A Prospecting Call That Should Never Have Been Made

By Art Sobczak

The pink message slip said to call "Patti with Printing Services." Hmmm, a prospect wanting to buy something from me, or a salesperson? I returned the call.

"Hi Patti, it’s Art Sobczak with Business By Phone, returning your call."

Silence ensued, then, in a tone used by kids caught with hands in the cookie jar she giggled nervously and said, "Who are you with again?"

After repeating it, she said, "Well, I was cold calling and got your name somewhere . . . OK, well, I’m a new salesman and was cold calling and would like to come in and talk to you about your printing needs and what we can do."

"Why?"

"Why should I talk to you?"

"All kinds of printing."

"Sounds like you need some of my training materials on prospecting."

Error Analysis

It’s sad. I’ve got to be typical of business owners and decision makers getting calls like these. No wonder people already have a negative attitude when they answer the phone, suspecting a telephone salesperson. Let’s pick this thing apart to highlight the errors.

o Leaving a Haphazard Message Without Preparation for a Result. Even though on page 7 of this issue we have a differing opinion from my cover story last month about not leaving messages on prospecting calls, this scenario justifies one of my original reasons: the sales rep wasn’t prepared for the return call, and didn’t remember me. Therefore she fell into a gaping hole within the few seconds of the call.

o Awful Opening. "Well, I was cold calling and got your name somewhere . . ." Give me a break! Boy, that made me feel special.

She further compounded the dreadful opening with, " . . . like to come in and talk to you about your printing needs and what we can do." Skimming through just the local Yellow Pages I notice about seven pages of printers. Because she happened to dial my phone number didn’t seem like enough justification for me to consider her any differently from the hundreds of other printers locally and thousands nationally that I’m not using or considering. Bottom line, there was no reason to stay on the phone with her, much less meet with her.

Recommendation

Seems like I’m always repeating myself when I analyze this type of call. Here goes again.

o Get Information First. A few simple questions of my assistant would have garnered her some great information about the types, amounts, and frequency of printing we do, and probably what we pay. An easy way to position the gathering of this information is,

"To determine if what we do would even be worth talking to him about, there’s probably some information you could help me with first."

The subsequent message (voice mail or written) then could be highly tailored to my situation.

o The Call Back Message. As I mentioned last month, I prefer to not leave a call back message. But following Shawn Cook’s preference on page 7, the caller could have left this one:

"I understand you do quite a bit of direct mail, and depending on what your plans are for the next several months, we might have an opportunity to help you save money because of some recent price discounts on paper . . ." (I made that up—although it always seems paper prices are either going up or down. Nevertheless, some type of interest-creating point needs to be there.) And then, she must be prepared to instantly recognize everyone she left messages for.

o The Opening. The purpose for the opening is twofold:

1. put the listener in a positive, receptive state of mind, and,

2. move to the questions.

You don’t, I repeat don’t, want to ask for a decision or an appointment here. It’s too early. I would have listened to something like,

It’s foolish for a sales rep to ask for an appointment within the first 10 seconds on a pure cold call, especially when they don’t know how qualified the suspect is. A purchasing manager at a client company told me he agreed to let a sales rep who sold rolls of steel meet with him. When the rep got there, he said, "Well, I sell rolls of steel, how do you use steel?"

The purchaser said, "I don’t use rolls of steel."

The rep left, having just wasted a good percentage of the day.

It seems so simple: have a customer-oriented reason for calling, one they likely would have some interest in hearing. Communicate it succinctly, and at least you'll have a chance to get to the questioning.