Recently, a salesperson wrote a post talking about the cold call/sales spam messaging being discussed online. She took issue with people publicly posting the “negative” examples of sales spam they receive. The poster only wants us to share “positive” sales messages that work. And, yes, I’m rolling my eyes as I type those words. Seeing the bad and the good is how the point about messaging gets made.
I’ve been selling successfully for a very long time, so I feel qualified to point out that we have more than a few sellers in sales today with thin skin. These are the sellers who don’t want to hear criticism even if it would benefit them to listen and learn.
Andy Paul is someone in the sales learning space that I consider a mentor. Others in our field promote hacks that 10x your sales and other ridiculous short-cuts. Andy isn’t one of those guys, and I appreciate that about him.
As it has been said, “great minds think alike”. Good old fashioned hard work with a focus on mastering the basics of selling is how you succeed.
You test, you listen, you learn, you measure, you adjust, you adapt and you do this consistently every single day of your selling life. Too many salespeople just don’t want to hear it, though. For some real-time, social proof supporting my point, Andy shared this example in his community email today.
“Yet, I often talk with sellers who roll their eyes when I mention the need to constantly practice the fundamentals. They bristle with impatience. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got those. Now show me the advanced stuff.”
The advanced stuff? Seriously? A lot of salespeople DON’T have the basics down. Start there!
If you want your sales emails to convert to sales conversations more often, here’s how:
Be human. In B2B sales, people still buy from people. At some point, you need to be able to talk to other humans, connect with them and demonstrate that you care more about doing what’s right by them than hitting your quota. By the way, the #givefirst approach helps you hit quota!
Deliver value. Value isn’t pitching features and benefits to strangers in mass, ice cold emails that are only focused on your sales agenda. Stop talking about YOU and your company.
Stop whining. It isn’t all about you. Nobody owes us anything. That is a truth about selling that many sellers don’t seem to understand. If you are being ignored, or your sales outreach isn’t converting into conversations with qualified buyers, that’s on YOU! Yes. YOU.
Here is why buyers are so fed up with salespeople.
People sell me too. Everything from technology, to lead generation solutions, to social selling training (oh, the irony)… you name it. I know how it feels to receive sales spam gone off the rails. I also know it gets exponentially worse for decision makers in bigger companies.
Last week, 4 different sales reps at 2 different companies contacted me via phone and email.
I had 2 voicemails each from 2 reps at one company, plus the 2 emails they each sent to back up their calls.
The other company had 2 reps contact me and each of those reps sent 2 emails each.
Are you keeping up with the math here?
- 4 voicemails and 4 emails from Company A.
- 4 emails from Company B.
- That’s 4 voicemails and 8 emails over a 3-day time period. That was only the 1st touch from these players and from only two companies!
Not one of those messages were compelling enough for me to care. Poorly constructed and delivered. Focused on the sales agenda. No value for me. All it created was noise and another good reason to write this post.
Are you really still confused about why your sales message matters?
Quality matters. I shared one example from my life on the buyer side. The math gets even worse when hundreds of other salespeople target the same prospects with similar sales spam about their products. Then there are the “did you get my last message” follow ups that I won’t even deal with here.
And what is this business of having multiple reps from your company contact the same prospects with the same spam message within hours of each other? I simply do not understand the thinking behind this approach. Multiple salespeople hounding the same prospect more often will not win them over. Ever.
#SellBetter
If you are in a sales role today, working to be the best version of yourself as a salesperson requires constantly improving your skills and adapting to an ever changing business climate.
To the individual sales contributors, I’m very aware that there are things beyond your control when you work for someone else. I get that… and…
Ultimately, YOU are responsible for your sales success!
If your activity isn’t generating enough sales meetings on your calendar, your message and approach is likely the culprit.
If you do less calls but book more sales conversations with qualified buyers, you are in a good position to show your manager that quality + quantity wins every time.
Buyers complain about sales spam for a reason. It is a headache for them. Instead of complaining, resolve to listen and do things differently. You’ll see better sales results and can thank me later 😊.
You might like this latest on-demand presentation I did called: You Can’t Win If You Can’t Connect: Sales Strategies to Engage Modern B2B Buyers.
Just click the link to access my preso and find other great sales content from 150 sales pros on the Sales Experts Channel on BrightTALK..
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