If they can’t see you, you aren’t there. If they can’t take their eyes off you, there’s no competition.
What is the difference between these scenarios?
- You call 100 prospects in 4 hours and get no response.
- You spend two days deciding who to call, call 3 prospects, and get no response.
- You go fishing.
From a sales perspective, there isn’t much difference. If you are getting absolutely no response from your efforts, change something. Experiment. What can it really hurt if you completely change what you are doing 10% of the time? Can the response get any worse?
Get creative. Here are some things others have tried:
Make a trial approach each week. Do severe changes or just rearrange the points you make. Do your normal sales approach almost all the time. Purposely and dramatically change for 5 or 10 companies. Do you get a response?
Call up 10 friends and ask them to critique your approach. It may be better if they haven’t got a clue about what you are selling or your job. You don’t have to make the changes they suggest. In addition to getting some good and bad help, you’ll be networking. They’ll know exactly what you can do and be looking for an opportunity to help you.
Call half the companies you want to get into. Ask for the person who would be the engineer working for, accountant, or boss of the person you normally call. If you get HR (Human Resources) that’s okay. Whoever you get, ask them what problems they are having the hardest time resolving as a company and an individual. Get a clue before you call the person you really want. Leave a direct, sharply pointed message about what you found (but protect your source).
Once a week walk down the street in a business park and ask for the owner of each business. Whether you talk to the owner or the receptionist, tell them exactly what you do. Take a sincere desire to help. It can’t hurt. Ask everyone you meet who they know that can use you, and what their biggest problems are.
Add a recommendation letter to your sales approach. Get letters telling how hard you work and how much you help. Make it the first thing they see. Try an audio or video reference in an email. It’s bragging when you say it, it’s proof when someone else says it.
Think. Earl Nightingale suggests spending an hour each day with a pencil and a pad of paper just thinking and listing ideas of how to reach your goal. Exercise your brain. You’ll throw most of the ideas away, but you’ll also come up with some gems. Think. What can you change that will make you stand out? What can you do that will draw positive attention to yourself? Is there any REAL risk? Probably not. So try it a few times. See what the response is.
Learn. Do better each week.
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Something To Do Today
Decide what you will do different. What will you change? Try your experiment out 5 or 10 times and see what happens.
