“I’m not interested.”

For many consultants who are making cold calls to sell their services, those words are more than enough to justify hanging up the phone and moving on to the next prospect.  After all, you can’t make a sale to someone who’s “not interested,” right?

But what if we told you that “I’m not interested” is just the first of three common cold calling objections that can be overcome and turned into new business?

If your initial attempt to capture attention and create interest on a cold call doesn’t work, don’t just wilt! It’s easy to say “OK” and move on, but then again, it’s easy to fail at cold calling.

All is not lost. You can overcome common objections and make saves.

Here are the three common cold calling objections you’re likely to run into, along with examples for how you can turn them from objections into opportunities.

Cold Calling Objection 1: “I’m Not Interested”

Prospect:   “I’m not interested.”

You: “OK. I’m curious to know, though, what could I have said about this topic that might have actually interested you?”

Prospect: “Nothing really.”

You: “Then if I hear correctly, it’s not that the topic’s not interesting to you; it’s that you’re not interested in talking at all right now. You’re focused on something else.”

Prospect: “You got it.”

You: “Then let’s not talk right now. But is it your area to focus on improving marketing returns at your company? Are you the person that would fall under?”

Prospect: “Yes, I am.”

You: “Well, when I speak with companies, even those that don’t think there’s the ability to increase their email marketing efficiency by 10% at least, the opportunity is usually there. Whether it’s there or not, I think you’ll get some value out of the conversation because I’ll share with you some best practice research about how it’s been done at places like (big industry player name here). Can we talk at another time, maybe on Friday at 2 or 3? That way you can give me a few minutes to pique your interest, and if I don’t, all you risk is the time in exchange for insight.”

Prospect: “OK, sure. Let’s talk at 2 p.m. this Friday.”

Cold Calling Objection #2: “Now’s Not a Good Time”

Prospect: “Now’s not a good time.”

You: “Do you mean for talking about it, or is it that increasing your sales performance isn’t a top priority right now?”

Prospect: “Neither.”

You: “Why is that? Sometimes when that’s the case it’s because the company isn’t looking to grow revenue for one reason or another. Is that it?”

Prospect: “Oh, we’d like to grow revenue, but it’s just been so tough with the merger happening that all of our attention is focused there.”

You: “You mean merging the two sales forces from Caprica and Kobol, yes? I saw that on your website. It’s one of the reasons I called. Has that been a challenge?”

Prospect: “Yes, it has, and we’re having a heck of a time moving past ‘merger mode’ and into ‘action mode.’”

You: “I’m going to guess that one sales force is still selling their old area and same with the second, yes? And perhaps there are other issues distracting the sales forces and making them focus less on sales and more on, well, internal gyrations.”

Prospect: “That and more.”

You: “We focus on sales force integration with mergers. Again, that is the reason I called. It’s common that two sales forces, when merged together, mix about as well as milk and Pepsi. At least at first. But we’ve been able to turn that around. Would you like to hear how?” (PAUSE)

Prospect: “OK, well, it’s still not a good time, but later in the week might work.”

Cold Calling Objection #3: “We’re Already Working with Someone”

One of the most common pushbacks is, “We already work with another provider to do this, and they’re doing well.”

In this instance, many just say, “Thanks for your time. I understand. Have a great day.” And they move on to the next prospect, marking this one as a “no” because they’re locked up with a competitor. However, you should know that buyers switch regularly, and often the buyers are thinking about it when you call.¹ They’re just not saying it.

Your job is to start planting the seeds of why this prospect should buy from you. Here are three ways you can respond to the “we work with someone already” cold call objection:

1. “Good to hear. I’m curious, what do you think makes the relationship work so well?”

This is a relatively nonthreatening way to get key insight into the buyer’s mindset. It gets the prospect talking. And based on what he says, you can probe further and uncover areas where there may be issues with the current provider or holes in the current offerings that you can fill. After the prospect talks for a little bit, you can ask a series of “I’m curious to know” questions.

