Recently in selling services Category

Interesting blog post from Basho about the ROI on upselling versus prospecting. Seems like prospecting is "coming back into vogue". It never really should have gone out of it, should it? No. Pick up the phone!

Phone versus Email for cold calling is a bit of a religious war. Your typical battled-hardened sales veteran tends to the "Pick Up The Phone You Wimp!" view; where the Twitter-savvy, IM-friendly yoof will be more inclined to send an email. In general. Personally, I fit firmly into neither demographic, but I am a fan of the veterans' view. In my experience, much of the arguments for email and against phoning are simply thinly disguised (or maybe subconscious) call reluctance. A recent example demonstrates why at least in my case, sales prospectors are pretty much wasting their time with email.

A particular technique in complex sales is the Monkey's Paw. This is where a small sale is used to "prime" a client to be more accepting of a much larger sale. The technique gets its name from the nautical term referring to a particularly bulky knot tied in the end of a lightweight line (a "heaving line"), to act as a weight.




With the Monkey's Paw at one end of the line, the other end can be tied to a much heavier line. The Monkey' Paw can then be thrown from the boat to the dock, and the person on the dock can then draw in the heavy rope on the end of the light one.

Well I've been reading, "Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive!", by Goldstein, Martin and Cialdini. It's a fascinating review of psychology research into how we make decisions. Chapter 14 gives an excellent example of the Monkey's Paw in action (albeit not specifically in a sales situation). More important, it gives a idea of why it is the technique works.

The sharp end of selling is the cold call. Few people like doing it, but for engineers -- typically more interested in things than in people -- it can be worse than poking yourself in the eye with a rusty nail. And for Professional Services firms, it's often seen as Not The Done Thing; something telemarketers for insurance may do, but not high falutin' lawyers, or accountants, or verification consultants. In fact, so reluctant can some people be to do this kind of prospecting that there are entire books and courses dedicated to handling call reluctance (e.g. "The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance"). Others promise that you can sell without cold calling at all (e.g. "Never Cold Call Again").

Personally I believe that cold calling, while not the be-all and end-all, is an essential part of the professional consultant's sales arsenal. Verilab has been using the Sandler Sales Institute for some time now, as part of its overall training approach. And the Sandler System has some refreshing views on the cold call.