Salesforce Search

OK, so you’ve finally managed to convince your sales team to do  more cold calling.  And perhaps you’ve even taken it a step further and got them to refine the message so that they’re leaving a strong benefit statement.  But 95% of your reps’ calls are going to hit voice mail.  So then what?  Well, if you’re like us, you leave a carefully crafted message that gives the prospect a reason to want to speak with us.  However, no matter how strong the reason, rarely does this alone initiate a call back from the prospect.

Poll your reps, and ask them what they do after this first voice mail.  Ask them when they make a second call, what is the second message, do they do anything special to warm up the calls, and do they do the same thing consistently with every single prospect.  Chances are strong that if you have ten reps, you’ll get ten different responses.  And why?  Shouldn’t all of your reps follow a defined, standardized and identified best practice? 

Our partners, SalesForce Training & Consulting, have built a phenomenal prospecting program they call an Approach Stream.  An Approach Stream is a series of planned set of messaging to prospects with defined ‘hit’ dates, varying from voice mail to a specialized email tool we use that allows us to track our prospect’s interest, as well as post cards and letters.  The SalesForce Approach Stream is a best practice, that is designed to do three things, namely;

1)      Send a more powerful and compelling message to our prospects;

2)      Improve our efficiency; and

3)      Differentiate our offering.  The aim is to stop asking your prospects to do things for you, like “Please call me back”, and to start to provide your prospects with items of value that can help their businesses run more efficiently.

With the right approach stream, you can track your prospect’s interest and then zero in on those prospects that look like they need your help, eventually discarding those that don’t respond at all.  To date, SalesForce clients that have leveraged this best practice have reported phenomenal results.  The process has allowed their reps to contact more decision makers, book more meetings, and edge out their competitors from the process. 

Regardless of what approach tool or call sequence you use, ensuring all of your sales people are sending a consistent, effective message may be the key to winning and losing deals in this tough selling environment.

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