Let’s say you’re selling network and data security technology to banks. You can say, “Great to hear. I’m curious to know, though, if they have 24-hour support if something goes haywire on you?” or “I’m curious to know if they talked with you about the best papers from the last industry conference and the trends that are sweeping through the industry?” or “I’m curious to know if their most recent release will allow you to access all of your intrusion detection data in real time?” If you get any “no” answers, that leaves you room to explore more.

You might ask, “What topics do you cover in your monthly meetings with your current provider?” In most cases, the answer to that question is going to be, “We don’t have monthly meetings.” This gives you an opportunity to demonstrate how working with you is different. For example, you might say something like, “Oh, I didn’t realize that. Would you like to know what we typically cover in the monthly meetings we have with clients?

2. “It sounds like things are pretty good. But you didn’t say they were doing an amazing job. What would it look like if a company was doing an amazing job by your standards?”

By asking that question you get the prospect thinking about where the current provider may not be meeting expectations. It also gets them thinking about what it might be like if they did switch.

3. “Glad to hear that things are going well. While I am not too familiar with their process, I do know it’s always worthwhile to have a second set of eyes to look things over. The next time you have something like this, I’d be happy to give it a quick review to see if we’d approach it any differently. If nothing else, you’ll get a different perspective, and we may even be able to find you some additional improvement.”

When you offer to be a second set of eyes, it helps deepen the relationship and allows them to experience firsthand your service orientation and expertise.

The idea is to start building the relationship even though there is an incumbent. Remember, many prospects are looking to switch providers in a year or two, but they don’t start the call off by mentioning that. By building the relationship early, you give yourself the inside track for when they do switch. And you can create the impetus for making a switch happen now, not later.

If you want to get this far, though, the first thing you need to do is talk now, not later. Overcoming these three common cold calling objections should help quite a bit.

¹ In our How Clients Buy research, we asked several hundred business to business buyers if they would consider switching to new providers in the next two years. While results varied depending on the seller’s industry, on average 52% of buyers indicated they were open to switching.

Photo by: Howard Lake

Buy Rainmaking Conversations Today and Get Special Bonus Gifts

Our new book is finally here: Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation. After close to a decade of research, training tens of thousands of people, and a year in the writing process, we’re thrilled with how it came out.

If you want a guide to leading masterful sales conversations, this is it. We cover everything from generating initial discussions to uncovering needs to overcoming objections to closing the sale. We wanted to bring the sales conversation to life, so each chapter is peppered liberally with examples, stories, and tips.

What We’re Asking of You

Through the Rainmaker Blog and RainToday website, we provide tons of free sales and marketing content, stories, ideas, and anything else we can think of to help you grow your business. We don’t ask you for much on this blog, but today we’re asking you for a favor: if Rainmaking Conversations sounds interesting to you, please take 30 seconds to pick up a copy today.

Why today?

• We’re offering an incredible bonus package. When you order today you’ll get tons of bonus gifts from authors and experts Jill Konrath, Jeffrey Gitomer, Dave Kahle, Art Sobczak, Tim Wackel, and many, many more.

• We’ve taken the best of what we’ve learned over the years and put it into this book to provide you with a guide to sales conversation success. We held nothing back. Chapter 14, Handling Objections, alone will change your selling results instantly.

• Last but not least, your help would mean the world to us. If you’ve benefited from our last book, our training programs, our RainToday newsletter, or our writing on this blog, we’d greatly appreciate your help. It’s been a huge undertaking for us.

Rainmaking Conversations is available on Amazon here.

After you order your copy, don’t forget to swing by and pick up all of your bonus gifts: http://www.raingroup.com/book/bonuses.

Most important, we hope you enjoy the book and that it helps you achieve greater sales success.

Get Your Free Chapter Download

We haven’t said much about the launch of our new book, Rainmaking Conversations, on this blog, but it’s certainly not for a lack of excitement about it. In fact, we’ve been incredibly busy since the beginning of this year preparing for the launch of the book, which will happen next Tuesday, April 19.

