Picture this: you are sitting in your client’s office discussing the final details of your recently completed consulting assignment. The client, the company’s Marketing VP, Sales Manager or President, begins the conversation with small talk about the noticeable jump in sales since you and your sales techniques were applied by her sales team. You can tell by her gestures and voice she is absolutely thrilled with the results!

Test Question: 

1. Do you thank her for the compliment and sit quietly with a Mona Lisa-like smile on your face?
2. Do you just nod your head in agreement and thank her?
3. Do you say, “[Mrs. Prospect], now that you have experienced first-hand my value-added services, which one of your vendors, do you think could use my services?”

Number 3 is the answer!  Provided, you wait for the client to respond with a company name or individual’s name at a named-company. Then, you follow with this bridging statement: “[Mrs. Prospect], while I’m here why don’t you call and introduce me to

[individual’s name at a named-company]?”

What if the client sits there silently, without answering? You say, “[Mrs. Prospect], you know, my training delivers sales results. I can probably do the same for Bob Smith at ACME Widgets, so your introduction right now will benefit both of us.” Again, wait for an affirmative reply.

I know what many of you are thinking. This guy’s smoking funny cigarettes; or been sitting in his car in traffic too long, sniffing exhaust fumes; or, this is not my style, or it’s too brassy!

My answer to you, as I have defended my actions many times in 31 years, to similar incredulous comments is, “Try it. You may be pleasantly surprised!” Here’s why. Your client, verbally and with gestures, expressed her satisfaction. She began this conversation with laudatory remarks. FACT: 3 clients, in 31 years, have refused me!

If a client is this satisfied with the results of my work, it is human nature for her to want to return the favor, even though I’m paid well as their consultant. In many instances, it’s an ego thing. They want peers to know how smart they are by hiring you, a proven expert who delivered on their promises! They are thrilled to share the good news with others. So, just ask. Do it when you are in their offices, not over the phone. What is the worst that could happen? She could say, “No”. Instead, I know you will be pleasantly surprised most of the time!

They share a common trait of not being pro-active b2b sales prospectors. It’s as though their DNA has been altered to avoid any effort to find either in-person or on-line – sales prospects: people with a qualified need plus the ability to pay for what they sell.

Where do they congregate? At ‘free networking’ luncheons, seminars or social networking mixers where they rub elbows with others, who also share their bone-shaking fear or inability to begin some form of systematic or organized sales prospecting. 

Great talkers! Big fans of indiscriminately handing out business cards or leaving them on tables strategically placed in high traffic zones with the distant hope a serious prospect will conveniently pick up their card and call them to place an order. Voila, rejectionless sales!

In these hard times of high foreclosure rates, failing businesses, Obama’s stimulus programs and tight money, this group is growing very rapidly. Because they refuse to go out and look for new business, they have an abundance of free time in their 8-5 days so they continually rehearse the process of ‘getting ready to sell’, but never really do it.

I liken this delusional group to ‘lifeboat occupants’ who because there are so many of them in such a confined space, their lifeboat has sprung a leak and it is gradually sinking into a Sea of Despair and Quiet Desperation.

Is there any hope for them? Only, if they are forced to confront reality. Not a willing choice, since it may be forced upon them by employees, loved ones or the power company who just turned off their electricity on a 30 degree night. This new reality leads to 3 choices:

1.     Another career because getting new prospects is a fact of life in sales.

2.     Discovery of a less threatening new process of getting new prospects.

3.     Repeated application and fine-tuning this new process until it works.

How do you, the sales professional, determine whether the person on the other end of the phone is being truthful?  Your questions and how you ask them will reveal whether you are speaking with a liar or a potential buyer. Asking these questions on the phone will eliminate wasted face-time sales calls.

Professional Pollsters and Marketing Researchers who use the phone know the answer and so should you. They ask shielded questions. Actually, the same question, worded differently and asked once, twice or three times during the same phone interview.

I’m a great believer in having my 5-6 Qualifying Questions documented on a form I refer to as a CPQ (Call Planner Questionnaire). In fact, the CPQ is the lynchpin accountability tool  I encourage sales managers and small business owners to use to make certain their sales team members are turning in legitimate expense reports at week end.

