As sales manager, business line leader, or CEO, is your team finding, qualifying and closing as much business as you think they should? Most say "No" when we ask that question, which means that something in your client outreach and sales process has to change. And that change, we believe, starts at the very beginning. The call or outreach to set up an appointment is key. It is good to remind your people that the prospects they are harvesting today are the ones that were planted some time ago. The goal is to find suspects and build them into prospects by fully uncovering and understanding their needs and goals.
If your team needs to have better initial appointments, they must adopt best practices for prospecting for new leads. They’re going to have to improve the quality of their initial phone call. It takes about 16 attempts to reach a prospect to get them engaged. Most people give up after four attempts. First, your producers and relationship managers and lenders have got to be more persistent and consistent in their outreach and second, they must get better. That first phone call is so critical.
4 Rules for Prospecting for New Leads
Here are some keys to remember to upgrade your team’s prospecting effectiveness. What is the purpose of the first call? Simply, to get the prospect engaged. Not to talk product and definitely, not to sell anything. The first call is to gain their attention, find out what is on their minds and secure a meeting. So here are four rules to help your team improve in that area. Remind them that:
- How they say what they say is more important than what they say
- Nobody wants to talk to them, really
- The first 10 seconds are critical
- They must sound like someone the prospect would choose to speak with
All of those can be improved if you require your people to prepare themselves with pre-call planning. They must know what they are going to ask, what the prospect might ask them and be prepared so they can pivot if they need to. If they cannot connect with the prospect in the first 10 seconds, everything from there is uphill. All of this requires practice, practice, practice. That’s where real leadership emerges. Are you inspecting these behaviors? Does your company have a consistent sales approach that you or your managers are following and coaching around? All salespeople, including yours, will fall back on what is comfortable, what they learned at a prior company. To implement best practices in prospecting for new leads, you will have to take them out of that comfort zone.
How can leaders get better at improving the sales techniques of their people without processes proven to work? We help many companies with a better first call approach, improving their team’s ability to prospect for new leads. We call this the 8-Step phone approach but that is not important. What IS important is that your people craft this, practice this, refine it and tailor it to who they are calling. First calls that are effective are no whimsical in nature, not off the cuff, they are pre-planned and precise. However, the prospect is not scripted, so your lenders and producers must be flexible and tenacious. Here is a simplified approach for the 8-Step call:
- Introduce Yourself then…
- STOP (let them talk, ask etc.)
- Ask Permission to continue
- Provide short Positioning Statement about what other clients in their industry are dealing with (Sample: Bob, in talking with executives like yourself, some of the common challenges that I've been hearing are hiring top talent, and an uncertainty that the people they have can overcome some of the challenges facing them in the coming year. Bob, I'm curious, are either of those having an impact on you and your business?)
- Let them answer then ask permission to continue
- Give two examples of how you have helped others in similar situations
- Discussion & Drill Down – ask questions to find out how these issues are affecting them, their company, their success
- Close for Appointment – no selling, no product talk (Sample: Bob, can I make a suggestion? Why don't you invite me out? Let's find some time to sit down. We can ask each other some questions, and at the end of that, we'll both know if it makes sense to talk further.)
Have your people script this for upcoming calls, then practice over and over. It should not be or sound like a canned approach. They must become familiar with it; they must own it and it must be unique. Have them do that for the next 30 days. Have them record their opening dialogue to their phone call. Listen to it. Have other people listen to it. Coach it. Would you want to talk to them if they called you?
It's important to warn your people about getting happy ears, as we like to call it. They hear one kind of buying comment, such as yes, we really could use a better approach, and bam, they are introducing their product benefits and how they can make it better. Instead, your salespeople will be unique and stand out if they ask questions, better questions and lots of questions to fully understand the prospect’s problem. See how long your salespeople can go without talking about their product or company or solution. At the end of the conversation, their prospect should be thinking: That was different or I can see myself doing business with him or her down the road. I might not have a problem right now, but when I do, I'm going to be thinking of them. They asked good questions, they challenged me, they don’t want to sell me, they want to know me.
So, I will ask you again: How good is your team at prospecting for new leads? And what are you going to do about it?