While the official book launch isn’t until then, Rainmaking Conversations is available in stores now. So, if you want a copy, it can be yours today.

But if you wait until next week, you will have the opportunity to access a ton of special bonus gifts we’re putting together for you. Not only will we be offering bonus items from us, but authors and experts Jill Konrath, Jeffrey Gitomer, Dave Kahle, Art Sobczak, Tim Wackel, and many more are giving away bonus materials.

If you’re on our RainToday email list, we’ll be emailing you the morning of April 19 with all of the details. If you’re not on this list, you can subscribe by clicking here. When you subscribe, you’ll also get a sneak peek inside Rainmaking Conversations with a FREE chapter download.

So, stay tuned. We have a lot of great content and bonuses coming your way. In the meantime, you can get started reading your free chapter by subscribing here. We hope you enjoy!

To Media, Bloggers, and List Owners

Thanks for reaching out so much already. We appreciate the support and interest in the book.

If you haven’t seen a review copy of the book and you’d like to do a feature, interview us, write a review, or post an excerpt, email Brooke Webb and we’d be happy to set something up.

Prospects' "no's," like ice cream, come in different flavors

In the world of cold calling, no doesn’t always mean no. In fact, Martha Retallick points out in her book The Freelancer’s Guide to Finding Clients that there are four “flavors” of “no”.

Yes, there are the people who aggressively say, “No way! Go away!” And in those cases, there’s no mistaking they aren’t interested in hearing what you have to say. The other three types of “no’s,” however, are far from being doors slammed in your face. In most cases, they’re actually leaving the door open a crack for you to get through.

Here’s a look at the other flavors of cold calling “no’s,” according to Retallick, and how to respond to them and eventually turn them into “yes’s.”

* No, not yet: This response comes from people who don’t have an immediate need for your services. “It has a mildly sweet taste, with a hint of things to come.” The most important thing to do when someone says this to you is to keep in touch. Send them information from time to time about industry issues, ask if they would like to sign up for your enewsletter, invite them to attend a webinar you’re presenting, or share a podcast interview you just did.

* You know, I’m just not sure: These people are interested, and they’re willing to give you an opportunity to show what you can do and to prove that you can help them with the challenges they’re facing. The best way to do that is to provide examples. Show them case studies that show how you helped similar businesses with similar problems, point them to your blog, give them an example of your enewsletter and suggest that they become a subscriber.

Retallick stresses that you should not offer to do a project for free to demonstrate your services.

“There are people will ask you to do a project for free, just so they can check you out. And, if they like your work, maybe they’ll hire you for a paying gig. Or they’ll ask you to work for a sizable discount on this project because they’ll make it up to you ‘down the road,’” she says. “Leave those ‘down the road’ promises where they belong: in your mental round file.”

* Not me, but here’s someone else who may be interested: This flavor of “no” has a sweet taste because it comes with a referral. Now, since Person A told you to call Person B, you are in warm calling territory. If possible, ask Person A if he can introduce you via email to Person B, warming up the prospect even more. Then it’s up to you to keep the ball rolling—keep their attention, focus on their challenges, and demonstrate how you can help them.

As always, when making calls remember to put the prospect first. Talking about you, your services, or your company will cause you to sound like a self-serving salesperson, says Jill Konrath. If you want to capture a prospect’s attention and get them to want to learn more, demonstrate your knowledge of their industry and company, address a challenge they’re dealing with, and allude to how you can help them. Otherwise you won’t get any of the sweet-flavored “no’s,” only those that leave a bad taste.

Note: The Freelancer’s Guide to Finding Clients is part of the Freelancer’s Guide series, but don’t let that title push you away. It is intended for professionals who run their own businesses, whether it’s graphic design, engineering, or accounting, and need to generate leads and get new clients.

Photo by: Becco Eliacik

From lead to client: Do we have a deal?

