The Scrambled Egg - a blog every sales professional should wake up to.

People love email templates. Free email templates are one of the most frequently downloaded offers from the HubSpot content library,  as well as my website, Sell Inbound.  I assume the people that download these offers are using them in a sales or marketing capacity.

There are a lot of people making personal connections online.  There are 54 million single adults in the U.S. and 40 million have tried online dating. There have been 40 million people in dire need of a great email template; something that catches attention and gets a welcoming response.

Sales prospecting and online dating are very similar in nature. Typically, you are sending a somewhat random message to an individual who is being inundated by similar messages.  Not the best position to be in. So that leads me to wonder...is there a universally successful approach?

Let’s take both of the interactions out of the framework society creates.  In both situations a human is approaching a human and asking for something. How do humans like to be approached?

• People love to feel special

• People love to talk about themselves

• People like to be in a position to choose

• People like to understand expectations upfront

Regardless of context, fresh introductions should take interaction down to a human level in order to build the best connections. The following framework should be used when sending an outreach email for the purpose of getting a new sales appointment, or a personal appointment.

Notice Something Relevant

People publish information about themselves, and chances are others have published valuable information as well. If you have a sales prospect on your hands, a LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google search should suffice. Also check out their company’s website and blog.  

If you are on the quest for companionship, someone of the opposite sex who is serious about meeting someone will give you all of the ammunition you need.

Be Interested - Ask Questions

Take time to put yourself in this person’s shoes. Be genuine and inquisitive. Ask questions that allow someone to elaborate about the things they are clearly interested in. On an initial outreach, one or two questions will suffice. Don’t make responding appear to be time consuming or difficult.

Wrap in Your Value

This is one sentence that says something about you as a person or explains why you are interested. In a dating sense, it should shed light on you as a person and a potential shared interest. For a sales prospect, it might describe your professional areas of expertise and a brief introduction to why you are reaching out.

Close for What You Want

People seem to have a bit of a sixth sense when it comes to outreach. Don’t disguise your intentions. In a sales situation, a typical ask is for 10 minutes on the phone to determine if further conversation could be mutually beneficial. In the dating game, I would recommend not closing on the first outreach, your goal should be to earn a conversation. Close in a later exchange after rapport and mutual interest has been shared.

Explore the benefits of taking time to be genuine in all of your interactions. By doing so you will not only create more opportunities, but you will build relationships that surpass your initial expectations.

Thanks Mike Pici for the blog article!

Follow @KADscrambledegg on Twitter for wisdom about #sales #salesmanagement. 

Sales people only have so much time in a day and should utilize every moment. Rapport building goes far beyond “building relationships”, take the opportunity to gather more information about prospects beyond their kids’ names, the weather, etc. In order to be a top performer a rep must be methodical and calculated in every step, even rapport building. Here are other ways to use rapport building to elicit valuable information from prospects:

1) Lower the Tension – A rep should build rapport at the beginning of every call. This helps to lesion the tension the prospect might be feeling in addition to the anxiety the rep may be experiencing. If the prospect’s guard is down, they are more comfortable and more likely to share. Going straight into a call, without rapport building, can feel like a plane coming into the runaway fast and furious! Slow down….

2) Authority or Influence Level – Rapport building is an excellent way to learn how much power a prospect has internally.

Start By - The rep can make small talk. Ask how long the prospect has been with the company. Are they happy? What do they like/not like? The rep can share stories of their experience at their work place (always remain positive).

What is Actually Gained - Once the conversation is flowing, here’s what the rep can really gain from the chit chat. The rep may find the prospect was newly hired or promoted. If so, why did the company hire or promote for this position? Why was it a priority to do so? The rep can find out who hired the contact. Was it a person in the C-suite? How often do they meet with this person? In other words, while the rep is “building rapport” they are multitasking by lowering the tension, easing their way into the call in addition to finding out if their contact has access to power and how often.

3) Decision Making Process – There are opportunities in the rapport building stage to gather information about a prospect’s internal decision making process.

Start By - Opening the conversation by trying to learn more about their culture. The rep can share stories of their experiences (always positive). Is the prospect’s culture fast paced? Do they have red tape? Are things decided as a group or in silos? Is this a headache? Do they like the process? Why or why not?

What is Actually Gained - While this may seem like small talk, the rep can start to understand their internal process for getting things purchased. The rep is also discovering timeline for how long the deal might take to close.

4) The Slip – Sometimes a prospect will reveal information during rapport building which might be imperative to a sale and otherwise missed.

Start By - The rep can ask if the prospect received the information and what the prospect’s thoughts are. Discuss what they liked and ask for feedback. The rep should have sent product information in addition to information that is strategically helpful. Information offering strategy is more likely to get read and gains trust with a prospect. A sale should rarely be about product/service. 

What is Actually Gained- The prospect’s guard is down and they feel the discussion is more casual or “off the record”. The prospect will reveal information that might have otherwise not been shared in a more “formal” setting. Such information could include, other vendors being evaluated, who internally is for or against the purchase of the rep’s product/service, an impending acquisition which might slow the process down, etc.

A great example would be from when a prospect was 5 minutes late to a schedule call. They’d asked the rep to remain on hold as they were running late. When the prospect returned to the phone they apologized and explained the CEO had pulled him into a last minute meeting. The rep was smart and jumped on the opportunity to gather more information. The rep asked if everything was ok and was it a normal occurrence. The prospect revealed the CEO does this frequently and trusts him to assist in emergencies. Prior to this auspicious interaction the rep was unsure of the contact’s internal power. Now the rep knows the contact had direct access to CEO and the CEO trusts the contact. This is invaluable information to the sale that might have otherwise been difficult to get.

Sales people only have their time. They should be methodical and calculated at every step in order to ensure they’re being most efficient. Work hard and work smart. 

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