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Prospecting for Voice Mail
Wednesday 8 April, 2009
Have you ever heard of a salesman calling prospects and PRAYING for voice mail! No, he wasn’t delivering bad news. He was prospecting.
Today, I caught up with a friend of mine, Nate Olsen, who employed this tactic for many years, with a 40-50% success rate. Nate is a friend from Business school, who has been in the PEO (Professional Employer Organization) industry for the last 12 years. Nate works for a Fortune 300 company as a Regional Sales Manager, selling primarily to small and mid-sized businesses. Nate’s customers utilize his company to manage all of the Human Resource aspects of their business(Health Benefits, Workers Comp, HR admin and liability) so they can focus on their core competencies. Essentially, Nate’s company utilizes economies of scale and the buying power of 188,000 employees to give small and mid-size businesses the leverage it needs to effectively reduce costs, liability and to function more efficiently. It is a great model and a true win-win as the small business owner can outsource the non-revenue producing area of his/her business, which allows for them to reallocate internal resources to increase profitability.
Anyway, the Guerrilla Sales Tactic I want to pass along from Nate, stemmed from his days as a salesman. He had a target list of hard to reach clients that he knew were a good fit for his offering, and twice a month, he would call from his list and PRAY for voice mail! Once he got the voice mail of the business owner, he would leave the following message:
“Hi Mr. Business Owner, this is Nate Olsen from (insert your company name) and I will be meeting with company A (be specific, preferably a competitor or similar sized business) down the street from you, at 10am. I will be finished at 10:40am and I will stop by after my meeting. If this doesn’t work for you, please call my cell phone at (111-222-3333). Otherwise, I will see you tomorrow at 10:45am”
While presumptive, Nate would show up at 10:45am, tell the receptionist he had an appointment with Mr. Business owner and surprisingly, and 40-50% of the time, the owner would take his meeting. While I would not want to use this tactic for all prospects, I definitely think it should be a tool in your bag to use for those clients who are extremely difficult to reach. If you can’t get in touch with them using other Guerrilla Sales Tactics what is it going to hurt? Be presumptive and start praying for voice mail!