You may recall from past blogs my statement, “You are making a Social NOT a SALES CALL if you do not have 1 completed CPQ for each face-time decision-maker appointment.” None of us in sales were hired to make social calls.  We aren’t paid for visits – ONLY CLOSED SALES! There should be 1 CPQ for each completed face-time sales appointment. This is RULE Number 2 of my Power Prospecting Formula.

One of the ‘key’ questions asked early on during the Qualifying Phone Follow up Calling Sequence should answer the important question:

1. Who, in addition to you [Mr/Mrs/Ms. Prospect Name] is involved in the decision to [buy, choose one vendor over another or change suppliers]?
2. Another variation of this is: [Mr/Mrs/Ms. Prospect Name], how many copies of [my report, executive summary, review and analysis, or, my survey] would you like me to bring to our meeting?
3. Still, another variation is:  [Mr/Mrs/Ms. Prospect Name], would you describe for me the decision-to-buy-process at your company?

 Answering these questions strikes at the very heart of my Power Prospecting Formula. In 1967, when I began my formal sales career with NCR selling computers to the hoteliers on Miami Beach, I often discovered decisions to purchase equipment were made at the holding company HQ office, seldom at the local hotel property. My sales proposals were accompanied by the local managers’ purchase request and mailed to a distant decision-making office, far removed from Miami Beach.

Today, more than ever before, determining who signs the checks locally is critically important.

Many times, when I have conducted my Qualifying Phone Follow up Calling Sequence, I have discovered I’m speaking with an ego-centric ‘decision-maker’ who replies, “I make the decision!” Then, when I ask a variation of the same question later on during the same phone interview, their answer conflicts with their first reply.

Ah ha, a liar versus a buyer!

As a rule, I will not keep an appointment with a prospect to fails my shielded questions test. How can I believe anything else that person will tell me at our face-time appointment?

Am I being too sensitive? Am I placing an X on the door of a potential prospect? No! In fact, those few times when I have kept the face-time appointment with a liar, I have wasted my time on non-prospects. I don’t have the time or patience to meet with people who don’t respect me. When someone lies to me, they don’t respect me!

This shielded questions technique works especially well for commercial and industrial telemarketing sales. In 1987, I developed a CPQ scenario for an industrial sales software vendor. Elaborate product information kits were mailed, in advance, to all inquiries. Yet, fewer than 8% of these elaborate product information kits resulted in sales.

Two CPQ Questionnaires were designed and tested. The first CPQ narrow-focused an inquirer’s: urgency, decision-making-process, including who in the company by name and position was seated on the Software Evaluation Committee and whether the committee had a ‘funded budget’  to thoroughly research, conduct field trips to vendor installation sites prior to creating a short list of the three most capable solution providers. The ‘funded budget’ shielded questions and answers separated the curious from the serious.

The second CPQ Questionnaire was used after the prospect received the basic information kit which was one quarter the length of the original elaborate product information kit. The telemarketers asked the prospects specific questions about the software architecture and platform. Questions which could only be answered if the prospect thoroughly read the basic information kit. Both CPQ’s included multiple shielded questions.

Almost 8 months to the day the dual CPQ Questionnaires were implemented, conversions to sales were averaging 19-24%.

I’d be shocked if most of you aren’t using a CPQ type document, either printed or screen-displayed. However, if you aren’t using shielded questions, make some changes; add a few and you are sure to improve your conversion to serious, not curious decision-making prospects.

In Chapter 7 of the September edition of my How to Get Face-Time with People Who Buy What You Sell ebook (also called the PowerProspecting eBook) I detail how to design the ideal CPQ. Also,  how to skillfully use my best secret weapon: The Columbo to forever eliminate wasted face-time sales appointments! CLICK on Purchase eBook Now. CLICK on Home Page. CLICK on View FREE Minibook. Remember, you have a 1 Year Money-Back Guarantee to test my Formula.

So, what works for you and your sales team? How do you filter liars and buyers?