Jeb Blount: Fanatical Prospecting

Superstar salespeople prospect day and night.

In sales, there are three things you control:

Your actions
Your reactions
Your Mindset

Keep your energy focused on the things you can control.

Developing a fanatical prospecting mindset starts with coming to grips with the fact that prospecting is hard, grueling, rejection-dense work.

There is no sugarcoating it. Prospecting sucks.

Jim Rohn once said that you shouldn't wish that things were easier; you should wish that you were better.

Mindset

Optimistic and enthusiastic—today will be a good day.
Competitive—let’s win.
Confident—you are the best with the best product.
Relentless—you will do whatever it takes to achieve your goal.
Thirsty for knowledge—seek out feedback and coaching. Read books and watch videos.
Systematic and efficient—block out your time, avoid distractions, create processes
Adaptive and flexible—adopt new ideas, fine-tune your approach to your current situation, be an early adopter of new methods

Cold calling is interrupting prospects. They are not expecting you to contact them, but you must.

Remember that you can’t control their response. And call them.

Your prospect's initial reaction to being interrupted—usually a brush-off or reflex response in a not-so-friendly tone of voice—feels like rejection.

The thing that makes prospecting so hard is you are interrupting someone's day and that interruption creates immediate resistance and, sometimes, not-so-pleasant responses from your prospect. Words and how you use those words—no matter which prospecting channel you are leveraging—can either increase the severity of that reaction and subsequent rejection or reduce resistance, break down emotional walls, and improve the probability that qualified prospects will respond positively to your request for their time.

Prospects are not going to give their time for a features dump.

You have to bring them value.

Prospects meet with you for their reasons, not yours. You must articulate the value of spending time with you in the context of what is most important to them. Your message must demonstrate a sincere interest in listening to them, learning about them, and solving their unique problems. This is how you break down initial resistance

A prospecting message is very simple, you are asking for them to give you one thing: their time.

Prospects give up their time for their reasons, not yours.

-be quick and get right to the point so you could get back to your day.

-be clear and transparent about their intentions—to tell you want they wanted.

-the interruption should be relevant to their situation, problems, or issues.

There are three key parts to a winning VP:

Focuses on a business objective that is measured: You'll get their attention when you focus on a metric that impacts their performance.
Disrupts status quo: The status quo is powerful. People abhor change and will only move from the status quo when they feel they can significantly improve their current situation—increase sales, reduce costs, improve efficiency, reduce stress (*I want to free up your time for more important responsibilities…), and so on.
Offers proof or evidence: When you can provide information about how much you have helped

Another option is a two part:

Your prospects issues
Your offerings that address these issues

I understand XYZ, I want to hop on a 5 minute call with you because I can solve that problem….”

You’ll probably be looking to get one of these 3 things:

Are you attempting to get more information to further qualify the opportunity, decision-maker role, or buying window?
Do you want to set up an initial meeting?
Are you seeking an introduction to another person?

Define objective, then find a bridge. What is the because that ties their problem to that ask? Can be a) specific to their company from research online/social media or b) general based off industry/vertical trends.

Frustration. Anxiety. Stress. Fear. Peace of mind.

What do these words have in common? They describe emotions. Emotional words demonstrate empathy and connect with how your prospect is feeling. The real secret to crafting prospecting messages that convert into meetings, information, or sales is staring with a simple but powerful premise:

People make decisions based on emotion first and then justify with logic.

3 types of value you can offer:

Emotional value: You connect directly with them at the emotional level—typically by relating to painful emotions like stress, worry, insecurity, distrust, anxiety, fear, frustration, or anger and offering them peace of mind, security, options, lower stress, less worry, or hope.
Insight (curiosity) value: You offer information that gives them power or leverage over other people. Most prospects worry about maintaining their competitive edge—either as a company or an individual. They're anxious that there may be something in the marketplace that they are not privy to. Unknowns are disconcerting—especially if a competitor has a best practice, information, system, or process that they don't.
Tangible (logic) value: Executives and contacts in technical and data-centric roles will value data and case studies. How much, how many, and what results can you deliver, have you delivered, will you deliver—specific to their unique situation?

