296 How to Get the Best Intel to Make Your Prospecting Relevant

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Art of Sales with Art Sobczak
Episode 296: How to Get the Best Intel to Make Your Prospecting Relevant
Release Date: August 8, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 296 of The Art of Sales, host Art Sobczak delves into the critical role of sales intelligence in enhancing prospecting efforts. Titled "How to Get the Best Intel to Make Your Prospecting Relevant," this episode offers actionable strategies to gather valuable information that can transform generic sales pitches into personalized, effective conversations.

The Value of Sales Intelligence

Art begins by emphasizing the profound impact that detailed knowledge about a prospect can have on the success of a sales call. He poses several rhetorical questions to illustrate the potential benefits:

“How valuable would it be for you if you knew on a prospecting call before speaking with a decision maker who they're buying from now?” (00:24)

Understanding who the decision-makers are, their current purchasing patterns, existing pain points, and any recent changes within their organization can significantly tailor and enhance the relevance of your outreach.

Social Engineering: A Trusted Approach

Art introduces the concept of social engineering, not in its malicious connotation, but as a reputable method to gather sales intelligence. He clarifies:

“Computer hackers have known this for years. They are the ones who popularized the term and the practice of social engineering. Now, we of course do it for reputable purposes because we want to help people and the organization.” (04:20)

By engaging with individuals other than the primary decision-maker, such as assistants or colleagues, sales professionals can uncover valuable insights that inform their approach and messaging.

The Smart Calling Process

Art outlines a four-step "smart calling" process designed to extract meaningful information from contacts within an organization:

1. Identify Yourself and Your Company
   Begin the conversation transparently by stating your name and the company you represent.

   Example: “Hi, Jason Andrews here with National Systems.” (04:45)

2. Ask for Help
   People are naturally inclined to assist when approached politely.

   “Hey, I'm hoping you can help me out or I'm looking for some assistance here.” (04:55)

3. Use a Justification Statement
   Provide a reason for your inquiry without directly asking for information.

   “I want to make sure that I'm talking to the right person there...” (05:10)

4. Start Asking Questions
   Engage in a conversation by asking relevant questions tailored to the contact's role and expertise.

   Art emphasizes that higher-level contacts often provide more valuable information and that assuming you cannot obtain certain details is a mistake. If you don't ask, you won't get the information.

Benefits of the Smart Calling Approach

Implementing this process yields multiple advantages:

• Personalized Messaging: The intelligence gathered allows for customized voicemails and opening statements that resonate with the prospect.

• Building Rapport: Engaging with gatekeepers or assistants without labeling them as such fosters a positive relationship, making them more likely to facilitate access to decision-makers.

• Increased Response Rates: Personalized and relevant communication naturally attracts more interest and responses from prospects.

Practical Exercises for Sales Professionals

Art provides listeners with actionable steps to incorporate social engineering into their sales routines:

1. Prepare Your Script: Develop a script that includes identification, a request for help, a justification statement, and relevant questions.

2. Brainstorm Questions: Create a list of targeted questions tailored to different levels within an organization to extract the most pertinent information.

“Don't assume what you can't get because so often salespeople will say, well, you know, they probably won't answer that...” (06:15)

Integrating Intelligence into Sales Strategy

After collecting the necessary intelligence, Art advises integrating it into your overall sales strategy:

• Voicemails: Craft voicemails that reflect the specific needs and interests of the prospect.

• Opening Statements: Use the gathered information to make your initial conversation compelling and relevant.

He also mentions supplemental resources available on his website, including a free Smart Calling template and video training, to assist sales professionals in implementing these techniques effectively.

Key Takeaways

• Proactive Information Gathering: Engage with various contacts within a target organization to build a comprehensive understanding before reaching out to decision-makers.

• Personalization Over Generic Pitches: Tailored messages based on gathered intelligence significantly improve engagement and response rates.

• Build Relationships Beyond Decision-Makers: Establishing rapport with assistants and other personnel can facilitate smoother access to key decision-makers.

Notable Quotes

• “People are willing to give you amazing amounts of quality information if you just ask them.” – Art Sobczak (03:50)

• “A question that is never asked is a lost opportunity for learning.” – Nito Quebe (07:00)

Conclusion

Art Sobczak's Episode 296 serves as a comprehensive guide for sales professionals seeking to enhance their prospecting efforts through effective intelligence gathering. By adopting the smart calling process and leveraging social engineering ethically, listeners can transform their sales approach to be more personalized, relevant, and successful.

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Timestamp Reference:

• 00:24 - Importance of knowing key information about prospects
• 04:20 - Defining social engineering in sales
• 04:45 - Step 1: Identify yourself
• 04:55 - Step 2: Ask for help
• 05:10 - Step 3: Justification statement
• 06:15 - Importance of asking questions
• 07:00 - Quote from Nito Quebe

Transcript

[A]

You are listening to the Art of Sales. Everyone sells every day and this is your source for conversational real world sales and prospecting methods that you are comfortable using and that get results you'll help people buy instead of pushing them into being sold. Here's your host, Art Sopcich.

