Increase sales by ALWAYS calling high on your first call
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Wed, Oct 08, 2008 @ 03:11 AM
Somewhat surprisingly, there are still some sales experts out there who don't believe inside sales reps should begin their sales processes by calling high, to the executive-level person. Why? They don't think the rep has "earned" it yet. That's total nonsense. I'll tell you why, and why it's really important that call high as early as possible.
Executives know about every high-level initiative within the company, but much of the time lower-level contacts don't. By starting your call with someone low on the chain, you risk spending a lot of time with the wrong person, when your competitor could already be selling above you, at the executive level. You could be losing the deal, and not know it. Here's a real case study, and it makes a powerful argument for calling high initially in the sales process.
A content management company selling to companies with websites got a lead from a programmer at New York City's Public Works Dept. The rep that received this lead was attending one of our sales training courses when he got the lead. As part of the coaching element, we suggested that instead of beginning with the programmer, we start with Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York at the time. We ended up by talking with Giuliani's executive assistant. Guess what she told us? The ENTIRE city of New York was making a global website shift, and there was an initiative to buy a content management system for every website the city had! This was a huge deal, and Public Works was just a small portion. Giuliani's admin referred us to the city's CIO, who was heading up the initiative. The rep began the sales process there, and used the programmer's lead as a reason to call high. The CIO provided the roadmap for the entire city's web initiatives.
On the other hand, if the rep had started with the programmer at Public Works, he ran the risk of not finding out about the enterprise initiative that was already underway, probably wouldn't have gotten the name of the CIO as the sponsor, and may have kept the sale with the programmer, not wanting to go "over his head."
This situation was initiated with an inbound lead, but it doesn't always have to. You can do it on a flat-out cold call, too. One approach (and there are many) is to visit the prospect company's website, and see if the company is doing anything for which your product or service could be a solution. Cold call the exec, mention what you saw on the website, tell him or what you do, and ask if there is a current or future initiative to adopt a solution such as yours. Sound easy? It is.
Thousands of sales are lost every year because some reps are afraid to start high, or are trained not to. I don't want you to be among them. You can dramatically increase sales through superior telesales skills. Begin your sales process by calling high. And add it to your Best Practices playbook.