A sales cold call...90% research?

I've been fortunate enough to work in a few different industries, although slightly less fortunate that one of those industries happened to be estate agency (please don't stop reading, I'm not one anymore!). It seems that all the jobs so far have had one thing in common, one constant. Someone, early on in your role will sit you down and say 'you'll pick it up, it's just about doing your research.'

I would love to hear of a profession where the boss would enter the office on Monday morning and say 'for the love of God guys, no one do any research!' because I simply don't think it exists. Research is the backbone of any industry, of any business, of any success story. In a past life I learnt how to write feature length film scripts. We were taught that the project consisted of 90% research and 10% writing. If you don't know what you're writing about, how can you possibly bring a script truly to life?

I'm pretty certain a similar percentage applies to a cold call. One of the keys to doing research in scripts was to bring characters to life, develop their backgrounds, and establish their underlying needs and desires. The same can be said for a cold call. If you jump in and start the story without knowing what your character wants the script's going no where. To bring context to a call you need to figure out why you're calling. If the character's (customer's) desire is to have your product then why? What are they getting out of it?

Research is fundamental in success, across all industries. As my teacher used to say, 'if you can set up an intriguing back story, the plot just comes naturally.' Translated into sales terms, 'know why you're calling, and the sale will flow much smoother.'

Soul Searching

The hunter becomes the hunted

This morning I was confronted by one of the many horrors of waking up. Having just about recovered the ability to stumble in a straight line I opened the fridge door to discover an empty bottle of milk. Now to some this could sound like making a mountain out of a mole hill, but discovering empty milk is always the first sign of a horrendous day.

Marching to the shops, with dressing gown disguised under a large rain jacket (not my proudest moment) the time was passed thinking of things that annoy me as much as the milk march. There was a clear pattern. Everything on my list involved searching for or retrieving something. Some of the contenders included:

- Shopping
- The hunt for lost items such as keys/phone/generally anything smaller than me
- Trying to remember where the car is parked
- Queuing
- Knowing an answer to a question but not knowing where it's filed in the brain
- Being completely lost in the middle of nowhere (or worse still London)
- Being told to 'Google it'

As I paid for the only milk bottle left on the shelves (worryingly titled 'sort of skimmed') I concluded to myself, why search for something when you don't need to? Why retrieve something when it will come to you? How much happier would I be sitting in warmth, eating cereal and getting on with more important things safe in the knowledge I never need to do this walk again? The answer, for anyone who hasn't been out at 7am sporting a dressing gown/rain jacket combo, is a lot.

For more information on how using CRM technology can reduce manual tasks please download a free copy of The seven behaviours of high performing sales people

Research Will Make Tomorrow Feel Slightly Less Excruciating

Be prepared

Whilst this long weekend will be the perfect opportunity for most to relax and put their feet up it also incorporates the last day of the football season, which for sad cases such as myself, will result in pain, agony and unbearable tension for a ninety minute period of Saturday afternoon. I will never understand why I pay for this experience but the simple fact is that I do and therefore I just have to get through it as smoothly as possible.

The scenario is not a pleasant one. Win and we're promoted, lose and we're not. It is a strange feeling to spend 45 painstaking Saturdays of a year trying to achieve a goal only to be left with such a winner takes all situation on the final day but alas that is the situation we find ourselves in and therefore we must deal with it.

It can obviously go two ways. If we're winners we'll turn up thoroughly prepared for the game, tactically aware of absolutely everything the other team can throw at us. We'll know whose quick, whose slow, which centre half is already thinking about their summer holidays and who left their lucky boots at home.

If we're losers we'll turn up thinking the hard work is done and the job in hand is simply a case of going through motions. The second I see our full back staring quizzically at their right winger as if to say 'so what do you do?' is the second I head for the pie van and prepare for next season.

To be completely and utterly prepared in such a pressurised situation is the only way to come out on top. All I can hope, is that my team know this, otherwise Saturday could be somewhat of a write off.

For more information on researching please grab a free download of 'The seven behaviours of high performing sales people