We all love referrals—if they’re good. When they’re good, they can lead to satisfied clients and long-lasting relationships. But it takes a little work to ensure you get good referrals, starting with the people you get them from.

In fact, when looking for people to give you referrals (or referral partners), you have to put on your sales hat, says Colleen Stanley in her article, How You Could Be Hurting Your Referral System.

“Good [referral] partners are like good prospects; they must be qualified or disqualified. One of the key qualifiers for referral partners is how well they align with your company values, goals, and objectives,” she says.

For if they don’t align and don’t follow the same client practices as you, you may find the referrals they give you aren’t worth a dime. It’s imperative, therefore, that you make sure their target clients match yours, that they have good relationships with their clients, and that you trust them.

Prospecting via LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be another good source for leads, but again it takes some effort. You can’t simply join the social network and expect prospects to find you. You must reach out to others, and there are some simple ways to do so, writes Kristina Jaramillo in her article 3 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Attract More Clients:

• Update your status regularly
• Start discussions in groups
• Answer questions in the Q&A section
• Publish content and share it with your groups

Do those things, and “you will begin to build your list of connections and prospects. Continue the conversation, and you will turn these prospects into paying clients,” Jaramillo says.

Prospecting Phone Calls

You might prefer generating leads via referrals and social media, but do not discard prospecting phone calls. They might be the most dreaded tool in your selling toolbox, but they are powerful. Again, that’s provided you do them correctly. The key thing is to avoid sounding like a self-serving salesperson, which many service professionals accidentally do in their attempts to not sound that way.

Consider this example from Jill Konrath’s article Are You Making This Prospecting Mistake?

Hi Pat. This is Jane Kerry calling. I’m with Big Deal Strategies, a leading marketing firm in the Minneapolis area. We offer a wide range of services, including branding, collateral development, as well as packaging and web design—one-stop shopping for all your marketing needs.

I’d love to set up a time to find out about your needs and tell you a bit about how we might help your company. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience. My number is 123-456-7890. I look forward to meeting you. Have a great day!

It sounds gracious and far from pushy. But guess what? You sound self-serving.

“When you talk about your company, you’re selling—even if you do it nicely. You really cross the line if you use verbiage like one-stop shopping, industry leader, user-friendly, scalable, best-in-class, robust, or innovative,” Konrath says.

If you want to get more sales, you have to stop selling, she says. You have to sound like a professional who brings substantial value and is worth meeting.

Build Relationships with Clients

Konrath’s sentiments align with what author and speaker Michael Port says. If you want new clients, you have to develop relationships with prospects and get them to trust you.

Use marketing to create awareness for you and your services, but then have a system that allows prospects to get to know you and your services over time. Give them an opportunity to earn your trust, Port says in his podcast interview Marketing Doesn’t Get You Clients. Trust Does.

“Then once you’ve earned enough trust to make sales offers, you will make sales offers that are proportionate to the amount of trust that you’ve earned,” he says. “If you know how to price your offers in the in the sweet spot of the customer’s desire, and you know how to have simple sales conversations that work at the right time, then you can book the business.”

Consultative Approach Draws New Clients

IT company rackAID, LLC applied a similar approach when it saw its business steadily dropping off. Overseas firms and freelance IT professionals were charging significantly less, but founder Jeff Huckaby didn’t want to be the cheapest IT firm, providing sketchy service and trying to make a living on volume. So he reinvented the firm to be far more consultative. He decided he would differentiate his firm by truly partnering with his clients, looking at the long-term needs of these businesses and making recommendations and sales based on a deep understanding of his clients’ needs.

“We use consultative calls in our question-based selling process,” Huckaby says in Gwen Moran’s case study IT Company Reinvents Itself for Growth, Increases Average Deal Size by 46%. “Instead of initially saying here’s this package and here’s what it is, we listen to that person’s needs and you definitely connect those needs to a package that we have that says, based on what you have described to us, this is the package that fits your needs.”

Huckaby says that by uncovering the client’s goals, he is able to better adopt that partner model that has transformed his business. In addition, he can spot opportunities to sell additional services that the client might need.

Earlier this year, we asked you to share your selling services challenges. You flooded us with your challenges and concerns, which included communicating the value of your services, client relationship management, cold calling, and qualifying leads. In this blog series we identify 12 of the major selling obstacles you are struggling with the most and offer advice and suggestions for overcoming them.

Today’s challenge: cold calling.

——————————————————————————————————-

Cold calling—what an appropriate name for calls to prospects unfamiliar with you. More often than not, the people you call are so chilly toward you that you feel like you should put on a parka. Previous bad experiences with sellers cause them to immediately erect a wall of ice when they receive such a call.

Fortunately there are ways to warm prospects up, get them to talk with you about their concerns, and get them interested in hearing what you have to say. You must, however, do it within the first few seconds of the conversation.

RAIN Group’s Mark Fortune follows a five-step approach when doing cold calling. He starts by introducing himself, his company, and what his company does. Then, probably the most important step, he explains the value proposition for the meeting, describing in succinct but clear terms the benefit to the prospect in having the conversation.

Fortune also says it’s important to always be honest, act naturally, and put the concerns of the prospect first.

(Photo by Yosep Sugiarto)

“I always try to be business-like and focus on the value of the meeting, and to me that’s one of the biggest difference makers in making outbound phone calls,” he says.

People who don’t do as Fortune prescribes come off as self-serving sales people that people immediately tune out.

Buyers “don’t care about you. They don’t want to listen to you talk about your services. They want a solution to a problem. They want to know how you can help them improve their business,” adds Kelley Robertson in his RainToday article, How to Lose a Prospect’s Attention in 5 Seconds.

Be Prepared

Before you start cold calling, ask yourself these important questions, advises Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale:

• What is the goal of the call? Are you looking to sell over the phone, schedule a demonstration or meeting, or offer to share written information with them?
• Who are you and what company do you represent? In 15 seconds, you should be able to introduce yourself, your company, and your company’s value proposition.
• What can you offer the person on the other end of the line? Use your research to talk about the company or industry and how you can help address certain points of concern. If you have a case study or anecdote about a similar problem you helped solve for another company, tell it; just be sure it’s crisp and concise.
• Why does your solution work? Describe what distinguishes your service and how you can help the executive meet company goals.
• What’s the next step? Should you ask about setting up a meeting, forwarding an information kit, or following up via email? Find a way to continue the conversation you started in this introductory call.

Cold Calling Examples

Here are some cold calling scripts from RainToday’s Cold Calling Strategies Kit to help you get started. Remember, you need to tailor the scripts for the prospect and your firm. And never read the script. Use it as a guideline and practice, practice, practice before you pick up the phone.

Example 1:
My name is John Smith, and I am with Smith, Smith & Smith. We’re a <insert type of firm>.

We’ve been scheduling brief phone calls to introduce ourselves and share best practice information. We’d like to tell you how other <industry> companies are…

• Protecting their global shipping operations and ensuring continuous cash flow
• Achieving the best possible efficiencies by connecting all <blank> disciplines
• Using to create competitive differentiation and capture market share

The information will give you a framework for assessing your situation at <company name>. I’m wondering if you’d like to talk with me and one of the partners here at Smith, Smith & Smith on March 23.

Example 2:
My name is Jane Smith, and I am with Smith, Smith & Smith. We’re a <insert type of firm>. As a part of that work, we have just completed a benchmark study where <industry> firms rate over 350 major suppliers in those areas critical in deciding who they will do business with.

What we’ve been doing as a way of introducing ourselves is sharing with select suppliers some survey details specific to you:

• How <company name> rates on six critical success factors
• Where your competition stands in relation to you
• What areas you can focus on that will have the greatest impact on increasing your share of wallet

That’s it. Even if you decide not to pursue this any further than this first meeting, at least you’ll have valuable intelligence as a result.

What does your calendar look like next Wednesday or Thursday?

You can also use a story to get a potential buyer’’s attention. For example, one RainMaker Blog reader used his interest in wine to get past the gatekeeper at a company that sold products and services to vineyards—and then interact with the decision maker.

“I told the gatekeeper that my wife and I had been in a wine bar having a glass of wine when I noticed an article in a wine magazine featuring their product. It appeared to me that they were using some of the services my company provided, and I wanted to find out if that was the case. I was immediately put through to the proper person to begin the engagement process. We landed that account six months later,” he says.

Once you have a prospect’s attention, it’s important to keep the conversation brief and to the point. Your goal when cold calling is to set up a next meeting with them, whether it’s in person or over the phone, so you can further explore their concerns and how you can help them.

As you make your calls, always remember to keep the prospect’s concerns at the forefront. The more you focus on their situation and how you can improve their business, the more likely the person will want to continue the conversation.

Watch Wendy Weiss's on-demand webinar, The New Rules for Cold Calling in 2011

Cold calling can be challenging, not to mention intimidating. But you know what? It works. On top of that, anyone can learn it. You do not need to be a natural-born sales person to be able to do cold calling well.

“What we’re really talking about is a communication skill. Cold calling is a communication skill. Selling is a communication skill. And like any communication skill, cold calling can be learned, and it can be improved on,” says Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling, who  presented a webinar—The New Rules for Cold Calling—on RainToday.com.

In fact, Weiss says anyone making sales calls should have some kind of training.

“Most companies have processes for everything except for prospecting. And when it comes to prospecting, they just kind of leave it up to the rep. They say, ‘Go cold call.’” And that really doesn’t work. Prospecting needs to have a specific process just the way implementation of whatever it is you’re selling has a process,” Weiss says in her podcast interview, Don’t Let these Myths and Misperceptions Derail Your Cold Calling Efforts.

You can listen to that interview here:

I imagine some of you agree with Weiss but disagree that it applies to you because you don’t do cold calling. You prefer to reach out to prospects via referrals or leads generated from a white paper download or some other free piece of content. Regardless, you still have to pick up the phone and talk to people.

“And if you are not able to communicate the value that you have to offer, then it really won’t matter that you have a referral. You’re still not going to get that appointment or that customer,” says Weiss. “So, it’s not about cold calling vs. everything else. It’s about your ability to communicate with a prospect how you can help them.”

That ability, Weiss says, starts with your beliefs about calling people. Do your beliefs empower you? Or do they keep you from being effective?

“If you start with the belief that you can learn how to [cold call], and if something isn’t working for you, you can get help, there are so many things you can do to increase your skill level. But it starts with your belief that you can actually do that,” Weiss says.

Your role in lead generation is like that of a chef crafting a satisfying meal: you must combine elements of art and science.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about online lead generation and the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all tactic. Different things work well for different companies based on target audience, where the prospect is in the buying process, and the company’s abilities.

The same mantra holds true for offline lead generation tactics.

Will cold calling work? What about presenting at a conference? Direct mail? The answer, of course: it depends.

Which lead generation tactics should you use?

Lead generation means finding (or attracting) prospects and building relationships with them to develop potential new business opportunities or “leads” for your services.

Choose Your Ingredients

Your lead generation recipe—which ingredients, in what proportion and sequence—will be based on who you’re serving, their appetites, and your ability to combine everything into a satisfying and delicious whole.

When we asked B2B professionals to rate the effectiveness of offline lead generation tactics, here’s how they responded:

Effectiveness of Offline Lead Generation Tactics

Presenting at in-person events and making “warm” phone calls to existing contacts are at the top of the list of most effective offline tactics. Does this mean these are the only ones you should consider? Does this mean you should stay away from radio advertising? Absolutely not.

That would be like ruling out cilantro from a salsa recipe for your diners because it doesn’t appeal to you personally.