On the flip side, if you work for a well-known brand and are meeting with small business owners who regularly use products like yours, asking for a few minutes to “learn more about their business” can work like a charm.

For example: “I'm helping several restaurants in town with significant savings on supplies. I thought we could meet so I can spend time learning about you and your restaurant to see if what we offer might be a fit.”

Ex.2 “I’d like 15 minutes of your time because I’d like to learn more about you and your company.”

One of the commonalities that I observe among top salespeople and fanatical prospectors across all market segments—inside and outside—is manual tracking of activity. They each have their own style and means of tracking their numbers, but the one thing they all know is exactly where they stand.

Prospecting blocks should be scheduled or “blocked” on your calendar like any other commitment. They are appointments with yourself.

Ideally, do 3 golden hours, morning, midday, afternoon, where you bang out calls.

Then and before, have a platinum hour for:

Building prospecting lists

Research

Precall planning

Developing proposals and presentations

Creating contracts and getting approval

Social selling activities

E-mail prospecting

Prospect research and call objective planning

Planning and organization

Administration and reports

Responding to e-mail

Calendar management

CRM management

The objective is the primary outcome you expect from your prospecting touch. There are four core prospective objectives:

Set an appointment.
Gather information and qualify.
Close a sale.
Build familiarity.

If you are selling a complex, high-risk, high-cost product or service, your primary objective will most often be an appointment with a qualified decision maker, influencer, or other stakeholder who can help you move the deal forward. Your secondary objective will be to gather information. Your tertiary objective will be to build familiarity.

If you have a highly qualified database of prospects in your CRM, the primary objective of most of your prospecting calls will be setting appointments as the buying window opens to start the sales process. The secondary objective will be building familiarity to increase the probability that your prospect will engage when the buying window opens.

Each day salespeople waste time, energy, and emotion swinging at ugly deals. Deals that are unprofitable, unqualified, not in the buying window, don't have a budget, don't have an identified decision maker, or because of contracts don't have the ability to buy.

It begins with gathering information during prospecting. While setting an appointment is your primary objective with prospects you have already prequalified as potential buyers, gathering information is your primary objective with prospects you have not qualified

You will want to:

Set appointments with the prospects that are highly qualified and/or in the buying window
Nurture the prospects that you've qualified but are not in the buying window
Gather information on the prospects for which you have some or no data so you can qualify their potential and learn their buying windows
Eliminate the prospect records that are bogus, out of business, too small, too big, or will never be buyers

Far too many companies (especially start-ups and small businesses), sales organizations, and sales professionals fail to develop a profile of a qualified prospect. This includes the optimal time for engaging the prospect prior to the opening of the buying window

If you work for a small company or start-up, start by analyzing your product and service delivery strengths and weaknesses. Look for patterns and commonalities among your best customers. Analyze the deals you are closing and gain a deeper understanding of trigger events that open buying windows. Based on the information you know, gauge how soon you need to engage prior to the buying window opening. Uncover common buyer roles. Then develop a profile of the prospect that is most likely to do business with you and, over the long-term, be a profitable, happy customer.

Once you have developed the profile of your ideal customer, you can develop the questions you'll need to qualify your prospects and identify the best opportunities.

Salespeople who struggle with prospecting view their prospecting database as a square.

They are all the same, start with zip code and get to dialing.

You want to view your prospect list as a pyramid, prioritized by most likely to buy.

At the bottom of the pyramid are the thousands of prospects they know little about other than a company name and perhaps some contact information. They don't know if the information about the prospect is correct (and there is a good chance that it isn't).

Action: The goal with these prospects is to move them up the pyramid by gathering information to correct and confirm data, fill in the missing pieces, and begin the qualifying process.

Higher up the pyramid, the information improves. There is solid contact information, including e-mail addresses. There may be information on competitors, product or service usage numbers, the size of the budget, and other demographic information. There may also be contact information for decision makers and influencers.

