I always hated it when my extraverted sales managers told me, “Don’t ever pre-judge anyone.” No, I’m not prejudiced against anyone, but I knew what was always coming next. “Just pick up the phone and call them!” Or, “You never know until you ask!” Something along those lines. Now, looking back on the last couple of months, I agree with the problem, but certainly not the solution.

I agree that pre-judging doesn’t make sense. One thing that I’ve learned in my life is that there’s no accounting for what’s going on in someone else’s head. Hell, sometimes I can’t make any sense of what’s going on in MY head. But that doesn’t mean you have to be obtuse and ignore the obvious. While it’s certainly true that some of the most unlikely prospects could one day become your best customers, certainly there are less painful ways of finding out than what traditional sales organizations will recommend to you.

Pre-judging is emotional, and it’s based on assumptions. Pre-judging screens out the wrong people. Pre-qualifying, on the other hand, is factual, and is based on direct measurable observations. When you qualify or disqualify a prospect, you can walk away feeling good about what you found either way.

Instead of trying to sell everyone, instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping for some of it to stick, and instead of calling all of your friends and relatives, hoping for their answering machines to pick up, reciting some God-awful sales script, and holding your breath, why not put some effort into coming up with a tactful question to ask? Better yet, how about a fun question to ask? How about coming up with a question that will pique the interest of a good prospect, and get a “sounds great; good luck with that” out of a bad one?

Here’s a little tip. Try going to a leads group to try out your qualifying question. Those places are full of people who don’t mind being sold to, and who probably won’t remember you if they see you again. A great place to try out the effectiveness of a sales question. More on this in later weeks.

Hi everyone; my apologies for the delayed posting.

I just went to a communication course this weekend, and I got a deeper understanding of how listening works. Pay attention to this; it has a lot of implications for those of us who would rather not make phone calls.

Now, note that I am not about to tell you to start making cold calls. I maintain that calling your friends to sell them something is a bad idea. I also maintain what I said in my very first post; if you have lost contact with a member of your warm market, the thing to do is call them up and just say hi.

That being said, remember what I wrote about your warm market list a few posts ago. As you’re writing down a list of names, think of how each person could benefit from your product or service, and think of who they might know. But then, stop there. Just be aware of these things before you call them. DON’T call them with an agenda.

So, here’s the good news. What you’re going to do is say, “Hi, how are you,” or something along those lines, and then just shut up. Odds are, they’ll start talking. The object of the game is to get them to keep talking until they run out of things to say. Then, ask a question about something they just said. Try to pick something that they seemed interested in. Then, you’ll probably get them started again and they’ll talk for awhile longer.

The beauty of this approach is that you don’t have to have anything figured out before you call them! It makes life a lot easier. Also, you won’t have to bring up your business, because most likely they’ll ask you about it.

That’s all for now. I still have some posts coming about how to create your message, and I’ll just close by saying that if you focus your energy on listening, the whole process becomes a lot easier.

You know the drill. Extraverts spread their message by talking to as many people as possible. They will tell you that it’s a “numbers game.” They’ll tell you that you have to talk to anybody and everybody about your product or service. They’ll tell you that the way to be successful is to prospect X number of people, and as a result, X number of people will set appointments, out of X appointments, you will get X number of sales, X referrals, X re-orders, so on and so forth.

And, they’re right. (HA! I’ll bet you didn’t see that one coming!)

We all play a numbers game, true. But, here’s where my philosophy differs. When it’s time to call up your uncle Rudy to sell him something, and it’s the first time you’ve called him in four years, it’s natural to feel a bit uncomfortable. When you’re fidgeting with your phone, trying to put off calling anybody, your extraverted sales manager will gladly tell you to just suck it up and call them. You go through with it, you read your awful script, you hang up the phone, and try to convince yourself that it wasn’t that bad. Just do it 19 more times, and you’re done for the day! Enough of those phone calls, and somebody will actually buy something! And they will.

So yes, it’s a numbers game, but I’ve decided to tweak the formula a tad.
1. E-mail X number of people to ask how they’re doing.
2. X number of them will respond.
3. X number of the responses will ask what you’re doing these days. To these people, tell them a brief 3-4 sentence summary of what you’re doing. Then, back to the conversation.
4. For every X people that ask what you’ve been doing, X of them will express a desire to know more. Ask some qualifying questions and find out if they’re serious and interested. Then, go back to talking about something not related to your business. X of these will get a solid idea of what you do and will approach you about doing business.
5. For anyone who doesn’t reply to the e-mails, wait 1-2 weeks and then call them. Do steps 2-4.

I think you’ll find that my numbers game is a lot more fun to play. Also, take another look at your names list after having read my formula. Does it still look as scary? I’ll bet it doesn’t!

We still need to work on your message, your qualifying questions, and your follow-up. Stay tuned!