It’s a frustrating situation. You’ve had your telemarketer cold calling for days, and they finally found a ‘hit’. They qualified the ‘lead’ based upon certain criteria and passed the prospect onto you for the next steps.
But then the lead goes cold.
What happened??
The problem usually is the lack of a relationship and the ‘abrupt’ change of representation. The prospect obviously responded to the personality and/or message of the telemarketer, but when a new person is introduced into the Sales Cycle, someone whom the prospect does not know and is presumably coming in to ‘close’ the opportunity, they feel manipulated and back away.
How do you prevent this?
The most effective approach is to have the same person who is doing the prospecting be involved with the Sales Cycle from start to finish. Changing a key contact not only looks ‘suspicious’ but is very disruptive for two main reasons;
- The prospect now has to re-establish a new relationship with someone who they may view as the ‘closer’. This means, more often than not, having to explain their challenges all over again as the new salesperson will have to re-qualify the ‘lead’. It’s like being passed around from department to department at certain Telcos (and you know who!), having to re-explain your issue or complaint again and again.
Exhausting!
- This is a ‘bait and switch’ approach which is very off-setting to many prospects. If they had enjoyed speaking with the original ‘Salesperson’ they may wonder if that person will be compensated if they purchase your product/solution. No one likes to see someone hung out to dry.
If prospecting is approached correctly, it becomes the best part of the Sales Cycle as it sets up and positions how the rest of the conversation will go.
There’s no reason truthfully in this day of LinkedIn, Google, DiscoverOrg, and other search engines right at our fingertips for your Sales People to fear picking up the phone and prospecting someone they don’t know. With all the information readily available to us they should be able to form a pretty good idea about their prospect and what business challenges they may be experiencing. Which should give them the confidence they need more than ever to step up and create custom messaging to approach them with.
But if your salespeople are not confident ‘Hunters’, or you find potential leads being lost time and again during the hand-off (which there should never be anyway), then a closer look at how your Sales organization is structured is warranted so that your are not just ‘spinning your wheels.’
If you would like to investigate the benefits further and take a fresh approach in approaching your New Business Development efforts, now may be the time to consider Outsourcing this function to a company that has extensive experience in determining what is needed to build a ‘real’ Sales Pipeline, and can provide the correct Resources to do this.
The main salesperson should be engaged from the initial cold call straight through to the Proposal, Negotiations, and hand-off to Implementation. Why risk losing a new relationship due to a perceived ‘bait and switch’ approach?
We have access to an extensive network of Professional Sales People to draw from and will effectively align their skills and experience with your requirements and coach you on how best to support their efforts by providing Subject Matter Experts to them when they are required in the Sales Cycle. We will assist you in creating a seamless, successful New Business Development Sales Cycle.
About the Author:
Martin Beauclair is an Entrepreneur, Business Leader, and Active Supporter of Start-up Communities. For the past 20+ years, he has launched and managed numerous technology product offerings, serving as Sr. Vice-President of Sales & Business Development at IgeaCare Group of Companies, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at GlobeStar Systems, and Director of Sales & Marketing at Edwards Systems Technology (Now GE Security).
Today Martin heads up Access2Sales as CEO, and recently founded FalconRidge Trading, a related Strategic Sales company.
Martin is a certified ADMA (Accredited Professional Administrator), a member of the AMA (American Marketing Association) and both UPSA & CPSA Professional Sales Associations. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School (AMP), a bilingual BAA (Bachelor in Business Administration) from the University of Ottawa, and also holds an MBA in International Business Management from Laval University.
He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Business Administration at the University of Phoenix, and is a self-proclaimed ‘life-long learner’.
But what ultimately drives him at the end of the day? Simply,
“To Grow Companies by Creating and Leading High-Performance Sales Teams.”