Action: The goal with these prospects is to identify the buying window and all potential stakeholders.

Moving higher up, potential buying windows have been identified. There are complete contact records for decision makers and influencers, including social profiles.

Action: Your focus at this level is to implement nurturing campaigns to stay in front of confirmed decision makers in anticipation of an identified future buying window.

Further up are conquest prospects. This is a highly targeted list of the best or largest opportunities in your territory. There will be a limited number: 10, 25, 50, 100.

Action: The focus for conquest prospects includes nurturing and regular touches, stakeholder identification, buying window qualifying, monitoring for trigger events, and building familiarity.

Closer to the top are hot inbound leads and referrals.

Action: These prospects require immediate follow-up to qualify and/or move them into the pipeline.

At the tip-top are highly qualified prospects who are moving into the buying window due to an immediate need “ contract expiration, trigger event, or budgetary period.

Action: These are your highest-priority prospects and should be on the top of your daily prospecting list. The goals is to move them into the pipe.

Being a more efficient and effective prospector begins and ends with an organized, targeted prospecting list.

Building effective and robust prospecting lists requires consistent effort and discipline, which is why salespeople don't do it. It's so much easier to open up the CRM and just start calling the first prospect record you find.

Lists should be constructed based on the following filters (or other methodologies depending on your unique situation). Use these elements in combination to structure your prospecting lists for maximum impact.

Prospecting objective: set an appointment, gather information, close the sale, build familiarity

Prospecting channel: phone, e-mail, social, text, in person, networking

Qualification level: highest qualified at the top of the list—least qualified at the bottom of the list

Potential: largest opportunities at the top of the list—lowest potential at the bottom of the list

Probability: highest potential probability to achieve your objective at the top of the list—lowest probability at the bottom of the list

Territory plan: day of week, postal code, street, geographic grid, city

Inbound leads

Conquest prospects

Decision maker/stakeholder role

Industry or market vertical

Customers that purchase a specific type of product or service

Seasonal customers

Inactive customers

Leads from a recent trade show or conference

Own your CRM -

Take notes after calls
Put new leads in the system that you’ve gathered
Learn the CRM’s tools and options

There are two infant ways to familiarity: introductions and referrals.

Introductions is an interesting strategy, you can have their boss send them a note that they have to speak with you.

The real secret to generating referrals is:

A - Give a legendary customer experience.

B - Ask.

It's relatively easy, low key, and low risk to ask a happy client for a referral. It goes like this:

“Patricia, thank you again for your business. I'm glad to hear you are happy with us. I'm working hard to add more customers like you. Would you be able to introduce me to other people in your network who might want to use our product?

Branding:

There is, however, a personal branding methodology that is so little used, I consider it a secret weapon in the war for familiarity. It has an extraordinary track record for producing results and creates instant familiarity, credibility, and leads.

The secret: Speak in public, regularly.

Public speaking is a powerful method for meeting people and developing business relationships because it creates an environment where prospects seek you out.

You can easily get speaking gigs. Organizations like the chamber of commerce, Rotary Club, trade organizations, and other business and civic groups are always in need of guest speakers.

If you attend trade shows and association meetings, just call the meeting planners and tell them you would like to be a speaker or deliver a workshop. These folks are on the lookout for subject matter experts to add value to their programs.

Cold Call anatomy:

Get their attention by using their name: “Hi, Julie.”

Identify yourself: “My name is Jeb Blount and I'm with Sales Gravy.”

Tell them why you are calling: “The reason I'm calling is to set up an appointment with you.”

Bridge—give them a because: “I just read an article online that said your company is going to add 200 new sales positions over the next year. Several companies in your industry are already using Sales Gravy exclusively for sourcing sales candidates and they are very happy with the results we are delivering.”

Ask for what you want, and shut up: “I thought the best place to start is to schedule a short meeting to learn about your sales recruiting challenges and goals. How about we meet Wednesday afternoon around 3:00 PM?

