In yesterdays blog I made mention of the demons that continue to plague me even after forty years of selling. One of the those demons is calling net new clients on the phone. It's something I wrestle with all of the time. What's funny is that it wasn't always like that.
At one point in time I was a flat out a cold calling machine with scheduling appointments. I believe I'm still pretty good but I know I'm rusty. I'm so rusty that when the DM does pick up the call I find myself struggling with my script.
A baseball player will take 50-100 swings from a batting tee in order to build muscle memory. So just like a batter needs to do their tee work we need to make those calls on a consistent basis to help with being fluid with our scripts, build confidence and easily remember how to handle the objections. I will be the first to admit that my skills have eroded over time.
After writing last nights blog I had planned for an entire afternoon of phone calls to find new opportunities and land some net new appointments. Right after lunch I made my first call with no luck. As I was preparing to make my second call I received and email from that content deal I'm working on. Our prospect expressed some objections that is holding getting the documents back. Of course I can't get into detail since it's a working deal. What I can tell you is that it's awesome to get objections. In this case there were two objections. Thus I started with asking some questions and then summarized what was driving the objection. The objection was a real issue and after talking it out I found out what the client needed in order to move forward. Thus tomorrow there will be another team meeting and hoping that we'll have the okay to move forward.
Right back to the phone calls now. That call and the subsequent calls to my team along with the emails back and forth pretty much ate up the rest of my day. I was able to send a few follow emails and make a couple of calls but no where near where I wanted to be.
My month ends on Monday which leaves four selling days to get to where I need to be. Most of my other opportunities are stalled or in the weeds. When I make reference to "in the weeds" it's my way of saying I'm being ghosted. Rest assured these clients and prospects can't stay in the weeds forever. Sometimes it's more about playing the waiting game with many of them. Well it's really not a game but more that all of our clients and prospects have the same struggles as we do. In most cases the thought of replacing the copier is not high on the list of things to do.
In any event I need to continue with the calls and emails to what I can move forward just in case this content deal lingers.
-=Good Selling=-
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