[B]

This episode is going to be a valuable training session on how to get your very best form of sales intelligence that you will then use to create interest and get responses to your voicemails and create interest with your opening statements with prospects. Now think about this. How valuable would it be for you if you knew on a prospecting call before speaking with a decision decision maker who they're buying from now? What's the best way to get to the decision maker? What are they paying for what they're buying now? Maybe any problems they have with what they're using that they're now in the market for your type of product or service. Or maybe any recent or planned changes that affect what they buy as it relates to your types of products and services. Maybe the buyer's personal interests and passions about what to avoid when speaking with the buyer. Maybe any other people who are involved in the buying process. And how about maybe even being helped into the executive suite by somebody else? So would any of that make it any easier for you to tailor a personalized, customized, relevant message that you could use on voicemail and to get instant attention in the first few critical seconds of a phone call with the decision maker? Well, yeah, but. So why don't you have that information? Well, if you don't, it's probably because you're not asking for it. It's there. You just need to speak with people other than your decision maker before you call him or her. And that's the not so secret secret that gets calls returned and gets salespeople in. It's knowing and using valuable sales intelligence that allows you to personalize, customize and tailor your messaging so that it's relevant to the listener. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? So I've been teaching and practicing this for years. It's called social engineering and many of you have adopted it. And you show the results every day. And so have so many sales pros worldwide who are using my smart calling process. But others, sadly place generic almost like talking form letters, junk mail, repeating the same old things, call after call, putting the numbers in, but getting the same old results. So to explain this simple process, after you've done your online and your offline research on a prospect, you know, going to LinkedIn and Google. And then your goal is to speak with someone other than your targeted decision maker. That's what we want to do next. Now, this call can be done first, maybe as a separate call before your first call to your prospect. So that's a standalone call. And then also it should be done every time you call your prospect, regardless of where you are in the sales process, because you can speak with somebody before you ask to be put through to your decision maker or call into somebody else in the company before getting to that person. So I find this to be the most underutilized tool available to us as salespeople and the one that has the greatest possible payoff. And all it requires is that you take the time to do it and do it from a sense of curiosity and have some conversational questioning techniques. And completing all of these steps might help you realize something that many of us have already. And it's this. People are willing to give you amazing amounts of quality information if you just ask them. Hey, computer hackers have known this for years. They are the ones who popularized the term and the practice of social engineering. Now, we of course do it for reputable purposes because we want to help people and the organization. We're calling with the results and the solutions that we have. All right, so enough talking about it. Let's talk about how to do it. So the social engineering process for smart calling goes like this, number one. And again, this is with anyone that you're talking to in the organization other than your decision maker. So again, it could be an assistant, it could be a colleague working in the same department. It could be just the person who answers the phone in an organization. So they answer the phone. First step, identify yourself and your company. And that immediately shows that you're not hiding anything. So, for example, hi, Jason Andrews here with National Systems. Number two, we ask for help. And this is magic. Most people have this innate desire to be helpful to others in SIM in some way. So it sounds like this, hey, I'm hoping you can help me out or I'm looking for some assistance here. That easy. Number three, and this one is powerful. It's using a justification statement. This is the key that's going to unlock the best, most useful information. And this sounds like I want to make sure that I'm talking to the right person there or I'm going to be speaking with your VP of sales. Want to be sure that I have some accurate information or so that I'm better prepared when I talk to your cio. I've got a few Questions that you could probably answer. And notice what we're not doing here is saying, may I ask you some questions? So what we're doing then is step four. We're just going to start asking questions now. We want to ask about the most basic factual stuff for which we might not have information on yet. And of course, this is going to depend both on what you sell and the level of person with whom you're speaking. In general, the higher up you go, the better the quality of the information. So what I normally tell salespeople here is that don't assume what you can't get because so often salespeople will say, well, you know, they probably won't answer that, or they probably don't know that. The only definite here is that if you don't ask, you're for sure to not get the information. Matter of fact, you could probably get almost everything you need from someone other than a decision maker, depending on how high up you're calling in an organization. And here's another benefit. As a result of being in a conversation with someone else, many times an assistant to the buyer, that's who you'll be talking to. Some people call them the screener, the gatekeeper. We don't use those words. What we're doing here by asking questions is that we're building rapport with them. They also recognize that you're not a typical salesperson and often they will help you get in to see the buyer or talk to the buyer or even arrange it for you. So my question to you is, why wouldn't you start using this right now? So here's an exercise for you to begin doing that. Step one. Begin by preparing your own script for social engineering using the process that we just went through here. Be sure you have a justification statement that you're comfortable with and you're doing every step in the process. There's not that many, right? Identify yourself, ask for help, justification statement, ask the questions. And then step two, brainstorm for the questions that you're going to ask at the different levels of an organization and write them out. All right, bottom line, if you use social engineering, you're going to make your prospecting calls smarter and more successful. So now you might be thinking, I've got all this great intelligence. What are we going to do with it? Well, you want to plug it into the proven smart calling process for your voicemails and opening statements. I've got a free resource here for you, but of course I encourage you to also get the best selling book that sales pros worldwide are using to get through, get in and sell to new prospects and you can order yours at Amazon. I don't sell them myself, but if you are going to get the book, go through my site where I also give a free companion course with hundreds of dollars worth of supplemental tips and scripts and word for word messaging to help you prospect successfully and without rejection. So that site is smart-calling.com smart or hyphen if you want to call it that, Smart Calling. Com. And in addition to that, and if you don't want to wait for the book, I also have a free Fill in the Blanks Smart Calling template with additional free video training on putting together your own interest, creating opening word for word voice mails. And you can get that at Sales by Phone Sales by by phone. Com all right. Hey, you know what time it is? That's right. It's time for the quote of the day. Today's quote comes from Nito Quebe, who is a famous motivational speaker and also the president of High Point University. Nito says a question that is never asked is a lost opportunity for learning and the questions that you don't ask of others within and organization are lost opportunities for sales intelligence and for you to make that opening and voicemail more relevant, more interesting and more successful. All right, thank you so much for investing your valuable sales time with me today. Until next time, go out and make it your best sales day ever. I'm Art Sobchak.