A Room Full of Opportunity (Follow up on the darn leads!)

[MidwestLandlord]

I have 2 stories to share.

I think it's easy to get involved in the fastlane here, and start to lose sight of how most people in the world actually are, and hopefully you can realize that it isn't actually that hard to set yourself apart from most. It really just takes some legit effort and execution!

A Room Full of Opportunity

I've been taking this class on lead generation and sales. GREAT class. We have to give presentations of our sales efforts in class, so this is part of my efforts to overcome my fear of public speaking!

Interesting lesson came up the first day though...

This is a room of about 75 people, mostly licensed professionals.

Realtors
Mortgage Brokers
CPA's
Lawyers
Financial Advisers
A couple of personal trainers were there too

The instructor said:

"Raise your hand and keep it up if it's been more than 24 hours since you cold called a lead"

The entire room raised their hand (except me and one gal)

"More than a week since you cold called?"

NO ONE put their hand down.

"Two weeks?"

95% of the room still had their hand up

"A month?"

90% of the room still hand their hand up

"Put your hand down if the reason you didn't make calls was you didn't have any leads"

Still, 90% of the room had their hand up.

The instructor then went around and asked various people why they don't call.

"don't want to bother them"
"I don't like rejection"
"it's scary"
"probably won't answer their phone anyway"
"I'm sure they're too busy"

90% of the room didn't make cold calls, not because they didn't have leads, but because of FEAR! Those fears manifested themselves as excuses!

A room full of self-employed, or at the very least commission based people, and they are letting themselves fail. CHOOSING to fail.

Meanwhile, someone else is taking their leads and making a lot of money from them.

While it was sad to see this (I love to see people succeed!), it was quite eye opening, in that if you're in one of these industries...9 out of 10 people in that room were not a legitimate competitor to you.

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY

I'm reading this book, The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. Originally published in the mid-1960's.

He talks in this book about how ineffective the vast majority of executives are. Additionally, he defines an "executive" as anyone that has the responsibility to execute systems or processes in business (so not just c-suite type people)

It's eye-opening in that if you had told me this book was written last year, I would believe it.

I also just got done reading How to have confidence and power in dealing with people by Les Giblin, originally published in 1956.

In this book he talks about how people struggle to overcome fear of rejection (especially in contacting leads), and how they are choosing to fail.

Crazy. Sounds just like today, no?

TL;DR

2 books, both written in America's "golden era" of business when supposedly everyone was better at their jobs and were far more effective.

A class showing that people are still the same way, and while technology might change (texting and such makes it easier to avoid fear), people as a whole DON'T CHANGE.

Is there really as much competition as you think?

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers." - Aristotle (or Socrates depending on which historian you believe)

 

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[MidwestLandlord]

Wait a sec, so they aren't calling people who have ALREADY expressed interest in their offering?

Are you kidding?

I could understand not cold calling some stranger, but someone who has already expressed interest? Is the definition of a cold call a stranger? Not a "warm lead?"

This is unfathomable.

But then again, it has been my experience when leaving messages for people, appliance repair, garage door repair, etc.

Both warm and cold calls. Calling complete strangers AND calling people filling out contact forms on a landing page for instance. The instructor considers them all "cold" for simplicity.

During one of the breaks I cornered the instructor. He teaches a lot of these classes all over the country.

I asked him if this was common, that people would put that little effort into their profession.

He said it was not only common, but the norm! He said if he could get even 15 people in that room to start making calls and improving their sales number he would consider the class a major success.

15 out of 75 people. That's only 20%

He told me how he used to do this class for a major employer, before he started his own business to teach it. At that employer, his class graduates were responsible for 75% of all sales in the entire company, even though they were only about 10% of the sales force.

10% doing 75% of the sales, just because he taught them to pick up the phone.

So I made it a point to meet everyone in the room. The one's not making calls were seriously struggling, but the one's actually making calls? KILLING IT.

There were some seriously wealthy people in that room, and those were the one's that actually executed a process for lead generation that included calling.

You wouldn't believe how many of the struggling one's told me about texting a PPC landing page contact instead of calling. (of course they get very few responses)

Insanity.

 

[MidwestLandlord]

This is a 7 week class, and I am 4 weeks into it.

I was texting yesterday with a classmate gal that's a realtor.

She was struggling at the start of the class and just about to quit and take a job she was offered, so I had challenged her to see who could get the most "over the phone" rejections in the 7 weeks of class.

