A Star Trek flick from 1996 had the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time to undermine the Borg attempt to stop Earthlings from making first contact with the Vulcans.
The last few days I’ve been busy on the phone prospecting for new accounts, new opportunities, new upgrades, and what else initiating the first contact.
It seems every year it gets somewhat tougher to get a hold of Mr. or Mrs. Right. For those of us who consider ourselves professional prospectors we get used to these types of responses when we know the name of Mr. or Mrs Right:
“Sorry so and so just left for lunch.”
“He just stepped out.”
“So and so is on the phone right now.”
“He or she is busy.”
“We’re not interested.”
“So and so just stepped into a meeting.”
“She just went to lunch (it’s 4 p.m.!).”
And the list goes on and on.
So what are we to do, well as one Print4Pay Hotel member stated many years ago, that we need to be “smarter than the average bear”. We’ve all heard these before but here’s a few for a refresher:
- Vary the time that you call on that account.
- Call early in the morning.
- Call late in the afternoon.
- Call on a Saturday.
- Call on another employee in the company and ask to be transferred to the DM.
It used to be that onsite cold calling used to work well, however at least here in the New York metro area it’s hard to gain access to building since 9/11. Doors are locked, security cameras are in place and sales people are left to other means to find out who the DM is. By the way, why is it that when you make the call and ask who the DM is, it’s seems like you’re sentencing that person to ten or twenty lashes? One such person got so nasty with me when I was being very polite and I asked for the name of the person that makes that decision (true story). I told her that I wished that a camel would walk through her bed at night. It just came out. I should have been more professional. Yes, sometimes you get so fed up; hey, we’re just trying to do our job and feed our families.
The Web is a wonderful place and I’ve found creative ways to seek out those first contacts when the gatekeeper does not want to give me any information. So here’s a list of resources I use for the Web. If you’d like to know how I use each one to my advantage then send me an e-mail and become a member of the p4photel.
- Manta
- Contact Us
- Box Approach
Good selling!
