The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

If you try and engage me with a serious conversation via email, you will almost always find me walking to your office or calling you on the phone. Verbal communication is usually the best form of communication for people who meet other people for a living. To people like us, we only prefer written text when confirming dates or answering 'yes' or 'no' questions. Surely, most salespeople are more effective when they have a face-to-face opportunity than when they depend on their writing abilities.

Nevertheless, we need email to help us breakthrough to people that we don’t know in order to get a face-to-face call. While I was at INBOUND18 in Boston this year, I made a point to attend presentations on how video can help me stand out with email prospecting and capabilities.

Video has become so prevalent that it is now practical to use on a daily basis and reps that use video in prospecting, relationship-building, and sales emails see 5x higher open rates and 8x higher open-to-reply rates. It works because it has a higher attention factor and is more personable to your prospect. So, video can also make you a better communicator. 

There are three reasons that now is the time to start practicing your video skills and implementing video into your sales strategy to improve sales results:

"No. No, no, no. No!" Have you ever had someone tell you "No" before? Whether you're a sales manager coaching your sales team to success, or a salesperson eager to reach your goals, you've more than likely been told "No." BUT... that doesn't mean it's over. It just became a challenge. Are you ready to take on that challenge?

The next time you present a proposal and hear “No,” try some of these tactics designed to change the outcome. 

Early in my sales career, I got a call from a veteran Account Executive across the hall. He worked for one of our other properties and saw that I was working with a prospect he was calling on. He wanted to set up a joint sales call. I was skeptical, since I'd recently met with that prospect, and the manager made it abundantly clear that he had already placed his budget for the year, and he was not open to new ideas.

Getting that first appointment with a new business prospect is difficult because most sellers do not take the time to establish trust and create value in the mind of the prospect.

Unknown salespeople do not have the best reputation in the minds of new business prospects because of the less than honest actions of some sellers. An essential element to overcoming this hurdle is establishing trust and creating value—one way to do this is to think like an owner. 

What came first, the chicken or the egg?
No doubt you have heard this question. No doubt the debate continues.

Here’s is the chicken-and-egg version as it relates to sales:
What leads to more cash, more appointments, or more assignments from set appointments?

Technology has disrupted the traditional techniques we have used to approach prospects. Today, the most successful developers of new business have a smart and focused prospecting strategy.  They concentrate their efforts on a disciplined strategy that provides more appointments and more revenue. 

The shotgun approach of yesteryear is dead. Before technology disrupted our approach, we could sit down and call 100 prospects and get ten appointments. Any mention of not having enough appointments was met by your manager with “This is a numbers game! Sit down with the phone and don’t quit calling until you get ten appointments.”  Today that strategy is total folly. 

IMAGINE THIS: After countless attempts to connect with a prospect, your persistence has paid off. You did it! You've got the meeting on the calendar, you are feeling great! Now, you have one chance to make a great first impression, and it needs to count. Luckily, you have a few days to prepare so you can ensure the meeting runs smoothly and the prospect views you as a trusted and valued partner.

While it’s important to prepare yourself for the meeting, you also want to prepare the prospect. This is one thing that salespeople often overlook prior to a meeting. Most prospects are going to expect you to come in and tell them why they need to buy your product or service. It’s up to you to go out of your way to be sure they know you are different and you are not going to do that. Don't just prepare yourself... also prepare your prospect.

Have you ever come back to your office after a solid Needs Analysis meeting and shared the exciting news with your manager? As you sit down to recap, your manager starts to ask you questions about the prospect, and you realize you can’t answer them. Critical information that you need was never even discussed. The assignment that you uncovered and thought was strong is actually vague, and you begin to understand clearly that you are missing key pieces of information. You start to deflate as you realize this meeting wasn’t as good as you thought after all.

GOOD NEWS: 80% of professionals prefer to use email for business communication. 
BAD NEWS: With over 269 Billion emails sent every day, there's a lot of fierce competition flooding your prospects' inboxes.

So how can you, the stealthy salesperson, craft a genius prospecting email that warrants a response? 

 "My sellers do not go on enough sales calls."

- Every Sales Manager

I hear this all the time from sales managers. I also hear a similar version from sellers: 

“I could sell more if I had more quality appointments.”

 - Almost Every Seller

Imagine if every seller had one additional call per week, every week of the year. That’s roughly 50 additional appointments per year.