How do you stay sharp?
Me? I work the phones. How fun is that!
Well, actually, not much fun at all. Seth Godin is both brilliant and a bozo (like most of us)... he is 100% right when he claims that "interruption selling" doesn't work. He is wrong when he decries the death of traditional book publishing. But I digress...
Yesterday, I happened on this interesting company in Canton, Ohio and so a little research produced very little intel. So more research was in order. A few more interesting facts came to life. So I crafted an email, fired it off promising a call today, and sure enough when I called, the lead responded in short order, "I am not interested in any of that."
So, what is the take away?
Basically, although this company is a lead (a company within my target both geographically and as a business type I have experience with) it is not a suspect. In other words, I could not get permission to share my vision for their breakthrough.
If you did not know, without permission, you cannot and should not proceed to "chase" the lead.
Now what?
I hate to give up. Almost as much as I hate to loose. So, after investing about 20 minutes on researching this lead and about 30 seconds on the phone learning that I was basically an interruption, I have a decision to make. In all honesty a very easy decision if I frame it properly.
"In what ways might I leverage this experience?"
Or as Zig Ziglar or Ron Finklestein might ask, "How might this experience take me closer to my goals?" I would suggest yet another possible query: Is this a left turn? Tell me that you remember that great post from a year ago: Avoid the Left Turn?
The short answer is this: as they are not in LinkedIn and therefore, of limited value as a reference for me, so I will not pursue them, the competition, or the supply chain that feeds the company. I have a personal goal of making at least four sales presentations a day to qualified prospects, and this lead has quickly shown me that a lot of time, too much time, would be required to properly frame my offering.
The bottom line: I need to work on better qualification of leads. I just knew this guy wasn't a Jerome for a number of reasons, but still, I had to pick up the phone. In sales, fear of that phone will kill your career quicker than you can say, "All sales are final!"
That insight is worth every second that I invested. Next?
-ski
©2010 Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
I am not interested in any of that
How do you stay sharp?
Me? I work the phones. How fun is that!
Well, actually, not much fun at all. Seth Godin is both brilliant and a bozo (like most of us)... he is 100% right when he claims that "interruption selling" doesn't work. He is wrong when he decries the death of traditional book publishing. But I digress...
Yesterday, I happened on this interesting company in Canton, Ohio and so a little research produced very little intel. So more research was in order. A few more interesting facts came to life. So I crafted an email, fired it off promising a call today, and sure enough when I called, the lead responded in short order, "I am not interested in any of that."
So, what is the take away?
Basically, although this company is a lead (a company within my target both geographically and as a business type I have experience with) it is not a suspect. In other words, I could not get permission to share my vision for their breakthrough.
If you did not know, without permission, you cannot and should not proceed to "chase" the lead.
Now what?
I hate to give up. Almost as much as I hate to loose. So, after investing about 20 minutes on researching this lead and about 30 seconds on the phone learning that I was basically an interruption, I have a decision to make. In all honesty a very easy decision if I frame it properly.
"In what ways might I leverage this experience?"
Or as Zig Ziglar or Ron Finklestein might ask, "How might this experience take me closer to my goals?" I would suggest yet another possible query: Is this a left turn? Tell me that you remember that great post from a year ago: Avoid the Left Turn?
The short answer is this: as they are not in LinkedIn and therefore, of limited value as a reference for me, so I will not pursue them, the competition, or the supply chain that feeds the company. I have a personal goal of making at least four sales presentations a day to qualified prospects, and this lead has quickly shown me that a lot of time, too much time, would be required to properly frame my offering.
The bottom line: I need to work on better qualification of leads. I just knew this guy wasn't a Jerome for a number of reasons, but still, I had to pick up the phone. In sales, fear of that phone will kill your career quicker than you can say, "All sales are final!"
That insight is worth every second that I invested. Next?
-ski
©2010 Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey. All rights reserved.
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