Dear Email Senders Impersonating Sales People

Every day I get email from multiple sources requesting a “quick call” or “can we setup a meeting” or “you didn’t respond to my last email” and over and over "I want..."

Please do one of two things:

1. Quit your job so a sales person can take it
2. Learn how to sell.

And let me be clear, I am sympathetic to the rejection and ghosting that sales people experience. I've been on the run of cold calls and sending sending email to new contacts hoping to develop a lead into an opportunity.

The number one sin for most sales people is talking when they should listen. ?Banging me over the head about how great you believe your product or service to be is not how to make a sale. Harassing me about not responding is how to earn your company major negative points if they ever came up in a set of choices.

Your primary mission in life as a sales person is to find as many people as you can as quickly as you can who

1. Have the funds; AND
2. Can understand the product or service; AND
3. Will benefit from that product or service.

That’s called a target market. As soon as your lead fails one of those tests, everything gets more difficult to develop and opportunity and close a sale. ?If your product or service doesn’t have anyone that passes those tests, time to find a new job.

The only one of those tests that you have influence over – assuming your company’s customer service is worthy – is how well your target understands what you offer. You can’t change what they have to spend or if they will benefit from what they buy.

The fulcrum of a successful sale is understanding. ?On one side is how much they will benefit and the other side is how much what you offer can do for them. ?The closer the fit, the better a customer will value your offering. ?Tipped one way or the other and they regret how much they paid or even for buying it in the first place. Good sales people spend at least part of their week telling some customers that the offering is not a good fit. That doesn't solve every problem - you still have to find the four buyers (Financial, User, Technical, Coach*) and your timing on a company's budgeting cycle has to be good.

Let's go over the Dont’s:

• Don’t send me an email asking if you can take my time on a call or Zoom meeting to educate you on my company and what we might need
• Don’t send me an email telling me how much your customers appreciate you
• Don’t send me an email telling me how great your company or offering is
• Don’t send me an email telling me what you hope
• Don’t send me an email with a generic study finding that X% of enterprises do something
• Don’t send me an email warning that I’m missing out on something
• Don’t send me an email to tell me how much you think I need what you sell
• Don’t send me an email to say you hoped we partner (unless you really want to charge a third party for what we both sell to them)
• Don't send me something an AI generated for you that you didn't read and send to everyone
• Do Not EVER send me an email asking why I haven’t responded

In person, the fastest way to tell someone doesn’t know how to sell is that they talk instead of asking questions. ?In person, the two telltales of a good sales person:

1. their question indicates a knowledge of my company and my industry AND,
2. after asking a question, they listen and base their next question on what is said.

There is no reason those indicators can’t be found over email. The very first goal of a cold email or call is to establish the basis for a conversation. Otherewise, you're just shouting into the wind.

Here’s an email that might get a response:

Dear Honorific My Last Name

As (My Title) at (My Company)...

(Ok, right away, I know you at least know my role by title if not function and where I work and how you got my name might be as a legitimate lead. ?See your marketing department if you can’t get that info yourself.)

Optional good starts:

1) In <industry journal>, your CEO said…

2) Talking with <name my company’s legitimate competitor>, I learned that…

3) <Industry Ranking> came out and we noticed you are not first choice for your <be specific on type> customers who want <service/product we offer>…

Start with almost anything that shows you did some research on my company and have some idea that I might actually be interested in buying what you sell. Don’t use any superlatives about what you sell, give me something to chew on. ?Just because a lot of companies have phone systems doesn’t make them all target market. ?Unless you really are selling a multi-level marketing deal and can’t tell me what you sell to try to trick me to come to a meeting where all will be revealed, be really succinct in what you offer. Show you did your homework.

Then ask a knowledgeable question I can answer quickly in an email and then follow up with a knowledgeable response that shows you digested what I said.

Send some targeted information that shows you curated what your marketing department produces to fit what you’ve heard from me. ?Don’t send a dozen PDFs. ?Send one.

Finally, if I want to meet with you, if you’ve done a good job of being a seller to this point and we both agree -both of us, not just you – that there’s some benefit in continuing the conversation, I will ask for a meeting.

And don't be discouraged if you don't get replies. Instead of sending repeated "Did you get my email", just resend the original message with something new. If I resonate with what you say, you'll get a response. I can't respond to every sales pitch email or that's what my whole day would be. But if I have a problem to solve and you sound like you could help, you'll hear back.

If you’re struggling with all this, or maybe you have a boss that measures your sales performance by how many emails and phone calls you make in a day instead of how much you sell, then – if you want to stay in sales, go get a copy of Miller and Heiman’s “Strategic Selling”(*) and get a job at a different company.

Thank you for listening.? Good sales people make the world a better place for everyone.

Miller Heiman Group, A Korn Ferry Company #selling #sales