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Painless Sales Prospecting?

One of the most memorable and inspiring book treasures in my home office library is Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. It chronicles, Dr. Frankl’s WW2 imprisonment and his near-death experiences at the hands of Hitler’s henchmen in several infamous Holocaust Death Camps.  While there are many lessons to be learned from this extraordinary little book, one that repeatedly rises to the surface of my conscious thinking is that we all ultimately can choose to personalize and accept criticism or reject it and remain self-assured and confident. It is always our choice.

As someone who specializes in sales prospecting skill-building, I have plenty of opportunities to make this choice.  In the old days, calling strangers often lead to frequent rejection. ”They didn’t have time to talk with me, now” or they responded with a gruff, knee-jerk comment such as “I’m not interested!”.

Notice, I said, In the old days. Instead of tolerating frequent rejection I chose to find a better way. As a Rule, I won’t and don’t cold call potential prospects. After 19 years of trial and error testing of different direct mailing plarforms, I discovered a  better and simpler way to consistently and painlessly gain ethical access to decision-makers.  My ‘qualifying’ calls are always preceded with several snail-mailings which are a series of 4 personalized greeting cards. Cards work best because:

• Card choices are tastefully different, humorous and have an emotional appeal
• Each is personalized with 2 short sentences, for a quick read
• Always mailed in series of 4′s, so a card arrives on a prospect’s desk every 4 days,
• Card # 4 announces my planned call on a specific day, date and time
• The entire process is automated.

Sounds expensive, doesn’t it? Once upon a time, but not now with gas at $4.25 per gallon!

Here is the BIG PAYOFF. When I follow up with a phone  call, 70-83% of the time, card recipients are looking forward to speaking with me. I didn’t pull 83% out of thin air to impress you. In 2006, it was the actual percentile of card recipients who spoke with my appointment-setter or me, when we called, following their receipt of greeting card # 4!

Since then, we have conducted several mailings for high-tech clients who are consistently gaining timely, ethical phone follow up access an average of 70% of the time when a 4 greeting card series precedes their prospect ‘qualification’ phone calls.

My mailings and those conducted on behalf of B2B clients have a distinct purpose which to ALWAYS set the stage for a timely phone call. Painless Sales Prospecting is a reality, now! It can work for you too if you  precede your initial contact calls with a timely, carefully targetted series of 4 greeting card direct mailings. Because pre-mailed prospects are expecting your calls, you are eliminating the stress and often anticipated rejection factor that historically accompanies calling strangers for the first time. The ‘right’ mailing campaign is the key variable that prepares you for a positive expected outcome when you conduct your timely, expected followup qualifying phone calls.

Chapter 4 of my Power Prospecting eBook and 1 of the 4 FREE Bonus items you receive when you purchase my $40.00 eBook is the 4 greeting card mailing series with the cards and matching copy which achieved the remarkable 83% response in August 2006.

That’s it, for now. Have a traffic-free and relaxing Memorial Day Weekend. I’ll see you back here next week. As always, I relish Comments from B2B Selling Professionals, so let the discussion begin.

 

 

 

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