She's taken the teachings (and the challenge haha) to heart and put tons of effort into her business over the last 4 weeks.

Her business is up big time. She went from 1 listing and no "under-contract" to 5 listings and 4 under-contracts scheduled for closing in October.

In other words, she went from ZERO income to an October projection of $24,000 (gross)

The only thing she really did different was following up on leads and actually CALLING people.

Amazing.

 

[MidwestLandlord]

- "I'm still thinking about it"
- "I'll need to discuss it with my wive/husband/mother/father/mistress/dog/cat/imaginary friend/anyone that I can conveniently put the blame onto"
- "Now is not a good time. Why don't you call me again next month?" Then they repeat the same phrase over and over again
- They ignore your calls/messages/emails, and occasionally reply with one of the responses above

They are willing to go through all those troubles so you'd give up. Then the whole situation becomes "the salesperson gave up" instead of "I declined the salesperson".

"Is there someone else I should be speaking to?"

"I misunderstood, I thought you were the decision maker. Is it possible to speak to XXXX?" (a last resort script lol)

"Other than having to ask your wife about this, is there anything else that would keep you from doing business with us?"

"We are both very busy people, so I think it's important we make a decision on this. Don't you agree?"

"It's important to make an informed decision, don't you agree? {yes} Great, we're happy to bring some free product into your store so you can see how well it sells, and make the decision that is best for your business. What day would you like that delivered?"

I push until I get a YES or a NO.

 

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[MidwestLandlord]

As you post is. Thanks for sharing. I struggle a lot with rejection and I'm working on it. Actually, it does not happen when I work for someone else... Or when I have someone checking at me. The rejection of my fellow is stronger than the rejection of some extranger lol.

Warm leads are another field of play. Years ago I didn't calle them but now that idea seem silly to me, even if as a hardcore introvert sometimes I'm not in the mood.

In my experience, the actual rejection is never as bad as the thoughts or feelings I have leading up to the rejection.

That nervous, anxious feeling before the calls. That emotion is ALWAYS disproportionate to the actual rejections.

So I have a routine I follow.

I move away from my desk to my "calling area", I have a mug of hot green tea to sip on, I flip my laptop open to my "scripts" word document, put my headset in and start calling as quickly as I can. I stand too, I'm an energetic guy so standing and walking around gives me an outlet for my energy during the calls.

The moving away from my desk and the green tea are cues in my "cue, routine, reward" habit, so it subconsciously tells my mind that we are making calls now, and nothing terrible happened the last 50 times we did this, so there's nothing to be anxious about.

I've done a variation of that routine for years, and I actually LIKE cold calling now.

I made 32 cold calls yesterday, got 2 new customers out of it.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

90% of the room didn't make cold calls, not because they didn't have leads, but because of FEAR! Those fears manifested themselves as excuses!

Wait a sec, so they aren't calling people who have ALREADY expressed interest in their offering?

Are you kidding?

I could understand not cold calling some stranger, but someone who has already expressed interest? Is the definition of a cold call a stranger? Not a "warm lead?"

This is unfathomable.

But then again, it has been my experience when leaving messages for people, appliance repair, garage door repair, etc.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Just a recent example of this...

Got a cold email (probably from an automated lead generating service) that said, "We do custom Xenforo work, we can do anything!"

I responded with "Please send me a link list of work you've done."

That was 4 days ago.

No response.

You initiated a COLD lead (thru an automated service) but when the lead become WARM and it was time to communicate, you disappeared.

Frustrating.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

If they had no list would you still consider using them?

Depends...

YES and NO.

If they said, "Send me $XXX and I'll do X, Y, and Z" I would not hire them. No way.

If they said, "I can do X, Y, and Z and just to show you how good I am, despite having no references, I won't accept payment until you accept the finished project as exactly you want."

 

[MidwestLandlord]

No response.

You initiated a COLD lead (thru an automated service) but when the lead become WARM and it was time to communicate, you disappeared.

Frustrating.

Yeah, a warm lead on someone that owns and operates a large forum!

Insanity!

Anyone considering it should know selling is a mindfuck and you should be as hard as nails to survive, at least in financial products.

I partly agree. (and maybe it's different in industries I haven't been in)

I've done A LOT of cold calling in my life, even more warm calling, and rejection doesn't really bother me at all anymore.

I actually get more frustrated over the fact that people aren't assertive enough to say no when they really want or need to say no. I hate wasting my time.

