- November 15, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
More than a dozen years ago, when I was coaching Little League, I had two kids on my 9-year old team that never made contact with the ball. I spent some extra time with them and realized they were both swinging with their eyes closed. If I could get them to swing with their eyes at least partly open, they might get their hands and bat close enough to the ball so that maybe the ball might hit their bats. That was a pretty optimistic thought for a realist like me!
They must have been having trouble with the sunlight because their eyes did not want to open. I devised an incentive. If they swung with their eyes open, and made any contact at all with the ball – even a foul tip – I would purchase them a video game of their choosing.
Jack’s eyes lit up. He was all in! And wouldn’t you know it, the next game, a miracle happened and he made contact and earned himself a new video game.
Things didn’t go the same way with Kyle. His parents approached me and as nicely as they possibly could, explained, “Kyle is not allowed to play video games and that was a very inappropriate offer you made.”
“I’m sorry – it won’t happen again.” They were doing their version of the book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and were playing “Good Parents, Bad Parents.” It didn’t turn out so well for them because while Jack is a senior in college, Kyle barely graduated from High School.
Needless to say, while Kyle struck out in every at-bat for the rest of the season, Jack had some success and actually got himself a couple of hits.
Incentives work.
As I pivot to selling, please watch this two-minute video before continuing the article.
Hunting is difficult enough and because there are so many variables to success, not everyone is capable of hunting. A salesperson who is going to succeed with cold outreach must:
- be willing to make the calls
- actually pick up the phone and dial
- continue dialing even as they fail to reach their targets
- have good messaging/scripting for when they do reach their target
- sound good
- instantly get their prospect’s attention
- be likable
- get their prospect engaged within 10 seconds
- keep their prospect on the phone
- have the ability to go off script so they can ask follow up questions
- quickly identify an issue they can help with
- leverage that issue to schedule a first meeting/call
- overcome put-offs
- not take rejection personally
- rinse and repeat
- improve with every call
This is more important than most will admit.
When prospecting doesn’t take place on a daily basis, salespeople fail to build their pipelines. When there aren’t many new opportunities in the pipeline, very little new business will get closed n months from now where n is the length of the sales cycle.
When a salesperson is willing to do the calling and learns to do it well, the pipeline grows, sales will be closed, and success can be all but guaranteed.
However, when there is very little incentive for bringing in new business, salespeople whose compensation plans are all or mostly salary, won’t do it for long.
Whether you call it cold-calling, prospecting, outbound, or hunting, the name doesn’t change what it is or how difficult it is. That’s why I don’t believe in putting the youngest and least experienced salespeople in outbound roles. They suck at it!
Who is capable of hunting?
The answer depends on a salesperson’s Sales DNA. The fastest and easiest way to gain insight into a salesperson’s Sales DNA is to evaluate them with Objective Management Group’s salesperson evaluation. [Sample] Relative to hunting, your salespeople will either be:
Salespeople can be trained and coached up to improve their hunting skills but weak Sales DNA will prevent hunting and there isn’t much that training can do about that.
While some growth can be expected to come from effective account management, the kind of growth desired by most companies comes from consistently finding and closing new accounts. While companies love their inbound lead-generation programs, and those programs do generate leads, the quality of the leads, and the quality of the meetings booked by those young and inexperienced top-of-funnel kids, leaves much to be desired.
If you’re not growing revenue by 20% year-over-year, let’s talk about how you can change that.