Thursday's Thoughts - It's gonna be a No from me, Dawg

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This week's Thursday's Thought - It's gonna be a "No" from me, dawg. That's obviously a quote from Randy when he was hosting American Idol, which is a show I honestly never really watched whatsoever, but the quote can obviously apply to the Sales world as well. In today's post, I'm going to dive into 3 reasons why I wouldn't want to pursue getting any additional information from a cold call or email, and I'm going to pair each with a subtle, easy change that would turn my "No" to a "Yes".

First, the context - I've been in positions with companies where I used to get random cold calls and emails, which really had me start looking at my own tactics and how effective they really were. Back when I started Sales, I thought metrics were king, meaning that if I blasted 500 people with the same email, there's no way I could fail! I was in an environment that celebrated metrics more than results, so being able to mass blast 500 people or cold call 100 people in a day was basically a version of success, even if it didn't translate to a single sale. A few years later, I keep thinking back on that experience and wondering how much I could've blown some numbers out of the water if I knew what I did now! But that's just how life works, and it leads to one of my favorite quotes of all time from Soren Kierkegaard:

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Basketball wisdom - Shooters gotta shoot

So, no use regretting anything from the past. The only obvious action is to keep learning from every experience and to keep getting better as I move forward! Now I'm in a position where I get cold calls and emails targeted towards me because of my position as a Founder/CEO/whatever you want to call me, and these cold calls/emails are all over the place from all kinds of people trying to sell me their solutions. That's not at all a problem, because I understand the Sales/SDR game where shooters gotta shoot, but I also see so many things that turn me away from wanting to learn more about your pitch, your product, your company, or maybe worse - you!

With that being the context for where these are coming from, here are the top 3 reasons why I'm not going to want to learn more about whatever you're selling:

But first! The caveat - This is intended to be a helpful article, not a way to call out people for the way that they call, email, prospect, etc. I'm hoping that hearing this can help, because I didn't get this helpful input from people when I was prospecting, so I didn't have a lot of information to help me change my game when I needed it. Also, these are all from my personal experience! If this doesn't match what you think, what you're taught, or what others say, perfect! The goal is to add another voice, not echo what others are saying.

Now, back to the action:

You don't know anything about me

This is obviously the first one for me, because it's difficult to move forward in a conversation with someone who doesn't know anything about you personally. It's like a blind date, but they haven't even looked at your profile, they haven't asked about you in any way, and they haven't done any work to see if the date even made sense in the first place. Worst than that, you can tell they're on the blind date for reasons that only fulfill their needs/desires and have nothing to do with you whatsoever. Why is this so bad?

1. If they know nothing about you, they have no idea what's on your mind, and therefore the odds are slim that they're actually talking about a product that will solve any of my business goals/main focal points to advance my business

2. There's a high probability that because they don't know (or care) anything about you, you're not going to get high quality service. You're just a number that helps them meet their goals

3. If you don't know who I am or what I do, how can you help me with my vision? Answer - you can't.

Decision-makers of any level would much rather engage in a conversation that will actually help them address their major concerns and help them reach their team/business goals, so if you're not starting by showing them you know at least something about them, you're not setting a strong foundation for fostering that relationship and gaining the rapport that makes them want to listen to you. Wow, that was a mouthful! But it's 100% accurate for me and quite a few other high-level decision-makers that I talk to on a regular basis.

So what can that look like? Here are a few lines that show me you don't know anything about me, and a few minor changes you can make to show you do:

1. "I think it's great what you're doing!" - If you don't name what I'm doing, I'm not going to assume you know what I'm doing. This is (or at least comes across as) a generic statement you can use to mass blast emails to random prospects. Fix this by at least stating the vision for my business or referencing at least one of my solutions

2. "I work with so many people like yourself" - I can guarantee you don't, because nobody perfectly shares the same things on my mind and my same goals. Instead, fix this by using a reference to someone in my connection network, someone with the same job title in my vertical, or possibly cut it out entirely. I personally don't care if you helped someone similar to me if you can't tell me what you're hoping to do to help me!

3. "I think this would make sense" or "I think this product would help you" or any other version of "I think" when pitching your product - That's cool, but that's about you, not me. I want to work with people who want to get my input, and learn my vantage point, so they can tell me if their product would help me or not. Fix this by having more "you" statements than "I" statements. Again, your prospecting isn't about you, it's about the potential client

Someone getting to know me, stock photo style

The major point here is that if I can tell that your email is more about you than it is about me, or that you don't know anything about me, I'm not very inclined to give you anymore of my time with a call or a meeting. I say "anymore" because you need to take into account I just gave you X amount of minutes to read your email in the first place. Give me a reason and let me know that I'm valued in some way, and there's a much higher chance I'll react to your cold outreach by giving you more of my time, which is my most precious resource.

You don't know anything about my business

This goes hand-in-hand with the first point, but even more so, because you're trying to sell me a product and a service that won't just make my life easier. You're trying to sell me something that's going to improve my business and generate more revenue for my business. If you're not trying to do that, what the heck are you doing contacting me as a salesperson/BDR? That's just networking, and I'm 100% on-board with that...as long as you don't just try to sell me stuff afterwards.

So why is it so bad if you can't show me you know anything about my business?

1. If you don't know about my business, then you don't know my vertical, so why should I trust you to tell me what will help me succeed in my vertical?

2. If you don't know anything about my business, you probably don't know what's important to me, but more importantly, you don't know what my clients are thinking, so how can you help me gain more clients if you don't know that?