'Yes' people are awesome (a sale!)
'No' people are awesome (on to the next one!)
The 'maybe' people are irritating and time wasting. I've noticed too that over the last decade more and more people are unwilling to say NO in a direct fashion. Ugh

For me it really does come down to mindset. I love the NO people.

The difference too is I've never done this type of sales work for someone else. It's always been on my terms and the results always had a direct effect on my business(es)

Now if I was sitting in a cubicle hooked to an auto-dialer and somebody else was getting rich off my efforts? Yeah, I'd do that crap for about 30 seconds.

 

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[MidwestLandlord]

I'm looking at transitioning in my day job to a more direct sales role. Is there any material out there beside the books you mentioned you would recommend in terms of cold-calling?

I'm actually looking for the same thing myself. This is my first experience with professional sales training. I took the class because it promised that they would help me write cold calling scripts. (and they have, and it's amazing)

Wish I could be more help.

I read a lot of books though. If I find good one's for this subject I'll drop them here. I'm actively looking for them, so should find something!

 

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[therealmark]

9 out of 10 people in that room were not a legitimate competitor to you.

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY

Thank you. I needed to hear that. My marketing plan for this next quarter just got much simpler.

 

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[MidwestLandlord]

So cold calling is still effective?

Sure it is. It depends on the specifics though. Which industry, etc.

The point isn't really "cold calling" per se, the point is how many companies out there are actual legit competition, and not just action-faking market noise?

Everyone wants the next big thing when there are dozens of industries plagued by this level if ineptitude. Opportunity is everywhere!

 

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[MidwestLandlord]

I used to regret my younger days selling in retail, over the phone, and face-to-face, but the more I'm reading around here, the more I realize those days were some of the best time-investment I ever spent. That's where I learned how to get rejected, learned how to pitch a deal, saw what it was like to get somebody interesting...and to get shot down.

Exactly. I'm glad you mentioned face-to-face sales as well.

We're all salespeople, whether we realize it or not, and face-to-face sales gives the best results BY FAR IMHO.

I've been working on my face-to-face sales. I'm energetic and animated when I speak, which isn't always a good thing. (I'm energetic like "get it done!" rather than "rabid squirrel!"...so not a nervous energy)

1) I talk fast.

The downside of this is I don't adjust my speed of speech for the person I am talking to. Older folks are a good example, so are the rural, laid-back "country folk" that are common in my area. My talking fast confuses them, or irritates them, or worse comes across as arrogant. (for the record, I'm cocky...not arrogant lol)

This has been a fairly easy fix. It is something I have to stay aware of though.

2) I'm very animated

If I can't move my hands when I talk, I quite literally can't talk. Being animated and high energy like that is mostly good, it shows I believe in what I am selling, but it can also be distracting and overwhelming when overdone (I've been accused of being intimidating because of it as well. Which always confuses me since I don't consider myself an intimidating guy)

I enlisted the help of a gal I know that is also in sales. We sit down and practice our scripts together every Wednesday. She insists I sit on my hands while saying my scripts. I hate it!

But these small changes have WORKED.

It's amazing how the small adjustments amount to so much.

Social skills and selling skills are SO important in life. While I've always had decent social skills (I'm an extrovert), this is really my first experience in choosing to learn sales skills, and not just "winging it" like I have been.

It's life changing.

 

[MTEE1985]

So cold calling is still effective?

Take your field of SEO for example. Option A: If you called me and said “want some SEO help?” Then no, it wouldn’t be effective.

Option B: If you called me and said “I’ve reviewed your website and you have good SEO, however there are several areas where you could increase your (rank, clicks, views etc). Would you like to go over them?”
Now you have a much better chance of me using your services.

9 out of 10 companies pay a call center minimum wage to say Option A.

My wife received a cold call for her ecom store and the guy asked her to do a 45 minute webinar to try and sell her. She politely declined and said to me “45 minutes? Was that a joke?”

Having said all that, as stated above, doing something is better than nothing and better than what most people or companies do.

 

[SquatchMan]

So cold calling is still effective?

Yes. I worked for a company that is currently valued at over $300 million...

built entirely on selling vehicle service contracts (car warranties) via cold calling consumers.

If they can get that big selling crappy B2C products cold, then you'll do fine selling SEO services B2B cold. It's all about explaining the value proposition well... and picking up the phone.

 

[MidwestLandlord]

Although these statistics are debatable (and hotly debated on the internet), there is lot's of truth in them.

Of course this is made for sales people...but where else in life would it apply?

 

[MTEE1985]

His past ethics (or lack thereof) aside, “The Way of the Wolf” is a good one as well. Like Cardone, Belfourt isn’t just preaching the stuff, he lived it and executed it.

I recently gave something away that would be reasonably valued at $80 and of the 30 inquiries I received only 2 actually followed up with me. For a free item.

If you are in any field requiring customer service you will be in the top 10% just by answering phones and responding to people. Great post @MidwestLandlord

 

[SquatchMan]

10% doing 75% of the sales, just because he taught them to pick up the phone.

That was my experience working in sales as well. It was high pressure B2C cold call sales, so probably a little different than B2B. Still, the top 10% of guys would close way more deals in a week than the rest of the team combined.

We didn't have much choice on making calls since we were hooked up to an auto-dialer, but I still saw those guys turn around people yelling at them and battle through 5-10 rebuttals before closing a deal.

Pretty impressive stuff considering most employees lasted less than a week.

Thank you, I just replied. Sorry for being so persistent!!!

That's the second step of making it in sales LOL. You can't give up after the first rebuttal or rejection.

 

[WJS]

I actually get more frustrated over the fact that people aren't assertive enough to say no when they really want or need to say no. I hate wasting my time.

Me too! I HATE dealing with people who are trying to be "polite and diplomatic" by not saying NO. Instead every time you do your follow up they will say/do one or more of the followings:

- "I'm still thinking about it"
- "I'll need to discuss it with my wive/husband/mother/father/mistress/dog/cat/imaginary friend/anyone that I can conveniently put the blame onto"
- "Now is not a good time. Why don't you call me again next month?" Then they repeat the same phrase over and over again
- They ignore your calls/messages/emails, and occasionally reply with one of the responses above

They are willing to go through all those troubles so you'd give up. Then the whole situation becomes "the salesperson gave up" instead of "I declined the salesperson".

Seriously, the "Maybe" people are the worst kind of people to deal with, and every time I spot one of them I would smile politely at them, but in my heart I'd be cursing them all sorts.. LOL

 

[MidwestLandlord]

I’m much more interested in getting better at face to face sales now I’ve seen my friend doing it. He wants to help people, and has some nice ways of keeping it natural while finding out how best to help them.

And I'm realizing that face-to-face sales sets you apart from everyone else.

SO MANY sales people want to sit behind a screen and wait for things to happen. For leads to call them. For leads to come in from a PPC landing page. For leads to come in from billboards, bus stop benches, facebook ads, whatever.

Texts, facebook messages, linkedin messages...

All tech and no humanity.

That stuff has a place for sure, but when you take the time to sit down with someone over coffee and talk about how you can help them, remembering what they said the last time you spoke ("How'd that work project turn out for you?")...it sets you apart.

Amazing how just being "human" can be an advantage.

 

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[Determined2012]

That was my experience working in sales as well. It was high pressure B2C cold call sales, so probably a little different than B2B. Still, the top 10% of guys would close way more deals in a week than the rest of the team combined.

We didn't have much choice on making calls since we were hooked up to an auto-dialer, but I still saw those guys turn around people yelling at them and battle through 5-10 rebuttals before closing a deal.

Pretty impressive stuff considering most employees lasted less than a week.



That's the second step of making it in sales LOL. You can't give up after the first rebuttal or rejection.

Yes, I'm in sales too...Thats why that response was immediate and came on naturally!

 

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[SEBASTlAN]

Then there's Derik Sivers who says if it's not a HELL YES, it's a NO.

Should we even be trying to persuade the "maybe" people?

 

[amp0193]

I push until I get a YES or a NO.

I sell direct to consumer... lifestyle product, expensive... so I can't really be as direct.

But when I want a tire-kicker to just make up their mind, I'll sometimes end with an "or if you've changed your mind and decided on something else, just let me know".

It makes them feel more comfortable just saying "yeah, we decided to go with XYZ compnay instead". Then I can find out why they went with XYZ, and then can quit wasting time following up.

 

[Andy Black]

Then there's Derik Sivers who says if it's not a HELL YES, it's a NO.

Should we even be trying to persuade the "maybe" people?

I see sales as a screening process. Maybes are Nos.

Didn’t bite my hand off? You’re a No too.

I’ll follow up once only, and that’s just to check you got the email confirming what we spoke about.

If I keep chasing invoices you’re a No too.


I’ve started working with a friend in the UK who’s been a salesman for over two decades. He thinks I’m a bit “brutal” that way. Haha.

 

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[dgr]

In my experience, the actual rejection is never as bad as the thoughts or feelings I have leading up to the rejection.

That nervous, anxious feeling before the calls. That emotion is ALWAYS disproportionate to the actual rejections.

So I have a routine I follow.

I move away from my desk to my "calling area", I have a mug of hot green tea to sip on, I flip my laptop open to my "scripts" word document, put my headset in and start calling as quickly as I can. I stand too, I'm an energetic guy so standing and walking around gives me an outlet for my energy during the calls.

The moving away from my desk and the green tea are cues in my "cue, routine, reward" habit, so it subconsciously tells my mind that we are making calls now, and nothing terrible happened the last 50 times we did this, so there's nothing to be anxious about.

I've done a variation of that routine for years, and I actually LIKE cold calling now.

I made 32 cold calls yesterday, got 2 new customers out of it.

That's my experience too. As Mark Twain said, we live a lot of tragedies every day, but most of them happen only in our minds (paraphrasing very loosely here).

It's not only the anxiety but the bitter feeling of regret if you don't do it.

I like your routine and will try something similar.

I'm working on my mindset to see this as a game. It actually is some sort of game. You have to try, correct, try again, level up and keep trying... And it can be fun. It only depends on how you decide to perceive it.

Still, mindset has to be backed up by action or you are fooling yourself (not You, but people in general, I'm talking to myself here )

Anyway, there's a book about selling that I think fits greatly with the mindset of this forum. Go-givers Sell More. I enjoyed a lot, but it's not as much about techniques as it is about mindset (providing value).

Enviado desde mi MotoG3 mediante Tapatalk

 

[rogue synthetic]

In my experience, the actual rejection is never as bad as the thoughts or feelings I have leading up to the rejection.

That nervous, anxious feeling before the calls. That emotion is ALWAYS disproportionate to the actual rejections.

So I have a routine I follow.

I move away from my desk to my "calling area", I have a mug of hot green tea to sip on, I flip my laptop open to my "scripts" word document, put my headset in and start calling as quickly as I can. I stand too, I'm an energetic guy so standing and walking around gives me an outlet for my energy during the calls.

The moving away from my desk and the green tea are cues in my "cue, routine, reward" habit, so it subconsciously tells my mind that we are making calls now, and nothing terrible happened the last 50 times we did this, so there's nothing to be anxious about.

I've done a variation of that routine for years, and I actually LIKE cold calling now.

I made 32 cold calls yesterday, got 2 new customers out of it.

This is gold right here.

You can learn "how" to sell all day long by reading the books, but until you can make that leap to doing it, none of that know-how matters.

I've read all the books too, and nothing beats THIS. If you can't get into a head-space where you can make that leap... whether it's a call, pulling the trigger in a conversation, or just sending the damn email... it doesn't mean anything.

I used to regret my younger days selling in retail, over the phone, and face-to-face, but the more I'm reading around here, the more I realize those days were some of the best time-investment I ever spent. That's where I learned how to get rejected, learned how to pitch a deal, saw what it was like to get somebody interesting...and to get shot down.

And realize that it didn't matter. It's all learning, if you're ready to learn from it.

But most of all, getting in that ZFG attitude where you can just "make the jump" and do it...that's the real lesson.

I have to remind myself of this EVERY time. It never gets easier...but you can learn how to not mind it so much.

 

[amp0193]

A good reason for using Streak with gmail I think...

I love Streak.

And I love typing "Just checking to see if you got my email" when I can plainly see that they've read it 3 times already.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Looking to hire a land surveyor, $3-$5K job, made 4 inquiries.

1 called back 4 days later...
The other 3, not a peep.

Maybe if I wait another 3 weeks, they'll call back. SMH.

 

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[Rawseed]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrhSLf0I-HM

 

[Andy Black]

And I'm realizing that face-to-face sales sets you apart from everyone else.

SO MANY sales people want to sit behind a screen and wait for things to happen. For leads to call them. For leads to come in from a PPC landing page. For leads to come in from billboards, bus stop benches, facebook ads, whatever.

Texts, facebook messages, linkedin messages...

All tech and no humanity.

That stuff has a place for sure, but when you take the time to sit down with someone over coffee and talk about how you can help them, remembering what they said the last time you spoke ("How'd that work project turn out for you?")...it sets you apart.

Amazing how just being "human" can be an advantage.

Agreed. Diesel and coffee for the win.

It tickles me that I best help folks with online marketing by meeting them face-to-face.