C'est vrai il y a un moment que je n'ai pas
"bloggé" mais la charge de travail des derniers jours de l'année
2012, ne m'a pas permis de me consacrer à cette tâche.
J’ai reçu de la part de Louie Bernstein lbernstein@izenda.com un commentaire
sur livre qu’il a édité ces derniers temps. Ce livre est consacré sur les
techniques de vente.
Bon, je ne suis pas entièrement d’accord sur
tout ce qu’il raconte mais je vous en fais partager une séquence dédiée aux
appels téléphoniques de prospection vers de nouveaux clients :
« «
How many times to call a sales prospect.
Sometimes I’ll look at a sales
rep’s activity history and see call after call, showing voicemail after
voicemail; sometimes every two or three days. This type of calling
activity really generates a lot of discussion and debate. I once had a
business owner tell me, “We just keep calling every day, sometimes twice a day,
until they can’t take it anymore and call us back.”
While I don’t think the
above example is a good way to talk to your prospects, I also don’t think there
should be any hard and fast rules applied to this process. The first
question to ask yourself is, "How many times would I need to be
called?" By answering this honestly it helps give you the same
perspective as your client.
A couple of other items that
should weigh in on your decision:
• Is it a cold call?
• How far along are you
in the customer buying process?
• Did they ask you to call them back in X
number of days?
• Do you have new (valuable to them) information to speak with
them about?
After the initial cold call I
use this sequence for making additional attempts:
• 2nd call – after one
week.
• 3rd call – eight business days after that.
• 4th call – 10 business
days after that.
• 5th call – 20 business days after that.
• 6th call – 30
business days after that.
• Final call – 60 business days after that.
Note:
An email should be sent after every call that builds on the previous email and
voice mail.
Follow up calls, when no
timeframe has been given, have a lot of different variables. Too many for
one sales training lesson. A couple things to remember, however:
1. Don’t
be a pest.
2. If you call too much you look desperate.
A few final tips:
1. A study done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) revealed the following: The most successful time to reach an
initial prospect is between 8:00am and 9:00am and 4:00pm and 5:00pm their time.
2.
Most sales reps give up after 1.5 to 1.7 call attempts.
3. 80% of sales are
made after the fifth call.
Sales Homework – Go through your prospects in your CRM system and set up six
automated reminders for your cold or warm prospects for whom you have only made
an initial call.
Sales Managers –
Make sure your sales reps understand the balance between persistence and being
a pest.
More info : http://www.training.sales-getters.com/