3. If you don't know anything about my business, how do you know your product will help? Are you just guessing it's because it can help everyone? Because if you are, you must have so many clients you can't even keep up. One of (if not THE) biggest companies right now is Amazon, and their services don't apply for me, so assuming yours is right for everyone is an odd assumption

Trust is indispensable, and most people won't buy from someone they don't trust. They may not need to trust you 100% as a person, but most decision-makers need to at least trust your product, and trust that you're a valuable resource of information for them. If they can't trust that from you, you've failed to build rapport with your potential client, and you've cut your chances of closing that sale down tremendously. I don't buy anything from someone I don't trust for my business, because my business is precious. I don't have the time to waste on products that don't help, but I treat my business like my own child, and I'm not going to let anyone affect the health of my child if I don't trust them. Would you trust your own kids with someone you know doesn't care for kids or someone you can't trust? Absolutely not!

Here are some phrases that show me you don't know anything about my business, and a couple quick ideas for how to fix them:

1. "I work with businesses like yours" - This is like #1 from the first list. It's a generic term that almost immediately tells me that if we were on the phone, you probably couldn't tell me my own vertical. Fix this by stating my vertical or stating the actual type of business I run. "I work with other companies looking to maximize employee engagement and efficiency" sounds a heck of a lot better than "I work with businesses like yours"

2. "I work with other businesses in the area" - This one might be even worse, because you didn't even attempt to name my vertical or business area. Company solutions don't go by area. Just because a bank .1 miles away uses your service means absolutely nothing for mine. Fix this by...honestly I wouldn't even use this approach. If you're not able to tell me my own business, I know you can't help me grow it

3. "Other businesses in your vertical love our service/product" - Yes, I've gotten this before, and no it doesn't work better, even if it might sound a bit better. Again, name my vertical, but even if you do, how does that apply to me? I'm not them. Fix this by making the email about me, not about others you work with. Make it personal to me and my business

The major point here is much like the first section - If you don't know anything about my business, why should I trust you to tell me what products/services I should use to grow my business? Without that trust factor, you're damaging the initial relationship with your potential clients, and you're not proving yourself to be a professional voice in your own vertical, let alone mine. Make sure you're mentioning not only who I am, but what my business aims to do.

You ask for too much right off the bat

Everyone's most precious resource is their time. You can't get any of your time back, and especially as a business owner or a leader of a team (or teams), you can't afford to fill your day with activities that provide no ROI. If you're asking me to jump on a 30-minute or 45-minute demo call for your product from your initial outreach, you're probably not going to get a response from me no matter how well your email is crafted and tailored to my background, my goals, and my business. I just don't have that amount of time to throw around!

Instead of a list of phrases for this section, I'm just going to throw out the "call to action" items that I get in emails and calls that I'm not willing to do no matter how good your email or voicemail is:

1. First of all, I should say that I'm not going to call you or email you back if you don't prove you have value for my business. And yes, I mean YOU, not just your product.

2. Also, I'm not going to call you at the times you tell me to. For those who say "You can reach me between 3-5pm est at #", I'm not available during those times most of the time, and assuming I am is a bit odd to hear

3. I'm also not going to give you 30-45 minutes for a demo. I don't really know you, your product, or have any reason to believe it can help me/my business. You haven't built up that trust/rapport yet, so I can't trust you with my time, especially knowing someone else is likely going to run that demo for you, like an SE.

4. I'm not going to call you...yet. Now this one is tough for salespeople and BDRs, so hear me out real quick - I'm going to visit your website or send you an email first. I'm not available 24/7 for calls, so I'm not going to assume you are either, as that would be unfair. I'm going to email you to set something up, but first thing's first, I'm going to check out your website to see if even that's worth my time.

I think where a lot of Account Managers, Account Executives, SDRs and/or BDRs fail early on is that they ask for too much. I am 100% on-board with you including a call to action with every cold touch. Absolutely 100% okay with that, and you should be doing that if you're not already, but your call to action should make sense for the level of the relationship you're at with me. If I've never heard from you, keep it simple. Ask me to visit your website for more information, or to read a white paper you've attached. If I've heard from you before, ask me to email you back with a time for an intro call (5-10 minutes). If we've spoken, maybe ask if a demo would make sense, and keep it open for not only my rejection if I need to, but my input, because that can help you narrow down what value you may want to add to get me to the next step of your sales funnel.

Cold calling/cold emails aren't easy. They're difficult, and they should be, because you're trying to get complete strangers to give up their most precious resource (time) to someone they've never met, and hope that the ROI is worth it, which isn't a given. I can guarantee that if you prove immediately that you don't know anything about me or my business, then you're likely going to get a "No" from me. Likewise, if you're asking for way too much with way too little rapport built, you're also likely to get a "No", even if your product seems legit perfect for me from your perspective.

To get better at prospecting, make sure you're always taking time to put yourself in the shoes of the person you're reaching out to, and I suggest the following:

1. Know at least a small something about them AND their business

2. Personalize your emails and calls so they know you're not just mail-merging them, even if you are

3. Make sure you're writing clean and concise, and avoid spelling errors. I'm not ever responding to an email with obvious errors

4. Cut out the generic phrases. It's super obvious that you either know nothing about me, or you've loaded me in a list with 499 other recipients in a "spray and pray" method

5. End with the correct call to action based on the level of rapport you've built

I hope this tips from "the other side" can prove helpful for my fellow Account Managers, Account Executives, SDRs, and BDRs out there, as well as any TAMs, NAMs, GAMs, or some other kind of AM. Again, the goal is to help with some perspective and add to the conversation. Our goal here at SweetHart Entertainment is to provide value and help build the skills of those around us, which we hope to echo through our blog posts and our Soft Skill Seminars.

These topics and more are actually covered in our From Sale to Sales seminar, which is uniquely geared to sales professionals to help them to build deeper connections with clients and close more sales. If you're interested in this for you and/or your team, contact us at sweethartentertainment@gmail.com!