“Hi, Corrina, this is Jeb Blount from AcmeSoft. The reason I'm calling is you downloaded our white paper on creating more effective landing pages for lead generation and I'm interested to learn what triggered your interest. I work with a number of marketing executives who've been struggling to bring in enough quality leads to meet their growth objectives, and I've got a few best practices that my clients are using to generate more and better leads that I'll be happy to share with you. Can you tell me more about your situation?”

Good bridges to include after because:

Use phrases and emotional words like:
Learn more about you and your business
Share some insights that have helped my other clients
Share some best practices that other companies in your industry are using to…
Gain an understanding of your unique situation
See how we might fit
Flexibility
Options
“Peace of mind
Save
Frustrated
Concerned
Stressed
Waste
Time
Money

Handling Objections:

Prospect: “Look, Jeb, I'm busy.”

“Nancy, that's exactly why I called.” (Anchor)

“I figured you would be, so I want to find a time that is more convenient for you.” (Distrust)

“How about we get together next Wednesday at 3:00 PM instead?” (Ask)

“We're not interested.”

“You know, that is what a lot of my current clients said the first time I called.” (Anchor)

“Most people say they aren't interested before they see how much I can save them. I don't know if my service will be a good fit for you and your company, but doesn't it make sense for us to at least get together for a short meeting to find out?” (Disrupt)

“How about Friday at 2:00 PM? (Ask)”

“Prospect: “We're really happy with our current provider.”

“That's fantastic!” (Anchor)

“Anytime you are getting great rates and great service, you should never think about changing. All I want to do is come by and get to know you a little better. And even if it doesn't make sense to do business with me at the moment, I can at least give you a competitive quote that will help you keep those other guys honest.” (Disrupt)

“How about I come by on Tuesday at 11:30 AM?” (Ask)

Don’t dwell on rejection or personal slights.

Over the years I've developed a simple trigger designed to shake me out of my self-pity when I've been slighted or find myself astride a dead horse. Behind my desk is an old index card taped to the wall. The paper has yellowed and the words faded just a bit because I've carried that card around with me for 25 years. On the card are four letters:

Very interesting:

Use please, please. In his book The Real Secrets of the Top 20 Percent, the author, Mike Brooks, advises that the “single most powerful technique” to get past gatekeepers is to use please twice. For example, when a gatekeeper answers the phone you might say, “Hi, this is Chris Gillaspy from Reality AI. Would you please connect me to Mike Brooks, please?

Use a four-step framework to craft your e-mail:

Hook: Get their attention with a compelling subject line and opening sentence/statement.

Relate: Demonstrate that you get them and their problem. Show empathy and authenticity.

Bridge: Connect the dots between their problem and how you can help them. Explain the WIIFM.

Ask: Be clear and straightforward about the action you want them to take, and make it easy for them to do so.

Cold email example - Subject: COO—The Toughest Job in the Bank

Lawrence,

Ernst & Young recently reported that the COO has the toughest role in the C-suite. The COOs I work with tell me that the increasing complexity of the banking environment has made their job harder and more stressful than ever.

My team and I help COOs like you reduce complexity and stress with strategies to optimize growth and profit, mitigate credit risk, allocate resources effectively, and minimize regulatory surprises.

While I don't know if we are a good fit for your bank, why don't we schedule a short call to help me learn more about your unique challenges? From there we can decide if it makes sense to set up a deeper conversation.

How about next Thursday at 3:00 PM?

Dave Adair

Senior Account Executive

Interesting and this is true: never use “Hi” or “Hello” or “Dear” or any other salutation in front of your prospect's name. No one in business does that except salespeople. It’s not “Hi Jeb, …” It’s “Jeb, …”

Wow - “Gandhi said, “We should live as if we will die tomorrow and learn as if we will live forever.”

I don't remember where I found the eleven words that changed my sales career. What I do remember is the words resonated with me instantly:

When it is time to go home, make one more call.

I wrote the sentence on an index card and taped it over my desk.