Get Rave Reviews for Your Recipe

I was reminded of this recently when I interviewed a B2B service business owner who’s had success adding direct mail to his lead generation program. Some marketers claim direct mail is dead. However, by adding a fresh ingredient to his recipe, this business owner brought down his cost per lead and now generates 30-35% of his new business from direct mail.

Even radio advertising, which was used by only 15% of our survey respondents, was rated as very or extremely effective by 12.5% of sellers in terms of lead generation.

You have to revisit your target audience, where they are in the buying process, and your abilities to implement a program to figure out the lead generation recipe your company should use. There is no one recipe for everyone. And no one recipe for all time.

The best chefs tweak and adjust recipes to achieve the best possible results.

Happy cooking!

Photo credit: Dev Null

Avoid hype and hard sells. (Photo by Deb Walker)

I’ve been seeing many more articles about how professional services firms need to stay away from using over-hyped marketing copy. Stay away from the hard sell, and do not make promises of miraculous results to hook prospects in. And if you’re thinking about adding an exclamation point to that eye-popping copy, think again. Buyers do not want to be yelled at.

But you need to catch prospects’ attention immediately if you want them to eventually buy your services. If super-charged copy or sales pitches don’t work, then what does?

You have to demonstrate that you’re an expert and that you can help a prospect solve a particularly challenging business problem, says Kelley Robertson, President of The Robertson Training Group, in his podcast interview, Perk Up Their Ears: Sales Techniques that Get Prospects to Take Notice.

Before you make a prospecting call, research the company to uncover their challenges. Then figure out how to position your service and how it can help solve their challenges. Whatever you do, resist the urge to focus on the features of your service. Prospects don’t care about those. They want to know how to solve their problems.

If you “can accomplish that, then resistance will drop and the person you’re calling is more likely to stay on the telephone or give you time to meet with them face to face,” Robertson says.

If you shudder at the thought of cold calling, you can warm up the prospect with an introductory letter. But again, stay away from typical sales letters. Use a trigger event, such as the opening of a new office or the promotion of an executive, to introduce yourself, says Kendra Lee in her article, Prospecting Letters Still Open Doors with New Clients. And if you send it as a handwritten note, that’s even more effective because people are becoming numb to the overabundance of digital exchanges, she says.

“In this digital age increasingly people respond positively when you take the time to write a personalized letter,” Lee says. “Chances are the company president will not only take your call, but he may even reach out to thank you for acknowledging his company’s accomplishments. Once he does, you can segue into setting an appointment to get to know him and share ideas you have for his business.”

It all begins with a letter the executive appreciate and remembers, such as this one Lee includes in her article:

Dear Tom,

Congratulations on your outstanding success! I saw your award as one of the Top Places to Work in Houston. What an honor! You’ve built a business of high caliber. I look forward to congratulating you personally at an upcoming Chamber event!

Sincerely,
Sarah James
Company Name

Lee provides more examples and tips for composing letters in her article.

You Got the Prospect to Buy. Now, How Do You Keep Them Buying?

If you can get the prospect to buy your services, you’ve accomplished the hard part. Now you need to hold on to them. While that’s easier than wooing new clients, it still takes work. You can’t sign them up and then forget about them. You must provide an exceptional experience—one that not only makes them want to stay with you but also gets them referring other businesses to you, says Michael McLaughlin in his article, What It Takes to Keep Clients Coming Back for More.

“Today, competence is rapidly becoming a commodity, that is, table stakes to get in the game. Every serious contender for a client project can claim [and substantiate] a high degree of competency. Predictably, when faced with numerous, equally skilled providers, clients look for something extra to help them choose,” McLaughlin says. “Increasingly, they are thinking about the experience they can expect while working with you as a way to sort out the competition.”

To address the experiential aspect, you have to understand all of the possible sources of value for your client. Try asking this question, McLaughlin advises: “If we had already completed this project and you were looking back on it, how would you describe the project if your experience was an ideal one?”

