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!

Liking these tips? Follow @KADScrambledEgg on Twitter for wisdom on #sales and #salesmanagement.

Ever had a deal go down in flames at the final hour? It can happen to anyone in sales. Pricing negotiations can be a field of unmarked land mines that are easy to trigger for those who are unfamiliar with the territory. Here are some basic rules to help you trip every possible wire, make every price negotiation an explosive ground, and allow for any deal to go up in smoke. 

Without further ado, your step-by-step guide to bombing any price/contracts negotiation:

Land Mine 1 – “No Commander-in-Chief”: In order to trip the first wire, one should definitely negotiate with the person who can only say no, maybe or play operator. Negotiating with an influencer or champion instead of a decision maker (not the recommender - big difference) is a fabulous way to negotiate at a disadvantage.

How to Avoid Tripping This Wire: If a rep would prefer not to have the negotiations go up in smoke, work only with the person who can say yes. If the influencer wants to enter into negotiations the rep should avoid the conversation. While you don’t want to ignore their request, this is actually a great opportunity to get the Decision Maker involved. Here’s how a rep can avoid tripping this wire and use the situation to their advantage:

“I’d be glad to come up with customized packaging. However, I’m worried we’d be playing operator as I’m not authorized to offer anything exciting. It also sounds like you’d need to check with ______ (insert decision makers name here). Here’s an idea, I’ll grab my manager/director and you grab _________ and we can all schedule a time to talk further. This seems like the fastest way to get a customized package. What time works best with your schedules?”

The above technique allows a sales person to turn a potentially dangerous situation into an opportunity to engage and/or re-engage with power. First, disarm the prospect by acknowledging a willingness to do customized pricing however commit to nothing specific. When a sales rep offers to bring in their boss it serves as collateral for getting the prospect's decision maker. The influencer will feel as though the rep is being accommodating, which the rep is by offering someone of greater power on their end. The influencer is also given a compelling reason to take time out of their boss’ calendar.

Land Mine 2 – “The Cart Before The Horse”: It is best to negotiate prior to knowing if they have decided to go with the rep’s solution or if the prospect is still evaluating other vendors. Even better, negotiate prior to knowing if the prospect has already picked another vendor and are using the sales person as leverage to lower the other vendor’s price. Can you smell the smoke yet?

Elude Tripping This Wire: Only negotiate once there is confirmation the prospect has selected the rep’s product or service. Even if the rep is working with the decision maker do not move forward until they have made a decision. In order to do so, make the assumption the prospect has made decision when they ask for a discount or option. The prospect will have to correct the rep’s assumption. The prospect is lead to their own conclusion they are ahead of themselves.

“Great! We’re looking forward to having you on board. It sounds like you’ve made the decision to go with _______ (insert company name here)?”

The prospect will either say yes or they will have to correct the rep. The rep can then disarm the prospect by acknowledging they will negotiate but put them back in to an accurate timeline.  Here’s how:

“I’d be glad to discuss a customized package, however I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. Let’s first make sure _________(insert company name) is the solution that will take care of your issues/meet your goals”.

Land Mine 3 – “O’Dark Hundred”: Enter into a negotiation without knowing the timeline of the prospect. It’s best to work a deal and have no idea when the prospect is looking to sign up. It's safe for the rep to assume they can do their next pipeline review with smoke signals.

Smokey The Bear’s PSA: The rep should know when the prospect intends to become a customer. A prospect might be asking for options because they’re budgeting for their next fiscal year, which could be months away. In order to clarify timeline, the rep should first disarm the prospect by acknowledging they will address their request while offering no details and then ask for a timeframe. 

“I’d be glad to work on a customized package. It sounds like you’ve decided to go with _______ (insert company name).  When are you planning to finalize a contract?”

Land Mine 4 - “The Mail Carrier”: The best way to bomb a negotiation is to do so via email. It’s best to avoid doing important and time sensitive conversations over the phone or face to face. In order to blow a deal it’s best to lose control of the process, allow the prospect to disappear, let the prospect forward the email to a competitor, and/or let them try to sell the customized package internally. 

