Networking: following up

Yuletide networking opportunities can be great, precisely because people tend to be more relaxed and amiable but they do present the same problem that many of you out there struggle with: the whole following up bit.

The first thing to make clear here, is that you are not going to want to follow up with everyone! You are going to meet loads of people with whom you strike up a conversation, get on with but where there is no possible business opportunity.

However, where there is, then you need to be sure to follow up because if you aren’t following up after networking then you might as well stay at home and watch the telly.

So, how to follow up and how to do it without being too pushy and becoming a pain in the backside?

Do this…

• You        “Well Sarah, it’s been great meeting you and to hear about what you’ve been doing regarding project X.  I wonder if, when I’m next in your neck of the woods, it would be great to meet up for a coffee and continue this conversation then.  I’d like to learn more about your organisation and find out a bit more about what you do.  Would that be OK?”

• Sarah     “Sure. That would be great.”

• You        “Excellent.  Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you a call at the end of the week and we’ll put a date in the diary.”

A couple of things to note here:  First of all, she isn’t going to say, “No”.  It’s almost impossible for someone with whom you have conversed for between 20 and 30 minutes, to reject such a suggestion in such a blunt and forthright manner – we simply don’t do that in our culture.  Sure, she may turn you down when you get in touch but not right now.

Secondly, you have told her what you are going to do and when you’re going to do it: you will phone before the end of the week to put a date in the diary.

That last part of the sentence is what is referred to as ‘The assumptive close’.  You phrase it in such a way that you are assuming that the meeting is going to go ahead.  And why shouldn’t you; she has just agreed that catching up for coffee would be good!

The reason you should set this up whilst still talking to her, is because your relationship, albeit a brief one, is ‘hot’.  If you part company then the longer you leave it before getting in touch, then the ‘cooler’ she has become and it’s bloody difficult to warm people up over the phone and even harder via email.

I also want you to note that you have not said, “When should I get in touch to see when it’s convenient for you to meet up?”

Phrasing it in such a way hands control over to her, enabling her to reply, “Leave it with me and I’ll get in touch with you.”

If you’ve not exchanged business cards by this point, then now would be a good time to say, “Let me take a card from you.”

When you phone or email (depending on which you’ve said you’ll do) make sure you have 3 dates when you could meet up.  Two close together and another a few weeks later.

Don’t get in touch with anyone, ever, without offering them two dates from which to choose.  If you ask someone, “When’s convenient for you?” then you give them the chance to say any date they wish, “April the 29^th 2012 works for me.” And then you’re stuck but equally, it’s a pain for them to have to go through their diary and look for available dates.  Contrary to popular belief, people don’t like too much choice.  Remember when there were only 4 TV channels?  Wasn’t it dead easy to pick something to watch?  Now there are hundreds, it’s so much harder!

So, make it easy for them and use another closing technique – the ‘alternative close’.

“I was thinking about either the 4^th or 5^th.  Any good?”

“Actually the 5^th is better for me.”

“Morning or afternoon better?”

“Can we make it the morning: I have a conference call at 3?”

“Sure, 10.15 or 11.15?”

“Let’s go for 10.15.”

“Great”

And that, ladies and gents, is how you follow up, efficiently, effectively and effortlessly.

Finally, if pinning them down to a date is just not going to happen – they are snowed under, budget reports to be done etc – and they say, “Look, do you mind if we put this on hold?”  Or “Can you leave it with me and I’ll come back to you.”  Then say, “Sure, no problem.”  I’ll send you some stuff in the post that’ll give you a better feel for what we do and get in touch in a few months time.  If I’ve not heard from you in, what, 3 or 6 months time, when should I drop you a line.”

And 99% of the time they will tell you when it would be ok to next get in touch.

Once you are in the habit of doing this, you’ll end up with a diary jam packed with people to follow up with, all of whom have given you permission to do so.

Creativity

We are all creative as children.  Wild, un-fettered imaginations, running wild through an endless field of ideas – pictures, paintings, drawings, models, mobiles, collages, stories and even friends.

