3 inside sales activities that are like standing on your head and spitting wooden nickels
I remember my Grandfather saying, “You might as well stand on your head and spit wooden nickels.”
My memory is Papa was indicating our request was ridiculous and not worthy of an actual attempt (although I feel compelled to share english.stackexchange.com translates the colloquialism to mean able to do something impossible or astonishing).
Inside sales has three activities that fall into the category of ridiculous and not worthy of an actual attempt.
#1 – calling and not leaving a message
There is a lot of research about how many touch points it takes for a prospect to remember you enough to have a conversation, ranging from 9 to 12 times.
If you call and don’t leave a voicemail, you are still at zero and not moving forward to a time when they just might pick up to talk with you.
Instead, stop spitting and start crafting effective messages.
Here are a few reminders on how to create a successful voicemail:
- Use a single result statement
- Include an action request
- Have your phone number twice
- Assume it will be transcribed and they may read it first
Plus three tips when leaving the message:
- Play up your tone and inflection; you have to sound enthusiastic about talking with them
- Sound confident that you will have the opportunity to talk with them
- Write your phone number down as you leave it to slow your pace to a rate where the prospect could do the same… and transcription will get it correct.
#2 – paralysis through analysis
This doesn’t mean you don’t need to do research, rather that you need to be smart about it!
Of course, the higher on the corporate organizational chart you’re calling, the more that person (and their executive assistant) expects you to know about them, their company, and how you can potentially help.
Paralysis sets in when you are doing more analysis than calling. Even with AI doing some of the lifting, if you don’t have a good prompt or research agent, 5 minutes becomes 30 pretty quickly.
Instead, stop accepting wooden nickels and begin to think of research as an inclusive block of time where you set a limit and don’t allow yourself to go over.
One way to think about it is using the 3×3 research idea. Your objective is to find 3 points in 3 minutes that you can use on your call.
Another way UpYourTeleSales talks about research is that in 30 minutes you can easily prep yourself on enough prospect accounts to make an hour of outbound dials.
A third idea is to remember some research is universal and can work for multiple calls into the same industry segment; understand the language of a vertical market and the challenges they face, then call into multiple prospects that fall into that segment.
#3 – one hit wonder
Many times inside salespeople get stuck in one-hit-wonder mode, only using a single mode of communication to contact their prospects and customers.
Instead, stop standing on your head and put your feet on the ground. To engage your prospects and customers, there needs to be multiple contact points as well as methods of communication.
Create a habit of switching it up!
If you receive an email request from a prospect or customer, don’t hit reply, pick up the phone to connect.
While you’re on the phone, bring the prospect to your website and engage visual, auditory, and kinesthetic activity to keep them engaged.
After leaving a voicemail, the following day send an email with more information on the topic you mentioned.
When you typically send your contact information in an email, add sending a personalized LinkedIn connection request as well.
Now it’s time to look at your day:
What are the activities you equate to standing on your head and spitting wooden nickels?
Lynn
ps: If you like the standing on your head metaphor you can check out me actually standing on my head talking about making sales harder on ourselves.