“Sure, Salesperson. I’m interested. How about you call me in six months.”
“Okay, Prospect! Talk to you then!”
<CLICK>
-Scene-
This interaction happens multiple times per week (or day) to salespeople, who typically put that “opportunity” midway in their funnel where it will sit until it is quietly removed nine months later despite the salesperson claiming it is a “hot lead” from now until then.
To support our salespeople in keeping a clean funnel that is full of real opportunities instead of reminders for activities, we coach them to create “clear futures” with their prospects. In practice this becomes a mantra, “send a meeting invite for everything.”
For one of our salespeople that might play out like:
“Sure, Salesperson. I’m interested. How about you call me in six months.”
“Happy to do that, Prospect. Y’know, I’d like our next interaction to not be a cold call, how do you feel about that?”
“What do you mean, Salesperson?”
“Well, our best practice is to send a meeting invite for everything so if we’re going to talk in six months let’s get out our calendars, find a date six months from now and I’ll send you a meeting invite. I’ll only send you the invite. You won’t get any other messages or newsletters from me unless you directly ask, fair?”
“Yeah, sure. How about….”
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We have yet to have a client hear from one of their prospects, “oh, no. I love taking cold calls from salespeople! It’s the highlight of my day. Please cold call me again in six months!” Our clients have had prospects who say, “nah, just call me,” which they then blow up the “polite ‘no’” bomb and either get something in the calendar or disqualify and move on.
By saying “you will only receive the meeting invite…” our salespeople take away anxiety from our prospects who are afraid that they will be subscribed to a list, which increases their chances of getting their prospect’s email address.
While getting a clear future is good our salespeople can massively increase their credibility with their prospect by inserting another question into the scene above, which might sound like:
“Sure, Salesperson. I’m interested. How about you call me in six months.”
“Happy to do that, Prospect. Y’know, I’d like our next interaction to not be a cold call, how do you feel about that?”
“What do you mean, Salesperson?”
“Well, our best practice is to send a meeting invite for everything so if we’re going to talk in six months let’s get out our calendars, find a date six months from now and I’ll send you a meeting invite. I’ll only send you the invite. You won’t get any other messages or newsletters from me unless you directly ask, fair?”
“Yeah, sure. How about <names date six months from now>.”
“That works for me, Prospect. Curious, when you say ‘six months from now’ were you wanting to get started in six months or just reconnect in six months. I’m good either way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes I hear ‘call me in six months’ and what my prospect means is they are looking to get started in six months, whether they work with my company or not. If that’s the case we need to reconnect in four months so we have time to determine if we want to work together and, if so, have enough space to hit our implementation and delivery timelines. Which is it for you?”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had timelines. Yes, let’s talk in four months. How about….”
-Scene-
A recurring theme with our clients is our prospect buy our stuff significantly less often than our salespeople attempt to sell it so they might not know that we can’t just magically make our stuff appear for them so by asking the “get started in or reconnect in” question our salesperson massively increases their credibility with their prospect.
“No” now doesn’t mean “no” forever, but without clear futures in their calendars our salespeople are relying on magicians to hit their sales targets.
Until next time… go lead.
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