If the response focuses on schedules, budgets, and delivery of promises, follow up on the intangible sources of value, “especially how the clients might have changed and what they gained personally and professionally,” McLaughlin says. Only then will you get a true picture of what’s important to them and how they want to work with you.

Don’t Go It Alone

For many professional services firms, the journey to attract, sign, and retain clients is a one-person project. That doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. In fact, you shouldn’t. You need feedback and outside opinion on what you do. To get that, Lisa Nirell suggests starting or joining a “mastermind group.”

“Our careers may have become more sophisticated in the past few decades, but the need for collaboration and support in this volatile economy is stronger than ever,” writes Nirell in her article, The Secret Weapon for Outpacing Your Competitors.

Mastermind groups offer “endless benefits,” Nirell says. They minimize the sense of isolation, foster new ideas, and provide a forum to help others.

Nirell says she needs to belong to a mastermind group because she lives in a remote area and cannot find a group of like-minded business owners in her local area and the support and accountability the group provides keeps her on track and energized about her company’s mission.

Many successful business owners have participated in such groups, including Benjamin Franklin, Nirell says. You may want to, as well.

RAIN Group President John Doerr presents How to Turn Cold Prospects into New Clients Oct. 5. Webinar is free for Selling Consulting Services members.

The good news: Through a cold call you (or someone from you company), you just secured a meeting with a decision maker at a company that you believe would be the ideal fit for your services.

The bad news: She knows very little about you, your company, or what you do, but agreed to meet with you anyway.

You’re going in “cold.” Unlike meetings that you might generate through referrals or leads that contact you, you don’t know:

• What kind of interest or need exists for your services
• Who’s involved in the decision-making process
• What’s on the company’s agenda right now
• If, and how, your services can help them achieve their goals

On top of it all, you have very little credibility with this person—she has never heard of you.

So, you go to the meeting and run it like you would any normal sales conversation. You ask questions and explain the value you and your services bring to the table. All the while, the prospect sits across the table from you, arms crossed, ice cold, checking their watch every two minutes.

You leave the meeting knowing this boat is sailing nowhere fast, head back to the office, and start looking for the next prospect.

What happened? What went wrong?

The fact is cold prospects require a different approach and process than prospects generated through referrals or those who come to you with an explicit need.

To help you better handle these cold meetings and convert more prospects into new clients, RainToday.com is hosting a very special webinar tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. ET with RAIN Group President John Doerr titled How to Turn Cold Prospects into New Clients.

In this webinar, exclusively for Selling Consulting Services members, John will walk you step by step through exactly what you need to do and say to warm up cold leads, build credibility, uncover needs, advance the sale, and win new business.

Check out the details here: http://www.sellingconsultingservices.com/webinar.html

Specifically, John will share:

• Questioning techniques that uncover needs and build your credibility
• The most common selling mistakes even the best consultants make and how you can fix them
• How to build rapport and trust early on in the relationship
• What you need to know (and prepare) before the first conversation
• What to say when there’s an incumbent provider
• The one thing you need to do at the end of every sales conversation
• How to follow up in a way that advances the sale

This is a special bonus webinar exclusively for Selling Consulting Services members. To attend this webinar, you must sign up for the online training program Selling Consulting Services with RAIN Selling before October 5 at 2:00 p.m. ET.

If you’re still on the fence about joining the program, you can sign up, watch the webinar, view the first few lessons in the program, and if you don’t like what you see, there’s a 30-day, 100% money-back guarantee and we’ll refund you immediately.

Even if you can’t make this date or time, there’s no need to worry. As long as you sign up for Selling Consulting Services by 1:59 p.m. ET tomorrow, you’ll have access to the webinar recording.

Sign up for Selling Consulting Services now so you don’t miss out on this very special webinar bonus along with everything else that’s behind the program doors.

Learn more and sign up here: http://www.sellingconsultingservices.com