of doing what they need it to do. Of course, if they do that, then they would probably have the money to buy your offering instead.

If you consider the tactics that are generally covered in sales skills training, you can probably think of a handful of happenings that can steal, or make you lose, your prospect.

In this blog, we will discuss the top 4 situations you may encounter that will cause you to wonder; "where are you, prospect?"

From the year it first appeared in 1966 until now, “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” has remained a holiday classic. Narrated by Boris Karloff, it contains so many scenes that quickly rush to my mind. Who can forget the scene of the Grinch talking with Cindy Lou Who…or the scene where the Grinch turns his dog, Max, into a reindeer?

But let’s talk about another grinch – and this one is much meaner. I’m talking about the one that steals your prospect. You know – the prospect you were chasing that you were sure you were going to win right up until the point that you didn’t. If you consider the tactics that are generally covered in sales skills training, you can probably think of a handful of happenings that can steal, or make you lose, your prospect.

I think there are four different types of grinches that steal your prospect:

1. Lack of compelling reasons to make a change. This surfaces when your prospect has no pain/compelling reason to make a change, but you decided to pursue the opportunity anyway.
2. Lack of capacity. This comes to you when you do establish a compelling reason for the prospect to make a change, but you fail to ask them about the timing of such a change. It only appears after the presentation when your calls or emails are not being returned because the prospect isn’t ready to make the change.
3. The incumbent. This shows up when you fail to drill down into two things: 1) the reason why the prospect will leave the incumbent and 2) what they will tell the incumbent when they make the change. Changing providers is a big decision. Probably the toughest decision the prospect will ever have to make.
4. Not receiving a decision (within a mutually agreed-upon timeframe) after you present your solution. Why does this happen? Because you did not get them to agree to make a decision. You simply presented without any kind of upfront agreement.

So, to all of you faithful readers of this blog: could the actual grinch who stole your prospect be you? Think about it…and Happy Holidays to all of you along with wishes of peace in the New Year.

We expect every member of our team to prospect every day as one of their sales activities. But now and then, it helps to put a focus on the effort and bring the team together on a call blitz.  This works for many reasons.

One, we like the company of doing this together. Salespeople are often lone rangers, making calls and sending emails and linking in but it sure is nice to have our team to celebrate or to complain to and more importantly, to share experiences with and learn from.

Secondly, a call blitz puts a scheduled time on everyone’s calendars for just that one activity – sales prospecting outreach and conversations. Everyone gets to decide how they are going to approach this but we do provide a recommended direction and tools.

Third, let’s face it, sometimes life and work get in the way and our sales prospecting time is taken away when we must take care of current clients. Call blitzes put a discipline and structure to this necessary sales activity of sales prospecting.

Fourth, when our team collectively puts a lot of outreaches into the universe, that is also a form of branding – we are getting the word out! 

Fifth, the team gets together after the blitz and can brag or commiserate, but still share best (and maybe not so great) sales prospecting practices. 

Here are some suggestions on how to run a successful sales blitz.

1. Create a theme and develop a really good email campaign with that theme and send it to the targeted audience you are trying to reach. Our email campaign featured an offer for a free workshop - Roadmap for Success in 2022, that we could deliver for prospects and their teams. We sent the email out several times prior to the calling blitz in the hopes there would be some recognition when we called.
2. Make sure the emails come from the person calling if you can. We have our database segmented by salesperson and sent the same email but it was customized with their name and sig and calendar link and sent just to their prospect list.
3. Make sure your team knows this is a commitment of time and it is on their calendar. They must honor it and plan to provide a recap at the Post Blitz Zoom meeting.
4. Track it – which we do weekly anyways. Here’s an example of our weekly sales activities summary but we press activity reports out daily. The sales prospecting calling blitz is not reported here and will make this week look low. (Names covered to protect the innocent!)

5. Have some fun when you get together for the Post Blitz Zoom. Have each person share their experiences, talk about what to do next, and celebrate the effort. Our calling blitz was for 90 minutes and the Post Blitz Zoom only took about half an hour. We had some great energetic stories and sharing going on – invaluable! We will rinse and repeat in 2022, you can bet on that.

Now it’s your turn to schedule a sales prospecting blitz with your team. Let us know if we can help!