Prospecting for Professionals
Perhaps the most daunting task for any selling professional is the building of a legit pipeline. It’s never easy, unless you have that unicorn product that hits an explosive market niche just right.
I’ve seen that happen.
In 2000, Rational Software (now part of IBM), had that sort of thing going for it. Their ‘Rational Unified Process,’ and the tools it incorporated, revolutionized modern software engineering. And it did so at a particularly fortuitous moment in tech history when everyone was needing to develop everything.
That was a glorious time to be in the enterprise technology arena. Software, hardware, it didn’t matter. For sales people at Rational, though, it was downright nuts. A colleague explained to me at the time that, managing the sales pipeline wasn’t so much about prospecting and qualifying clients, as it was about deciding whose call to take first!
Sounds like a good problem to have, no? Chances are, you’re not experiencing that in your sales role. Your pipeline isn’t going to build itself, and your prospecting isn’t going to be as simple as responding to a steady stream of frantic voicemail from buyers hoping you’ll enter their PO into your company’s order management system first. Nope, you’re going to have to hit the bricks and do it yourself.
Of course, there is more than one way to do that. There’s the dumb way. Then there’s the smart way. What most sales ‘experts’ will tell you about prospecting…is wrong. That’s because most of those experts aren’t active sales professionals like you.
In a highly recommended prior post, I reviewed a simple, but powerful, 2-step method for ensuring that none of your prospecting calls have to be of the ‘cold’ kind. If you follow that plan in your prospecting, you’ll find that it dramatically improves the average temperature of your calls.
But an effective method for making successful contacts will only get you so far. In order to break through your prospective clients’ natural resistance to your approach, you need to make sure that approach is genuinely about them. That requires a substantial change in how we typically think about the purpose of prospecting—and how we go about it.
It requires that you think—and prospect—as a consultant.
Don’t misunderstand; I'm not suggesting you should be coy about the fact that you’re a sales professional. You needn’t be apologetic about your profession; it’s essential to the American Dream. If you’re the sales pro in your immediate circle, your friends and family should be thanking you for your service to the economy. Think of it this way: Every client you engage employs sales people, and for good reason. Good sales professionals deserve respect. After all, we keep everyone else employed.
No, prospecting as a consultant is something else entirely. It’s about making sure your clients derive value from you first, thereby earning you the right to ask for their business. It’s what will separate you from the merely competent, and demonstrate your bona fides as a committed professional.
If you’ve had plenty of experience with hard-core prospecting, you’ve done the, “Here’s what I do, can we talk about that now?” way of getting the appointment. And you’ve shown up and done the standard “I’m a ‘solutions provider’…tell me about your business,” approach to those meetings—when you could get them. It’s an amateurish process that incorporates little more than regurgitation of talking points followed by rigid interrogation, and then more talking points. Admit it; you know the drill. We’re all friends here.
If that sounds familiar, I’m going to challenge you to rethink your plan.
Becoming a true consultant to your clients can’t just be a superficial application of the right buzzwords. Your clients will smell that complete lack of authenticity on you quickly, if that’s how you decide to come at this. And, let’s be clear: Actual concern for your client is the name of the game here. If you just can’t muster that, let me be the first to politely suggest that you find something else to do. Sales is hard enough for the rest of us.
Gone are the days when one could say, “I do predictive analytics” or “I sell office supplies,” and expect potential clients to respond to such a narrow-track approach to their needs in a positive way. Precisely because it’s an approach to your needs, rather than the client’s.
Sure, you’re going to encounter clients who just happen to be embarking upon a review of that particular solution or product you champion. But the chances that is the case when you pick up the phone and call a prospect are slim. Or—even worse—chances are you’re too late.
And really, that approach pigeon-holes you; It marches you straight into a box, or series of boxes, that are easily checked as you’re rattling off the list of ways you can help your clients achieve their dreams.
That old approach will cost you appointments, and it will hurt your credibility in the field—guaranteed.
Even if you get the appointment with that approach, all you’ve done is secure your place in line with every other player out there calling on your prospect who’s doing exactly the same thing. In essence, what you’re telegraphing to your client is that, despite your pretensions, you’re a commodity—or worse, a utility--to be treated as such.
Do you see yourself as a utility? Have you allowed a client to waste your precious time because that’s their perception of you? How many times have clients called just to get comparable pricing from you?
In many industries, just putting together a quote for a client is a labor-intensive, tedious process. If your clients see you as nothing more than salesperson ‘X’, whose bell they can ring any time they need to fill columns on a spreadsheet, you’ve got trouble.
Professional sales executives don’t have time to be quote-machines for clients. You have to be arrogant with your time. No matter how good you get at your craft, you can’t buy or build more time. But the only way that works, is if you don’t act as though you deserve to be treated like a quote-machine.