Yet, by the time we arrive in adulthood, unless in one of the creative industries, that side of our character has lay dormant for so long that many of us forget that we ever had it.

Our education system is centred round learning facts in order to pass examinations.  The majority of jobs require use of the left, logical side of our brain but very little of the creative, emotional, right side.  Yet it is this side that we must call upon when we need to make an emotional connection with our audience when we speak.

Too many business presentations take the form of an adult reading out loud to a room full of adults and fail to make that emotional connection that is so vital if information is to be retained and the speaker remembered.

No one ever had a creative thought in front of a computer screen so if you need to prepare for a presentation, take yourself out of the office.  Sit in a coffee shop and stare out of a window.  Have a wander round the streets – without your phone, Blackberry or even I-Pod.  Absorb the sights and sounds around you and become alive to what is going on beyond the electronic screen and the earphones.

I recently watched a programme about creative types within ad agencies and they take 2 hours out to brainstorm (I refuse to use the oft preferred ‘Cognitive Mind Showering’ favoured by many in local government, who believe the former to possibly cause offence to those with a mental illness.  It doesn’t and what’s more such an attitude is patronising in the extreme.) Doing it in pairs; knocking around ideas and jotting them down.

During the show there was an interview with the guy that came up with the ‘Phones 4U’ campaign, who revealed that the whole concept came to him whilst riding home on his motorbike.

What you seek in any presentation is what another ad man – THE original ad-man – David Ogilvy, who founded Ogilvy and Mather, described as a ‘burr of singularity’.  That one thing, fact or concept that ‘hooks’ on to someone; that remains with them once they have heard your speech.

Perhaps one of the most inspirational ideas Ogilvy had was to pop in to a chemist on the way to a photo shoot for the shirt maker, Hathaway, and buy an eye patch, which he then asked the guy modelling the shirt to wear for no other reason that it made the image stand out.

So successful was this that for many, many years and in tens of different photo shoots, the ‘man in the Hathaway shirt’, as he became known, was always sporting the signature eye patch and made Hathaway the leading brand for a decade.

Isaac Newton did not come up with his theory regarding gravity whilst sitting, quill in hand at his desk.  He was out, taking a stroll through the college gardens in order to take a break from work, when he decided to lie down on the grass in the sun, when his ground-breaking idea came to him.

Think about how many screens and how often you look at them in a day – PC, laptop, I-Pod, sat-nav, in the taxi cab, on the Heathrow Express, in the train station, in reception areas, at home, on your phone, on your Blackberry. When you need inspiration leave them behind and let your imagination re-awaken.  Which is precisely why I am about to wander around Tate Modern!

 

Pulp Non-Fiction

I had just finished a book and wanted another one to begin reading on a trip from Manchester to Birmingham so I nipped in to WH Smiths to see what they had to pique my interest.

Whilst contemplating the top 30 best selling fiction bit, my eyes were drawn – as they always seem to be – to the ‘I better improve myself’ section. 

This area of shelving has grown over the past few years and now groans under the weight of books on all manner of subjects that I really wasn’t aware that I should know about or had previously had a desire to learn.

Evidently, however, it appears that not only must I have an understanding of the odd aspects of economics, risk, and how ideas materialise in the blink of an eye but that once I’m done there, I then need to get a personality, possess charisma, have a focus and be able to get all of this done whilst learning an MBA in 50 minutes, having an appreciation of the possible catastrophic consequences that moving cheese can have and why I’m in danger of being a business leper if I don’t know the etymology of everyday English phrases.

The thing that’s really annoying is that I actually buy these books! 

There’s always that red one in my line of sight, entitled ‘Persuasion’ and I’m firmly of the view that the book sellers place it there in order that it weaves its subliminal spell and makes me buy the titles around it.

I confess to having really bought in to this new self-help stuff.  I read a few fiction books but then get pangs of guilt that make me by another ‘serious book’, one that will give me an edge, that’ll improve me and ultimately make me successful.  I worry that without the nourishment such titles provide I will be left to atrophy and inevitably die because I’ve not kept a-pace with the business zeitgeist.  I’m totally caught up in the belief that I’m not serious about business if I don’t read these things but am at a loss as to know when, how or why?

However, much like the craving for a Chinese take away on a Saturday night, I read one of these books only to find that I am left ultimately dissatisfied: the thought and yearning of it having been better than the consuming.

The other thing that concerns me is that afterwards I don’t remember a bloody thing about the subject, I mean, not one single thing! 

You know when you meet someone for the first time at a networking event; you shake hands, exchange names and begin talking only to realise that 5 seconds later you cannot for the life of you remember their name?  Well reading one of these books is the same: a few days after you’ve read it you can perhaps remember one solitary fact out of an entire book that’s cost you the thick end of 10 quid.

Do you know what?  They aren’t like Chinese food; they’re like candyfloss: froth, fluff, with very little substance. But I know, just like the pink cotton candy, they’ll tempt me back again next time I’m passing through a station or airport and having nothing to read. Damn!

 

Body language – Albert Mehrabian

Doctor Albert Mehrabian and Desmond Morris are the two fellas we have to thank for opening our eyes to the importance of body language but it’s the former whose work is the subject of this post.

Although you may not have heard of the good doctor Bert, you may well be familiar with his work, via three numbers – 7, 38 and 55.  Chances are you’ll have seen these written as percentages.  They refer to how the message from one person to another is divided:

7% of the message is in the words we speak, 38% is contained within the pitch, tone, pace, volume and timbre of our voice and a whopping 55% is conveyed within in our body language – body orientation, positioning, facial expression, gesture etc.

Except that is not quite right!

Many people are under the impression that all communication is analysed in these ratios, however, that’s not the case.

For most of the time, it is the language we use that has the most significance in any communication, whether that be when we are conversing one to one or standing up speaking to a room full of people.  When it comes to making an impact; it is our language that packs the punch.

When Albert Mehrabian did his work he was looking specifically at situations where a person has reason to doubt whether the speaker believes that which she is saying.

In such circumstances it is then – and only then – that we break down the speaker’s message in to 7, 38 and 55%.  In other words when we are looking for evidence as to whether the speaker has confidence in what they are saying, we attach greater weight to what they are doing physically – 55% – than to how they are saying it – 38% – and only a small proportion to the language they are using – 7%.

Dr Meharabian’s work has been invaluable in helping us better understand how important our communication is but it’s a shame that it is often misquoted.

Words are THE most important ingredient unless we are unsure as to the confidence of the speaker, in which case it’s the body that’ll give it away.

Public Speaking: PowerPoint

There are loads of books about speaking in public: it isn’t a new subject.  Indeed, it was the Romans and Greeks that really mastered it.  They had to, particularly if you were the type of Greek or Roman who had your eyes on positions of power and influence.

Not that much has changed. We still hold in high esteem those who can captivate, motivate and stir us through their words.

If you are invited to speak at a seminar, conference or networking event then you should recognise it for the gilt-edged opportunity it is and seize it with both hands.  And if you’re not to confident at speaking in public then read some books on how to get better or put yourself on a course – not of medication – but instruction.

I will return to the theme of speaking in public again in my blog, since it’s one of the principal things I teach people and the thing that I do everyday, whether that be delivering stand up comedy, an after dinner speech or training seminar.

However, for the purposes of this post consider the following thoughts and observations.

The vast majority of people use Power Point to deliver presentations.  They do so because it, in effect, delivers the presentation for them.  However, most of them have come to rely on their slides in the same way that a drunk relies on a lamp post – not so much for illumination but simply something to hang on to!

Ask yourself, how many times you have walked out of a Power Point presentation thinking “Wow, that was superb, can’t wait to get back to the office and tell people all about it!”

We are all far too busy to sit in a room listening to an adult reading out loud to a room full of adults.  I don’t know about you but when that happens to me I’m left wondering why the presenter simply didn’t email me the slides as an attachment, which would have allowed me to read them at my convenience.

This sound familiar:

You arrive at a conference.  You have a copy of the agenda.  You see that George Brown is delivering a talk covering the 9.30 to 10.15 slot on the subject of ‘Motivating your staff’.

The conference chair announces George at 9.30.  “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our next speaker, George Brown, who is going to talk to you about motivating your staff.”

George walks on stage.

“Good afternoon ladies and Gentlemen, my name’s George Brown and I’m going to talk to you about motivating your staff.

George moves to stage right, flips open his lap top to reveal his first slide, which has written* on it;

‘GEORGE BROWN’

‘MOTIVATING YOUR STAFF’

And because George is a helpful guy, he has reproduced his entire slide presentation – including the opening one you are currently looking at on a huge screen -

‘GEORGE BROWN’

‘MOTIVATING YOUR STAFF’

in the conference delegate pack with 4 lines to the right hand in order that you can jot down some notes you can refer to time and time again.

And do you know what: a little part of you dies.  It dies because in the space of 60 seconds you have been told the same thing 4 times.

As for George? Well he’s off to a flying start, with 80% of his audience now flicking through the presentation in the delegate pack to see how many slides he has – 37 – completely oblivious to what he’s talking about.

My point is this.   If you are using Power Point – and it’s great for pictures, graphics and simple graphs– prepare your presentation first.  Decide what you are going to say and then AND ONLY THEN, take a look at it and see if there any points that could be made more prominent, stirring, moving or impactful, if accompanied by a slide.

*He plumped for type face ‘Batang’ in a size 12 font to make it more exciting.

Strategic planning: the new excuse for inaction.

Strategy

You’ve got to have one haven’t you?

If mauve is the new beige and granite the new laminate then ‘strategy’ is the new excuse for inactivity.

It simply beggars belief how many people I come across, whether they be in professional services, industry or the civil service, who are tied to their desks developing or attending yet another pointless, soul-wrecking meeting discussing strategy.  A strategy that this time is going to prove better than any strategy ever developed ever before and lead to meteoric levels of activity and revenue.

Don’t get me wrong, every business needs a plan, a goal but once that’s agreed upon, then it’s time for action.  However, for some, the formulation of a strategy seems to have become an end in itself and an excuse for inaction and that’s dangerous because action; massive, concerted, focused action is what generates sales.

If you are involved in sales and business development, then you need a plan.  You need to know which target market you are going for and then go for it.  But deciding who you are going to target isn’t difficult and shouldn’t take long.

Tell you what; let’s work through one together, right now.  Really; it’ll only take a few minutes.

Let’s assume you are a sales rep for a manufacturer of dining chairs, the sort that you find in hotels and conference centres.

There are thousands of hotels in the UK and contacting them all to find out whether they want any chairs right now sounds like too much like hard work: there are too many of them and travelling the length and breadth of the country is time consuming.

So the first thing we need to do is narrow it down.  Why not Google hotel chains?  I just did.  Turns out there are 43 in the UK. It took me 2 minutes 47 seconds to do that.

Next thing to do is put the head offices in to geographical region so that when we go and visit them, we can save time and money by targeting a region at a time. That will take a bit longer but I reckon that it would take half a day to list the name and address and each one and then phone all 43 and find out the name of the person responsible for buying chairs. If you were really good, you would have even made appointments to see a few of them along the way.

There you go.  That’s your strategy done and dusted. Not only that but you have taken some action too!  No need to analyse each and every organisation because we will learn stuff about them as we begin contacting them.  No need to fit them in to some weird and wonderful matrix/spread sheet thingy.  No need to produce a 20 page report outlining all the possible down sides, costing all the journeys, phone calls, listing all the brochures and sales support material you may wish to send out.

 Of course some people would have gone away and started working on a strategy for contacting these firms – email, post, brochure, mail shot or phone call?  They would write out a nice SWOT analysis for each one and attempt to forecast success rates. But since you are going to have to meet them at some point anyway, why not just phone them up?  It’s quicker and for speaking to people who are not within shouting distance, the phone has taken first prize for ‘Most useful thing for talking to people who are more than shouting distance apart’ for around 100 years, so everyone’s familiar with the technology.

That said, the BD professional doesn’t make 43 different phone calls.  No, they’re busy finding out if there is an annual conference or trade body where all the decision makers hang out, finds out who organises it and gets and invite.

And the really smart BD person isn’t interested in walking round a room with 60 people in it – they are too busy to do that.  No, the smart cookie asks if they can speak at the next event because in that way, he hits all 60 possible purchasers of his chairs in one go.

The guys that started Innocent didn’t fanny about discussing a smoothie strategy: they just made smoothies and went out and sold them.

Stelios didn’t conduct a SWOT analysis of setting up an airline; he just leased one plane, painted it white and shoved his phone number down the side of it.

Branson put the number of a local phone box in a newspaper ad and then stood in it (the phone box!) taking orders for records.

If you are someone who likes to prevaricate then by all means go and lose yourself in strategy development.  Sit at your desk and fill your days with it. People tell me that there are loads of people all working away on nice, shiny strategies: literally thousands of hours are whiled away on such nonsense.

Understand this though, that whilst you’re doing that, your competitors are out flogging chairs. 

Still,  I suppose you can sleep well at night in the knowledge you have the best and most loveliest strategy for selling chairs that ever there was.

To sit or to stand?

A substantial amount of business is won at a pitch – indeed, I have been invited to sell my wares at just such an event in a few months time.

These usually take the form of a pitch team from the hopeful firm, sitting at one end of a table and selling themselves to between 3 and 5 people sitting opposite; a sort of formal and cerebrally stimulating version of The X- Factor and minus the sob-story.

Speaking to countless pitch teams up and down the country, I have noticed that it has become fashionable to remain seated during the delivery of a pitch: the feeling being that if you are seated, then you’re on the same level as the client and therefore more likely to be perceived as relaxed, friendly and less intimidating and ultimately as ‘part of their team’.

Well guess what: you’re not part of their team.  They are not hiring you to be their mate, to blow the froth of a couple of cold ones on a Friday night.  They are looking for professional advisors, a commercial partner, an expertise they don’t have.

I don’t want to get on an aeroplane and have the pilot, slap me on the back with a “welcome aboard squire, how’s yer day been?” Sure, I want professional courtesy and maybe, if I happened to fly on that plane a great deal over a period of time, I might want to get to know the crew better, so that we were on first name terms but not right away.  I’m employing a professional to deliver a service I cannot perform myself.

By all means be friendly and engaging, enthusiastic and energetic but don’t think that comes from sitting down throughout a pitch.

When it comes to judging a speaker’s attitude or feelings towards what they are saying (Whether they believe it themselves) it was good old Albert Mehrabian, who, in 1971 discovered that the listener will look to their body language first (55%), the speed, pitch, tone and pace of what they say, second (38%) and the actual words (7%), last.  All of which means, that what you do with your body is really quite important.

Standing up at points through the pitch gives you gravitas, allows you to highlight an important point, acts as a sign post to your audience that you are about to draw their attention to something that matters.

There’s another reason you might wish to stand: it demonstrates a great deal of confidence and knowledge of your subject, without even having to open your mouth.

It also helps keep your audience engaged. The ability to be spontaneous is one of the things that will set you apart from all the other people who are boring their audience to tears reading from slides.

Please don’t imagine that I am suggesting you stand throughout every pitch you do from now on.  No, what I’m saying is that you have a choice. You neither have to remain seated all the time nor stand but that doing both during a pitch can really help you win more work. And, and it’s something I’m constantly banging on about – make you stand out from everybody else (Literally!)

Quite simply: body language speaks volumes.

Phone before you go…

A ’schoolboy error’.  That’s how they describe it don’t they?

When you either do or omit to do something that was so basic, so utterly fundamental to the successful achievement of a task, that it renders performance of the task impossible. (Quite why such an error is attributed to a boy rather than a girl, I am at loss to fathom.)

Well, it was such a error that I made 48 hours ago, when I neglected to check that a meeting arranged 6 weeks ago was still going to go ahead 24  hours later.

My meeting was with someone I have met on two previous occasions plus her colleague, with whom I had never met and, as already stated, was put in our diaries back at the start of July.

However, on arriving at the firms swanky recpetion area in the City of London, I was left waiting – although well looked after – for 15 minutes, whilst the receptionist attempted to track down the people I was due to meet.

Alas, both – as it turned out – were not at work that day!  Not just running late.  Not simply, double-booked, but absent, ie, not in the building. Rather like a decent English cricketer: nowhere to be seen!

This was an important meeting for me.  This was a buisness development meeting and as anyone involved in sales will tell you: they are all important.

But, these things happen.  The date was in my diary and as the receptionist confirmed, it was logged in their’s as well.  It was quite simply ‘one of those things’.  Just an oversight.  No point in getting annoyed or put out – well, not with either of them.  However, plenty of reason to be thoroughly pissed off with myself!

School boy error: always, always confirm meetings a day or so before hand.  It’s one of the first things I was taught when a fledgling sales rep.  To do otherwise is to risk the loss of precious time when you could be seeing someone else.

Not only was I taught this but I also learned my lesson the hard way.

I was a keen 22 year old rep, desperate to whack my targets and keen to please.  My territory was the UK and on this one occasion I had arranged to pick up a signed contract for the leasing of 5 fax machines (this was when they were 2 grand each to buy).

The thing was, the customer in question was in Norwich and I lived in Manchester.  Nevertheless, in my desire to get the contract in my sticky mits and not happy to rely on the post, I arranged to meet my contact at his head office at 9.30 one Tuesday morning.

If you have ever consulted a map of the UK, you’ll see that whoever invented Norwich, decided it would be really great if it was a long way from anywhere else.  What’s more, it is not serviced by a motorway.  Indeed, travelling from Manchester, there really is no easy or obvious way to get to the Norfolk coast.  Suffice to say, however, whichever route you plump for, the fact is, it takes a bloody long time.

I don’t recall the exact hour I swung my feet from under the duvet and on to my bedroom floor but it was indecently early.  Showered, shaved and breifcase in hand I got behind the wheel and set off.

My route-planning had been fine because I arrived at my meeting with 10 minutes to spare, parked up, stratched my legs and entered the reception area.

5 minutes later I was directed to the offiice of my contact, where I was given a much needed cup of coffee and asked to wait.

The chap in question arrived –  I have forgotten, or rather, blanked his name from my memory (apparently that’s quite normal when people have experienced a traumatic event) – bid me good morning and told me that he was sorry that I had had a wasted journey but that on reflection he had opted to go with an alternative supplier.

The phrase ‘incandescent with rage’ comes to mind as a I recount this tale.  Incandescent with him!  It is the one and only time I have stormed out of someone’s office and slammed the door - exceptionally hard!

Now, I was young and arrogant and cocky, like so many blokes in their twentys.  I put the blame for my wasted trip on him.  Not my fault at all.

It’s many, many years ago now that I was able to appreciate that the blame for this fiasco was not his but mine.

I should have telephoned the day before.  I should have arranged for him to sign and post the contracts, I  should have checked with his secretary but I did none of the above.

I did, however, learn a valuable lesson.  A lesson that has remained with me. Remained with me up until 48 hours ago, when I neglected to fire off an email and check to make sure that a meeting that was arranged 6 weeks ago, was still going ahead.

If I had, then I would not have had to cut short the meeting prior to that and would not have had to sprint between tube stations; arriving like some bloke that’s sat in a sauna in his suit for half an hour.

Instead I could have placed myself in a coffee shop and typed the next post for my blog – but then……….what on earth would I have written about?

Nick

Cold calling

Self employment runs in my family: parents, grand parents, siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins.  It’s kind of what we do.  Why? I am at a loss to explain – perhaps we’re just a bunch of beligerent, self-opinionated buggers who reckon we could do things better ourselves.

Given that this is the case, it’s not surprising that my sister has recently begun a new venture in the world of management coaching, using her skills as an NLP Master Practictioner.  She had been MD of her own recruitment company for 10 years but  - and I’m about to use a Harvard, management phrase here – ‘The arse fell out of the market’ in November 2008 and so she figured it was time to begin another venture.

We were having a lunch together at Pizza Express in Edinburgh on Sunday and I asked her how things were going.  ”Well”, she replied.  ”I have a few big potential clients on the go.”  ”Great”, said I and enquired as to which of her many contacts  they had come through.  ”None. They were the result of called calling.” she said.

Cold calling.  Cold calling is – with only very few exceptions – every sales person’s nightmare.  It’s time consuming, potentially soul destroying and you need to get used to rejection really quickly.  In short, it’s not for the faint hearted.

Those who earn their living from sales are lazy.  By that I mean that they will always look for the easiest route to make more sales and that’s why they expend so much energy cultivating relationships with existing customers/clients, because they are far easier to sell to, than finding new ones.

However, when first starting your business or during tough economic periods, such as the one we’re in now, going back to the basic spade work that is cold calling, can bring rewards: if you know what you’re doing.

So, here’s how to do it.

First of all, know which firms in which sectors you wish to target.  Then phone each one in turn – I am assuming that you do not know the name of the person you wish to meet.

When you contact recption at their head office, you need to be polite but confident.

“Hello, I wonder if you can help me, I’m trying to find out the name of the person who is responsible for training/HR/purchasing/facilities managment etc”

Always use the word ‘help’.  It’s very difficult for someone to turn you down if you have asked for their help and nine times out of ten, the person at reception will furnish you with the name you seek.

Clarify the title of the person –  are they a ‘purchasing director’ or ‘director of purchasing’ or ‘purchasing manager’ etc and check the spelling of their name.  Say thank you and put the phone down, unless the recptionist asks if you would like to be put through.

Then, later on in the day or a day or two after, phone again.

Let’s assume that the person you wish to meet is ‘Sally Brown’.  When you phone the organisation again, and the person who answers the phone asks who you’d like to speak to, say “Sally, please” and say this in such a confident, self-assured manner, that the person assumes you have known them for years.

If they ask you, “Which Sally?”, then reply, “Oh, yes, of course, Sally Brown please.”  Again, the impression you give is one of familiarity – as though you know Sally so well that you almost forgot her surname because you never use it of course.

One of three things will happen.

One – you will get through to Sally’s voice mail. Two – you’ll get through to a colleague or secretary. Three – you’ll get through to Sally.

Before I take each in turn, the key to all of these is to be up front and direct: you are calling because you wish to arrange a time to pop in and see Sally!  Thats’ the point of the call: nothing more and nothing less.

If you are attempting to ultimately sell something to Sally, you need to appreciate that so are loads of other people.  Sally probablly receives between 5 and 15 emails, phone calls, letters each day, from people trying to flog her something.  And you know what, everyone, but everyone, is beating about the bush and using flowery/management speak crap, in order to impress the pants of her.  You know this to be true becuase you too have been on the receiving end of such trite nonesense.

Voicemail – “Good afternoon Sally.  My name’s Nick Davies, I’m a former lawyer that now spends my time training lawyers at every level in a all aspects of communciation skills.  I work with firms such as A, B, C , D etc but know very little about your firm, which is why I’m phoning.  I’m in London on the 3rd and 4th, seeing X and Y and wanted to pop in, say hello, find out how you go about training your fee earners and to see whether what I do might be of help.  I’ll send you some stuff in the post and give you a ring in a weeks time to see which date is best but in the meantime, if you want to ring me back you can get me on……”

That takes just under 15 seconds to say and tells her absolutely everything she needs to know. In addition you have established your credibility by mentioning that you were once in the same profession, that you work with firms she will know and that you’re busy.

You should also note that I gave her two dates from which to choose. NEVER, EVER, call someone to arrange a meeting without having two dates.  It’s called ‘the alternative close’ and it works a treat!  You do NOT want to be saying – “So, when’s most convenient for you?” One, because they then have the hassle of having to look through their entire diary and two, if they say “June the 17th 2011″, you’re stuffed!

Their secretary – more or less the same thing as above.  Be up front, tell them that you are calling because you want to arrange a time to meet.  If she (and secretaryies are normally women) asks you whether Sally will know what it’s regarding, say “No, she’ll have no idea becuase she’s never heard of me.”

Trust me!  This cut the crap style works.  You cannot begin to imagine just how much flannel secretaries hear each and every day from sales reps, all of whom are using smart-arse techniques, to try and get round them.  Your honesty will be refreshingly different and even get a laugh.

“Sally and I have never met. Indeed she’ll of never heard of me, which is why I’m calling.  I’m trying to arrange to pop in and see her.  How’s best to go about doing that?”  This is a nice little line and once again seeks to ellicit the help of the person to whom you speaking.

Sally – say what you would have said on the voicemail.  If Sally starts asking you questions about your product or service, then that’s good – it’s a buying sign!  However, don’t get in to lengthy discussions over the phone.  It’s really hard to sell over the phone – how many people have managed to sell you stuff that way?!  On the other hand you cannot ignore and refuse to answer a question.

Say, for example, Sally asks you how much you charge.  Obviously you cannot say “I’m not going to tell  you.”  So what you might prefer is:

“That really depends on how many you want, when you want them delivered and exactly what spec is important for you, but that’s one of the reasons I want to pop in and see you, so I can explain a bit more about our pricing.  Now, is the 4th or 5th better for you?

So, answer the question but bring the conversation back to the reason you were calling in the first place.

The other danger of saying too much on the phone is that by the time you have answered all of Sally’s questions, she can easily turn round and say “Well, you have explained all about your product to me, so there is no need to waste your time by seeing me because I feel I know enough already.” And that is a tricky one to get out of!

If at anytme during the exchange with Sally, you detect a that she’s reluctant to see you, then recognise it and offer to send her some info in the post.  Sure, you want to see Sally but you do not want to pressurise her.  Selling is about making it easy for people to buy and you do not want to be having a coffee with Sally, when she would really rather not be there, but was just too polite to turn you down when  you called.

When you send your promotioanl material, it’s a great opportunity to make an emotional connection through the letter that accompanies it.  However, I will deal with how to use that letter to best effect in a future post.

Nick

Quit when you don’t like it.

I’ve just had a back and shoulder massage.  It’s the first one I’ve experienced. I sat in one of those odd looking chairs and this guy beat and kneeded me to within an inch of my life: it feels good.

“What do you do?” he asked.

“Teach oral communication skills to people: but predominantly lawyers.  You know,? how to stand up and present, how to network, negotiate and generally bring in more clients and work.”

I went further and explained that I’d once been a lawyer – 6 years of part and full-time study, 7 months of practising and then I left.

“I spent 6 years studying to be a computer programmer.”  he said.  “But left after 4 hours.  I started at 9 in the morning and by lunch time realised that I really didn’t fancy ending up like any of the people in the office.”

When I left law, many people said; “Gosh, aren’t you bothered that you have wasted 6 years of you life studying for something that you now want to give up?”

“No, I said.  Spending the next 6 years doing a job I didn’t enjoy would be a waste of time though.”

I loved studying law. I find the law fascinating.  I read law reports in the Times and Telegraph.  I listen to ‘Law in Action’ on Radio 4.  I choose to spend virtually all my working life with lawyers.  But practising as one?  Doing the job day in and day out?  No, not for me.

Running your own business or working for someone else: if you don’t enjoy it, stop doing it.

Yep, your life will change.  Yep, you’ll make sacrifices but waking up every morning knowing that you are spending the day earning money doing something you love is worth all the money in….er….sorry, I was trying to think of a place that had lots but they’re thin on the grond right now.

You get my point though.