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I like to summarize the stages of a relationship between a salesperson and a prospect with a simple acronym, CARR. These are the four stages that occur as you advance a potential client through your funnel. When you come to terms with the negative parts of this process, then you can start to get comfortable with them, and from there, fortify yourself to triumph. When a salesperson doesn’t accept these truths, their day-to-day grind is going to be a struggle.
Curiosity, Annoyance, Resentment, Respect.
Curiosity – They’ll probably pay attention to you simply because you’re new. They’re going to want to see if you’re giving away free gold or selling a Cadillac. It’s a matter of human nature, they will want to investigate what it is you want. If you’re cold calling then they’ll probably screen your call, and maybe listen to your voicemail. That’s the extent that you will get to speak to them, via a voicemail. So make that message count.
- Don’t say your name and company at the beginning of the message. You might as well shout “delete this message immediately!” This is ok if you are returning a call, in that case you want to identify yourself. If your prospecting, withhold it till the end.
- Have a script for voicemail. Sales is all about repetition, and the only way for you to get the most out of your voicemails is to come to know it the same way you know your pitch. Break it down and put it back together, don’t play your whole hand, make the prospect want to find out more. Talk about the benefits, and stay quiet on the features. That’ll make them want to know what this amazing solution is. Less is more.
- Repeat your contact information and speak clearly. I’m always unpleasantly annoyed by folks in this business that don’t enunciate. If I can’t hear the number to call you back, I ignore your calls from that point forward out of principal.
Annoyance – The curiosity phase is much shorter than the annoyance phase. This is where most new salespeople tend to give up on a prospect—and soon after I imagine they give up sales entirely. A lot of this has to do with the fact that we are raised to take a step back when we feel like we’re infringing on someone. Some of the politeness becomes hard wired and when we sense that someone is bothered, our knee-jerk reaction is to back off.
Being a good salesman does not mean that you have to be rude. It means just the opposite. You have to take all the wonderful manners that your parents raised you with and learn how to mold your pitch and sales tactics around those positive parts of your being. That said, you can’t back down just because a person isn’t immediately receptive. You have to force yourself to keep going. If you believe in your product, then that should be reason enough to keep going. Be careful not to come off as aggressive. Sometimes the emotions of one pitch can bleed into another. Truer still, sometimes a day’s worth of disasters can bleed into a late afternoon pitch and all the failure you’ve amassed over the course of the day can come to the fore at the worst possible moment. Don’t take it out on a poor prospect. If you really feel like you can’t take that negativity and recycle it into positive momentum toward a new sale, take some time to recalibrate.
Resentment – This is the stage you’ll get to if you move forward in the face of annoyance. They will literally come to resent you. Your name will show up on their phone and they will hang up on you. You’ll walk into their store and they’ll let you get three steps in the door before explicitly declaring their disinterest.
If you know they can benefit, then you have to forge onward. Keep displaying value and stay laser-focused on the benefits. Benefits will eventually assuage resentment and lead you to the sale. This doesn’t mean just sending a bunch of emails every week. That is the work of a lazy coward and you will stay stuck in the resentment phase forever and tarnish the name of your company by causing prospects to associate their name with junk mail.
You have to rely on calculated phone and face time.
Respect – This is the payoff. You have done a stellar job, you’ve prevailed in the face of adversity. You continued to get back up every time you got knocked down. The best way to get from resentment to respect is through a bit of humor and period of distance. Since you pitched so many times that they’ve come to find you bothersome, you’ve accomplished something already—they remember who you are. As long as you have kept the wellbeing of the prospect in mind, then they will come around if your product is a good for fit for them.
Over and over again, employees on my sales floor reach out 10 or more times, and end up getting a sale from a prospect that most would’ve considered a lost cause. They make it to the fourth stage, and the client always comments on how much they admire the follow up. They’re nearly shocked by it, because that tenacity is an indication of our commitment, and now we get to display that commitment through our service now that we have them as a client.