You can’t afford to be at every client’s foot begging for table scraps. You need to be setting the table with them. Or, you need to be so busy elsewhere—with serious clients who value you—that you can comfortably, politely be selective with your time.
So, as a consultant, the way you set yourself apart—the way you set the table—is by approaching your future clients first with value. There are two key components to this approach:
The Promise of Value: When you’re asking clients to invest even 5 minutes with you, you’re asking for a fairly significant commitment. Have you ever met a client who wasn’t busy?
Even the busiest clients will make time for priorities, or for someone they like. If you haven’t met them before, it’ll be a tall order to get them to like you. But they can prioritize you. You’ll achieve that with a strong Promise of Value.
Here’s how that looks: No matter what industry you serve or type of clients with whom you deal, chances are there are significant pressures unique to their industry. Your clients may be dealing with a massive regulatory burden, or some paradigm shift in their field. Consumer demand or demographics may be creating misunderstood opportunities for them. Perhaps there are disruptive new players in their industry that are impacting their businesses overall—or even their individual roles.
Part of knowing your value means understanding those pressures and paradigm shifts affecting your clients. When you call them for that meeting, you’re giving them a sense of the kinds of insight you can provide around those impactful trends. You’re teasing, at a high level, the intelligence you can provide that can help them make critical decisions. Things that could legitimately make their lives better, make them more effective, help them and their businesses thrive. Good, high-level reasons to meet with you.
And, here’s the part that really amps up your Promise of Value: Think hard about what makes your perspective on the issue unique. It could be simply that you’ve spent more time studying a particular issue and its implications than anyone else in your field. (Pro-tip: If that’s the case, write it up and distribute it.) Or, it could be that your company, owing to its particular set of differentiators, is uniquely positioned to impact your client positively.
If you do this part correctly, which will absolutely require significant upfront work, you’re much more likely to get the answer you want when you ask that top client, ‘How does Tuesday at 10a work for a conversation?’
The Delivery: Once you’ve gotten the appointment, you’re on the hook. You made a promise, and now you’ve got to keep it. You’ve got to deliver the value you said you’d deliver. If mastering the Promise of Value is important, mastering the delivery of that value is even more so. Here’s why…
As a sales professional, you know the one jewel in your crown is credibility. Without it, nothing else matters. You can be the coolest, most connected person on the planet, but waste a client’s time just once, and any desire he or she ever had to be in your presence will evaporate. It’ll happen before your very eyes. Think of it this way: If you’re wasting the client’s time, you’re wasting your own.
When you show up, you’d better be prepared to transfer the intelligence you teased early on. And, there had better be some substance to it. If you treasure your own time, you’ll cherish your client’s time. Think of your Promise of Value like a movie trailer. When you meet the client, play the movie.
Only after you’ve done that, do you earn the right to ask them for something. Only then have you earned the right to have those more point-solution specific discussions. And, usually, that’s going to happen in that same appointment.
Recently, I had the opportunity to model this method for one of my sales people. When we met with the client, we came prepared to deliver. Just a few minutes into our conversation, our client opened up, and began peppering us with questions about different solutions we might bring to the table to help them address multiple urgent needs.
We walked out of that one meeting with five legitimate opportunities, and not once did we have to interrogate them, or resort to overtly leading questions or other typical ‘sales-y’ tactics. We demonstrated our credibility, and we did so with genuine concern for the client.
So the beauty of this approach is, you set yourself apart from your competitors—who are not doing this—and more often than not you still get to talk through the relevant solutions you offer that may be of interest to your prospect..
The real benefit to making yourself different here is that your clients will treat you differently. If they believe you are genuinely concerned about their business, they’re going to give you more information, more access, more coaching—because they want to help you to help them accomplish their goals.
If you do that, you will most certainly accomplish yours.
And, your goal is simple: Leave the meeting with legitimate opportunities, or an open door. Even if you can’t help a potential client today, the care you demonstrated will likely create opportunities with them later.
If you approach your clients with this kind of genuine concern, you will absolutely differentiate yourself. You will effectively deliver on your unique Promise of Value, and you will more quickly develop a robust pipeline of real sales opportunities. More important, you’ll enjoy your work more immensely, as you focus your efforts on future clients whose goals are most closely aligned with yours.
I guarantee you this works. I know it, because I live it. I’ve trained others to do this; I’ve modeled it for them, and I’ve demonstrated its effectiveness time and time again.
And, here's the kicker (just between us, ok?): 99% of your compatriots in sales, whether they’re on your team, or are out there in the field competing against you, will not do the work required to develop this skill. That means if you take my advice here, you have the opportunity to take your rightful place in the top 1%.
There’s a lot of joy that comes with a spot in the pantheon of top sales talent. My advice: If you want to live like the top 1%, you simply have to work like the top 1%.
To your success.