You Can’t Close If You Don’t Know How To Open.
Opening is the most important part of job as a business to business cold caller. If you can’t open well, you won’t have anything there to close. It’s simple, “Open well, open wallet.”
Too many of us sometimes get caught up saying a variation of the same three things when we walk into a business. “Hi, my name is Josh Haddon and I’m with XYZ Company. What are you currently doing for your ______________ ?” Boring and not efficient. This approach generally gets us no where. Well, ‘The definition of insanity is doing to same thing over and over and expecting a different result.’
Here are some tips that will help you open more effectively:
1) Act as if you are in a hurry. I say act as if, but really, you are in a hurry. You have doors to hit and customers’ needs to meet. I like to sometimes start of by approaching the receptionist, extending my hand with a firm handshake and a smile while saying, “Hi there, I’m Josh Haddon, I only have a minute but I was hoping you could help me and answer a couple questions.” Unless we’re talking yard work or helping someone move, most people like to HELP. I can’t stress how important using that word is. Also, telling a busy receptionist YOU are the one in a hurry eliminates her/his ability to use the same excuse back. Think about it!
2) Be aware and play to your environment.
Pictures on the front desk? “Oh cool, they look the same age as my son, daughter, niece, nephew etc/is that taken at Yellowstone/what kind of car is that/when were you on that vacation/is this your entire team here?”
Work being done in building? “Oh hey, are you folks expanding/getting a new paint job/making the place more secure/adding a sky light so you can see awesome days like today?”
Sports team memorabilia, the weather, cool business cards, leather waiting room chairs, plaques on the wall – I’m sure you get the picture, you can open with anything. Engaging the gatekeeper without an ounce of commercialism will do wonders for your opening. Do your best to sound sincere. If you can share your wallet photos with someone before they know you are there to sell something, you’re in!
3) Confusion comes across as non threatening. Many times I like to seem a bit confused when I enter a door. I might say something like, “I had a heck of a time finding the place.” (Every single city has some local’s only street knowledge you can play on.) “I’m bad at these roads, are you from here?” Now you have completely disarmed the receptionist or first contact person. Whether the response is ‘yeah, grew up here’ or ‘no, moved here 2 years ago’ you are gold. RIGHT NOW, spend 5 minutes thinking about the endless directions you can go regardless of the response.
4) Take risks. Be brave. In theory this should be the first tip of this post. Changing anything about the way you currently do what you do, is always a bit of a risk. Remember, in order to separate yourself from every other cold calling sales person you must be able to reduce or eliminate your comfort zone. Try new things all the time. After 3 or less days of subpar results, you must change something. Personally, I ask myself all the time when thinking of tweaking my sales process, ‘What is the worst that could happen?’ Then I remember, ‘oh yeah, the last 3 days have already been the worst that could happen!’ In fact, recently I’ve started wearing a “Hello My Name Is:” tag everywhere I go. I think it will make me even more approachable. For great ideas on what to change when cold calling, read ‘The Little Black Book of Making Connections’ by Jeffrey Gitomer.
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