On this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast, Jeb Blount's (Virtual Selling) and Alex Goldfayn (5 Minute Selling) teach you how to eliminate cold calling by talking with people you already know.
Jeb: On Why Talking to People You Know Can Eliminate Cold Calling
“Welcome back to part two of my conversation with author Alex Goldfayn about 5 Minute Selling Skills. On this episode, we discuss one of the greatest sources of new pipeline opportunities.
It's the people that you already know. Talking with the people you know is an easy way to eliminate cold calling.”
Alex: On Planning Who You Will Call
"I feel like we don't call people because we don't know who to call, right? Unless you're using a CRM perfectly, it's not going to tell you who to call. It's a list of names and numbers.
At the beginning of the week for five minutes, write down who you're going to call that week. For example, customers that just made an order with you.
Right now, try thinking of five customers you haven't talked to in three months or more, you can't do it because you're not talking to them. They're not in your head.
Customers who used to buy from you but stopped are another group of people that's very difficult to think of because they don't call you to break up with you. They just go away. You know, they go away quietly, so we need to plan who to call.
And then we have the whole rest of the week to call a few each day. If you don't want to call them directly send a text or email to set up that phone call.
I think the only semi valuable use of email in the sales process job is to set up the phone call. Otherwise, it's nearly useless. In business to business, selling right and email is just slightly better than doing nothing at all.
Plan your calls and then write down what happens. What did you say? What did they say and then? What's the dollar amount associated with that interaction?
Because then once you fill that in, that becomes a goldmine that you can follow up on. The most successful people follow up a lot more than other people.
So, plan who to call and then track how those calls went and what was said and what the opportunity dollar value is. If you do those two things, each thing takes 5 minutes. The calls take 5 minutes. The things to say on the calls take 5 minutes.
How can you not grow if you're making hundreds of additional proactive communications a year?"
Jeb: On Eliminating Cold Calling By Talking With Inactive Customers
"It really is that simple.
Let’s start with customers that just aren't doing business with you anymore. To me, this is the gold mind of all gold mines.
When we're working with clients who want to accelerate growth, engaging inactive customers is almost always where we go first.
I had one client, for example, that had a half a million inactive customers in their database. We pulled the list and just picked up the phone and started calling them. We did exactly what you said Alex. All we did was call them up to say hello.
In one hour, we sold $1,000,000 in business.
Now most of that was to one business that was expanding rapidly. We got the owner on the phone and the he was ready to buy. He said he was just about to put out an RFP."
Alex: On the Rewards for Being Present
"It was so hard for me not to jump in in the middle of that, I had to really practice my silence technique there because I got excited by what you were saying.
You got that business sitting at that conference table because you were present and nobody else was. The guy even said I was just about to take his business somewhere else. But you're here, so I'm going to reward you with business
If you're the customer, you feel an obligation to a salesperson who makes the effort to pick up the phone and be present.
And, by the way, they. It wasn't like you were cold calling. I mean, it wasn't like there was somebody who didn't know you. They had a relationship with your business in the past....
Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount