| The vast majority of Savage and Greene clients, and readers of the book on cold calling, have a marketing and sales process that won't reasonably fit within one phone call. This means you'll have at least two separate conversations with prospects before they become clients. (Many have more conversations than two, due to a complex sale and long sales cycle.) The first conversation is a cold call. As part of that conversation, you might ask a few questions to qualify the prospect at a "tree top" level. You need to know just enough to indicate if you should request an appointment, or not. When a prospect agrees to an appointment, you have the option of meeting in-person, or on the phone. In fact, you can offer the option to the prospect, "Would you like to meet in person, or talk on the phone?" During the second meeting, whether it's on the phone or in person, you should do much more qualifying. (You can see more about qualifying in the Sales Basics section.) So how do you know where to draw the line between conversations -- between prospecting and selling? When you're cold calling, you are marketing, not selling. To give yourself the benefit of flow, focus on marketing and ask for a later appointment for that next (selling) conversation. Mind you, if a prospect says she wants to talk at greater length now, as part of that first phone call, you should go for it. To be prepared for this, you should have your sales guide handy. But you're not engaged in a sales conversation until and unless both you and the prospect agreed to do that. Without an agreement to explore the business fit, you're not selling. You're still marketing. |