Alert! Detour! Bypass! Do not have important conversations via email. Let me repeat, DO NOT EMAIL. DO NOT EMAIL! If you haven’t already read the article why things should not be emailed, do so now. If the prospect disappears the rep will be left with heart palpitations desperately calling the prospect as if it were a bad breakup. Don’t be that rep. Here is the voicemail and email script a rep can use to eliminate negotiating via email:

Bob, per my message –

Thanks for the note. I’d be glad to discuss some customized options. We should discuss on the phone to make sure we cover all details.

Would 10:30EST or 3:00EST work with your schedule?

Best,
ME

I’d recommend avoiding negotiations over email 99.9% of the time. It is VERY rare a rep should resort to email. An example of the .01% of the time would be if the decision maker is on the wing of Captain Sully’s plane floating on The Hudson River with only access to email. If the prospect won’t get on the phone or meet to discuss options, this is an indication of the seriousness of the buyer. Seller beware.

Land Mine 5 – “Vegas Loves You”: It’s best to start offering whatever options one has available without knowing what the prospect might need. It’s best to let the prospect know all the options they can pick from or better yet pick ‘em all! Why not show the prospect all the cards in your hand? If this were a game of poker, the rep would be broke. Vegas baby.

Don’t Be the Oldest Hotel On the Strip Waiting for Implosion: He who says a number or option first loses. Always disarm the prospect by acknowledging you’ll work with them, but offer no details and instead turn the spotlight on them.

“I’d be glad to work on some options. What do you have in mind?”

Land Mine 6 – “The Freddie Krueger”: We’ve all watched the scary movie where the bad guy dies at the end. But we've also seen enough of these movies to know the bad guy always comes magically back to life when it's time for the sequel to come out. How frustrating is it to watch the movie, knowing the bad guy isn’t dead yet and noticing that, once again, blondie doesn’t check to make sure?! He’s behind you!! If you want to bomb your negotiations, proceed without caution and without confirming the first 5 land mines are in the clear. In other words, proceed without checking that the bad guy is actually dead.

Escape the Sequel: Don’t assume you’re on safe ground, yet. Confirm all 5 of the first land mines are cleared before continuing pursuit. Here are some options to confirm you’ve made it safely across the mine field and confirm the bad guy is dead:

“If I’m able to offer ______ (insert what they’ve asked for), what else stands in the way of finalizing the contract?”

“If I’m able to offer ______ (insert what they’ve asked for), when will you be signing the contract?”

“If I’m able to offer ______ (insert what they’ve asked for), would you be able to sign up today?”

By starting the sentence with “if”, the rep is not definitively committing to anything. However the rep has still disarmed the prospect by addressing what the prospect has asked for. The prospect should confirm there is nothing in the way and should willingly give a verbal commitment - a conclusive yes.

If the prospect won’t give a verbal commitment, the rep then needs to handle objections. The rep has earned the right to ask why as they are only offering what the prospect wanted and asked for. If the prospect won’t offer verbal commitment or clarification as to why, there are serious red flags with this buyer. Seller beware.

Bombs away! 

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Replying to a prospect's email(s) is lazy and a sales rep should break the habit immediately. We’re all busy throughout the day and it can seem like the best way to communicate is to respond to emails. A rep might make the assumption that email is the preferred method of communication for the prospect and will follow suit in this manner. Instead of assuming this is their preferred method of communication, why not assume they’re in meetings and this is their only way to reach out. They are multitasking. Assume this is the case every time and do not reply. Instead view every email as an invitation to call.

Why view every email as an invitation to call? Consider these 8 problems with the email reply: 

1) Loss of Control – when a rep sends a reply the prospect can take the information and do what they want with it. The rep won’t know if the answer was satisfactory or if it wasn’t what the prospect was looking for. No response from the prospect now leaves the rep with nothing but guesswork.

2) Lost Opportunity – every interaction with a prospect is the opportunity to find out more information. Assist in whatever it is the prospect needed and then a rep has the ability to ask such things as, updates on the sale, legal process, decision making process, who else is inquiring (perhaps the email had questions), why is the prospect looking for additional information, etc.  

3) No Accountability – having a prospect on the line makes them accountable to answer questions like those in #2. If these questions are asked in an email it is very rare they will be answered. However, if one has the prospect on the phone, it is hard for them to ignore.

