You know the feeling. Booking a conference room with a couple of your sales buddies at work and doing an hour-long call blitz. Don’t you miss it? The camaraderie, adrenaline rush, and learning opportunity? I think we all do…
Thankfully, you don’t have to be in the office to do a call blitz! Here are some tricks & tips to re-create that call blitz feeling while you’re remote – and perhaps even up the ante!
Find Your Partners in Crime
The advantage of being remote is that distance is immaterial. Your colleagues, your best friend, and your mentor are all equally close/far from you at any time. So for your next call blitz feel free to invite your ex-colleague and that person you met at an event and really hit it off with. Not only will you have others to compete with, but this could be a learning & networking opportunity like never before!
Find Your Tools
There are a plethora of collaboration tools out there, and a lot of them are currently offering free versions. You could choose between Zoom, Tandem, Microsoft Teams or something else. Get into your virtual room, grab a coffee and water and you are all set.
Find Your List
How is this list different from your list in February? Well, due to the current climate it might be useful to filter it for a few things:
- Remove corporate phone numbers – (almost) nobody is going to be in their office for a few weeks, so you’d be better off using direct dials (that probably forward to cell phones) if you have them.
- If you sell to multiple industries or personas – find the target customer most likely to be in a positive or neutral frame of mind during this crisis.
- E.g. if you sell procurement software to restaurants and hospitals – you might be better off trying different industries that aren’t as impacted by the current situation.
Timing is Everything
This is a great time to experiment. Remote working with household chores and kids at home is a completely new ballgame. People are still figuring out work schedules and all bets are off on what might be a good or bad time to call.
Just based on my personal schedule, my guess is that later in the afternoon might work better than the morning. Early calls usually find people trying to get themselves and their kids organized into a schedule, and timings might be more stretched without the external pressure of school.
Experiment with different blocks of time and see what works best for your audience! Remember to stay organized though, organized schedules get you organized results!
What Do You Say?
People are under immense pressure right now – some are in the midst of laying people off, some are anxious about their own jobs, and some are just uncertain about the future (it’s scary!) In the midst of all this, buying something is probably not very high on their priority list.
As a salesperson, your job now isn’t to make them buy (unless of course, you sell something that specifically addresses their needs today). Your job is to show them value so that when they are ready to buy, they know you exist. On the cold-call, you want to pre-empt their mindset and level with them. Let them know that you aren’t looking for a purchase decision just yet, but you want to remain top-of-mind when they are ready to look. It also helps to be empathetic, ask how they’re doing, and have a conversation with them (person to person, not SALESperson to person).
The CTA
I agree with Scott Barker that “gives and asks are worth twice as much now than a month back.” Be thoughtful and work to see if you could change your ‘ask’ at the end of the call (15 minutes on their calendar) to a genuine ‘give’ (valuable content and a calendar invite for 2 months out). Trust me, you will be appreciated for the gesture.
Last But Not Least…
Before you hit dial, lock your door if you have pets or kids (or both) at home ? It’s become much more acceptable to have your cute kid or puppy show up in a video call, but I would say it’s still better to maintain that distance in a cold call.
PS: If you can’t coordinate a call blitz, do what James does – record yourself making calls and share with your friends or post on LinkedIn. If you are a more ‘private’ person like me, let Wingman record and analyze your calls and show you how you compare with your peers!
About the author:
Shruti is the Founder-CEO of Wingman – a real-time sales coaching tool that’s powered by AI to deliver insights to sales-reps during sales calls. Before starting Wingman, Shruti spent a decade in the finance and tech world but her teenage passion was in lifesciences and studying diseases. Outside of work, she enjoys playing board games while doing karate chops to keep her 4-year old from disrupting the boards.