A
newsletter article by
Steve Martinez
Where the Selling Process is working
The Curse of Cold
Calling – The Sales Managers Lie
By Steve Martinez
When my sales manager said “sales is a numbers game”, I should have
beaten him with the lie then and there. Unfortunately, my first sale
came directly from a cold call and I was convinced that cold calling
worked. It only took one hint at success for me to believe in cold
calling. You could say that I was cursed for the next few months and
became a victim. Many of the old sales books fed my appetite for more
sales calls and longer hours. Unfortunately for me, I’m not a math
genius and couldn’t see the flaw in the formula. Perhaps there are
industries where cold calling works. I just wasn’t in one.
My sales manager was right, “the more cold calls I made the more sales
I made”. However, I was fighting a losing battle with time. There
simply weren’t enough hours in the day to meet my sales goals.
Fortunately, I began examining the sales numbers and noticed a more
important equation in sales.
Revealing the Truth of Sales Ratios
My sales numbers began to reveal my sales ratios and a pattern of
success. The activity numbers indicated that certain markets and
businesses produced substantial sales. These sales trends jumped out
as a pattern I wanted to duplicate. My interest in what was working
shifted my attention to monitoring the success ratios of my
activities.
WOW, my sales manager was right! However, the truth is - the sales
ratios are the numbers we must evaluate. Discovering the relevance of
sales ratios and sales activities was the break through I was looking
for. Once I learned the value and benefits of profiling sales ratios,
cold calling didn’t make sense. Why should I follow the less effective
random cold calling method when a more efficient formula produced
greater results?
It was like turning on the light of truth to the dark world of sales.
Instead of cold calling, I focused like a laser on prospects that
matched a specific profile increasing my success ratio. If I was going
to make sales calls, I would make them on prime prospects.
The Better Way to Prospect for
Customers
If you watch the television program Numbers, you know how the
characters define profiles and patterns to find the right prospect or
suspect. It is the same in sales and all the evidence is at our finger
tips. Once we identify the clues of a prospect by the patterns of
existing customers, we know where to find new prospects. Instead of
random cold calling, we can focus on prime suspects for our business.
To understand and determine your ratios for success, just ask yourself
what percentage of existing customers have X? Your answers will reveal
the important ratios. From this exercise you will identify a success
pattern to duplicate in your prospects.
• What percentage of customers have X number of employees or members?
• What percentage of customers have X annual sales or income?
• What percentage of customers are in X industry or category?
• What percentages of customers are located in X?
• What percentages of customers have purchased X in X months or years?
This gets you started in determining your success ratios and stops the
time wasted activity of random cold calling. As you add new ratios to
this list, you will multiply your sales results. The great thing about
using ratios is that once you identify the success pattern, there is
industry information which will narrow your prospecting search down to
who, where, when and how to contact them. Good Selling!
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