4) No Ability to Sell – additional information might be discovered during the discussion which allows for the rep to take another angle with the sale.

5) Tone Deafness – it is very difficult to understand an email's actual tone. While the prospect’s email may seem innocent in nature, the a phone call and might uncover that there are major hurdles to overcome. On the other hand, the prospect could seem angry and snarky, yet a phone call would have revealed they are very interested and that their office has simply been swamped. Bear in min, this is a two-way street. A sales rep’s tone has just as great a chance of being misread and prospects are not as forgiving with misread tone.  

6) Lost in Translation – it is very easy for things to get lost in translation even over the phone. Email amplifies this chance as you don’t have the ability to quickly ask for clarification and make explanations.

7) Easy to Forward – a rep can hope or assume their answers are only being passed around internally. Don’t make this assumption. The last thing a rep would want is for their email to be forwarded to a competitor and educating them how to sell against themself.

8) Does Not Stand Out – every sales reps replies to email. Don’t be that rep. Pick up the phone and offer assistance.

Ok so you're sold on the idea of viewing all prospect's emails as an invitation to call.  So how does it work? Always call first. If they aren’t there, your voicemail will be the below script and your email will match which will be sent immediately afterwards. Always re-assure them you have answers to their questions or whatever it is they need. In order to get what they need, they’ll have to connect via phone. Make sure to end the voicemail and email with a call to action. Here is an example:

Bob, per my message

It’s nice to hear from you. I’d be glad to help with/answer your questions below. It’s best if we connect over the phone in order to make sure I give the details you need.

I’m open today at 3:00EST or 5:30EST. What works best with you?

Best,

Me

Always leave two suggested open times. A rep should not say they’re open for the rest of the day or available at any time. It’s too desperate and needy. A top performing sales person is busy with other calls and lots in the pipeline. Remember the prospect needs answers to their questions and if those times don’t work they will reply with times that do work. This is also a good indication of their level of interest.

Knowledge is power. Take every opportunity to gather information. View every email is an invitation to call a prospect. Never waste an opportunity, take the invitation, run with it and close some business!

Next Articles:

The Most Common Mistake in Pricing Negotiations

The Hidden Secrets of Rapport Building Beyond "Relationships"

 You’ve all had the accounts you tried relentlessly to get into. You call multiple people in the company and try month after month. Many sales people do this as tenacity has great pay offs in sales. Sometimes the technique works and other times it works to no avail. There is a smarter way to work – dump your prospects. Yes, dump them. It’s over. Kaput. It’s not you, it’s me. Done. Adios.

Breaking up is hard to do. It’s even harder when you think of breaking up with a potential customer. Let’s think about it from a different perspective as it might actually yield the opposite result. In other words, breaking up with your prospects is a great strategy to solicit a response.

First, understand your prospects are busy. They have multiple meetings and many things on their plate. They receive many calls throughout the day and while they may plan to call you back, you’re pushed to the bottom of the list. The prospect knows you’re in sales and relies on you to be tenacious and to do your job by continuing to call and email. This allows you to fall further on their “to do” list.

At some point a sales rep will move on and stop calling the prospect without knowing if the prospect might have wanted to connect. So to make matters worse, the sales rep doesn’t communicate to the prospect you’re no longer going to be calling. Don’t make this mistake. This leads us to the first and most basic rule of breaking up.

Here are the rules to a successful breakup:

1) Communicate to the prospect you are giving up. This way they know they can’t rely on you to continue calling and emailing. If they had any interest in speaking you have now forced yourself to the top of the “to do” list because you’ve told you’re breaking up.

2) Do not breakup too soon. If you pull the plug on a prospect without legitimately first putting in effort the tactic seems, well, like a tactic. You should attempt to connect with your prospects at least 8 times (voicemail or email) before breaking up.

3) Include a tease in regards to strategic advice (not about your product or service) you would like to discuss. This will remind them what value they’ll get if they connect with you.

4) Make it short and sweet, but not too sweet. It should be to the point and don’t be abrupt or offensive. This will defeat the purpose and it will again seem like just a tactic.

5) This is the most import of all rules. You’re previous emails should include increasingly valuable information not about your product, service or company (it’s too soon to pitch). In other words, make sure they care you’re breaking up with them. If you’ve provided value in your previous emails they will care that they’re no longer going to receive them. The valuable information also peaked their interest enough to get you onto their “to do” list in the first place. Voicemail and email attempts solely about your products and service will never even get you to the bottom of a “to do” list. This article discusses how to increasingly add value in each effort to reach a prospect.

Here is an example of a breakup voicemail and email script:

Bob,

I wanted to reach out to you one last time. I have suggestions on how your facebook page and website can work harder in terms of generating new business. If I don’t hear back from you, I’ll assume the timing isn’t right.

My information is below should you have any questions.

Best,

Me

The response rate to a breakup is close to 33%. While most responses are positive and they’ll tell you they’ve been meaning to get back to you, sometimes you’ll also get a response from those letting you know they are not interested. A negative response is still as successful breakup. You now have an answer and can move on; it wasn’t meant to be as they were never going to buy anyway. Breaking up isn’t hard to do once the technique proves itself.  Happy selling and breaking up!

Upcoming Articles:

Facebook is Close to Missing the Boat. Why This Will Affect Your Sales. 

Do Territories Matter?

How can you be sure there is a 30% increase? I tested it and measured the results. I took 5 reps as the experimental group. They used the below technique with subsequent emails (which will be a blog post to follow). The control group was the rest of the sales team (about 45 other reps) who continued to use the same templates used in the past. I ran the experiment for 5 weeks and tracked the lead attempt to connect rates in Salesforce. The experimental group made 30% more connects than the control group. In data we trust, even in sales.  So here it goes....

In an early blog post I discuss the #1 rule to consultative selling. The below techniques follow the consultative approach by removing the focus from yourself, your product, company and/or service. 

1) The Subject Line should be about the prospect, not about you. The first step is to get the prospect to open the email. If it’s about them, it’ll be more interesting. If it’s an inbound lead, the subject line should be whatever they downloaded. If it’s an outbound or cold attempt, find something about the prospect. Look to see if they were recently in the news, updated or posted something on LinkedIn or Twitter. Make sure the recent news or status updated is related to business. Then make this the subject line.

2) The Length of the email should be short. Most of us are checking our emails via cell phones and mobile devices can make short emails look long. Send the email to yourself first and make sure it’s not overwhelm in length.

3) The 2 to 1 Ratio. In other words, you should reference their company and/or the word “you” at least twice as many times as you see the word “I” or your company name. Most importantly, start the email with the word “You”. This grabs their attention and it makes it about them. Starting an email with “I” is about you and quite frankly, who cares about you at this point.

4) The Give - you should also offer some type of tease alluding to strategic advice. It's best not criticize; add value by offering strategy and not about your product/service. Each subsequent attempt you’ll offer additional value by giving more strategies. I’ll talk about this more in my next coming blog article. Stay tuned.

5) The Get – the email should end with a call to action that stands alone. In other words, they’ll need to respond in order to get the strategic advice. This does not mean to end the email with “Let me know if you’d like to talk”. It's fine to use this with your friends and they get back to you because they like you. Prospects don’t like sales reps, they are not your friend and this is a waste of time. Instead, be very clear and end the email with a question “What time works best with you” or give suggested times (give a couple options as people are busy).

Here is an example of an email/voicemail template:

Bob,

You recently downloaded the whitepaper “Using Facebook for Business”. I've been to your website and your business Facebook page and noticed a few areas where you can increase the amount of business you’re generating from social media.

Would you be able to connect Monday at 1:00 EST or Tuesday at 11:00 EST?

Best,

Me

Your voicemail will match the same format, except you’d add at the end “This is (your name) calling from (company name) and my number is ____“. Yes, at the end not the beginning. As soon as you start a voicemail with “Hi this is so and so from…..” the voicemail is deleted before you can say the company name. If you have to introduce yourself, they know it’s a sales call and they won’t listen. Delete. Starting the voicemail without an introduction will seem very awkward at first. Practice until a it’s habit.

While many of these methods were derived from Jeff Hoffman's Basho Strategies, they've been augmented over time to stay relevant with the changing landscape of sales.