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An Example of a Cold Call from a Payroll Software Salesperson - YouTube
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- Thanks for calling
SaleScripter, how can I help you?
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- Hey there, good afternoon,
my name is (beep),
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I'm hoping you can help me out here.
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I'm looking to get over to
the person who makes decisions
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regarding payroll software, please.
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- Yeah, that's me.
- Okay.
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And I'm sorry, sir, what was your name?
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- This is Michael Halper.
- Hey.
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Good morning here,
Michael, how are you doing?
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- Good, how are you?
- I'm doing pretty well.
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Happy tomorrow's the
4th, that's for sure, so.
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- Yeah.
- Well, yup.
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Well hey Michael, reason
for my call was more
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or less wanted to introduce you to (beep),
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if you don't mind me
asking though, Michael,
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how are you guys currently
handling your payroll?
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- We outsource.
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- You guys are outsourcing, okay.
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And then, if you don't mind
me asking here too, Michael,
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how many employees are
they helping you out with?
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- I'd rather not share that information.
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- Okay hey, totally
understand here, Michael.
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Typically, with our software,
though, it works best
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with companies that have
about 40 or more employees.
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I guess, just to make sure
I'm not wasting your time
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or anyone else's here, I guess,
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would you guys say you
guys fall in that category?
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- No.
- No, okay.
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Sounds good, Michael, well
I appreciate you hopping
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on the phone here and I hope
you have a great 4th of July.
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Okay?
- All right, take care.
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- Thank you, bye bye.
- Bye.
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All right, while that
seems like a pretty short
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and not too relevant cold call example,
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there's actually some really great stuff
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to reflect on in that call, first,
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let's talk about what he did well.
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I think this sales person did a good job
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of pre-qualifying me,
he did that by asking
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a couple questions and then he determined
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that it doesn't make sense to talk.
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Real quick, I refer to
pre-qualifying as just softly
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qualifying the prospect to determine
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if it even makes sense to talk.
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Remember, the goal of the cold call is not
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to sell the product, it's
to sell the conversation.
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So, if it doesn't even make sense to talk,
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let the prospect go and move
on to find better prospects.
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So, I think he did a
really good job of that.
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Let's talk about what he
could have done better.
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I think there was some
room for improvement
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in how he opened the call, first of all,
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I'm the person that answered the call.
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He thought that the call
was going to a gatekeeper.
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And, let me read exactly what he said
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'cause I made a note, he
said to the gatekeeper
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or who he thought was the gate keeper,
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"Can you help me get over to the person
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that makes decisions regarding
payroll software, please?"
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Now, when you face gatekeepers,
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the gatekeeper is tasked
with, in most cases,
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with getting rid of salespeople.
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So, if they determine
you're a sales person,
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their level of resistance, and objections,
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and screening goes up tremendously,
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and they will do everything
they can to get rid of you.
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Primarily because they stand to get
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in trouble if they let you in.
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So, what I recommend you do
is to do everything you can
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to not sound like a sales
person trying to sell something.
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It doesn't mean you
have to lie or mislead,
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it's just try to avoid saying stuff
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that just puts a red flag
and neon sign above you
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that says I'm a salesperson
trying to sell something.
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Now, when you say, "Can
I get to the person
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making decisions regarding
payroll software, please?"
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That is exactly what a salesperson
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that sells something
regarding payroll software
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or that sells payroll software would say.
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And so, the gatekeeper
will get extremely guarded
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when you say that, he could
have just minorly modified
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what he said there, now
my recommendation would be
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for you to research the company online,
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on the company's website, on
LinkedIn, and find the name
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of the people that you
need to connect with.
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But let's say that you
don't have the name.
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Well, instead of saying the person
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that basically purchases
payroll software so I can sell
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to that person, which
is what this guy said,
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just modify it to say,
"Yeah, I'm trying to connect
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with the Director of Finance
or the payroll manager,
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or the CFO," and just refer
to the person by title
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or function rather than
describing the person
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about what they purchase or not.
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All right, and a minor
critique on the opening.
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Again, I want you to not sound
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like a salesperson
trying to sell something.
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And, I think that there are, there's a way
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that salespeople
communicate where they say,
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"How are you doing
today," and this guy says,
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"Happy that tomorrow's the 4th."
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I think that is just kind of
cheesy, salesperson trying
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to manufacturer a rapport
with the prospect.
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I think that you can be completely
respectful, professional,
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and nice at the same time by just saying,
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"Hey, have I caught you in
the middle of anything?"
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Replace the how are you doing,
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and happy that it's
Friday, or a happy Monday,
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or whatever with that and don't try
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to manufacture a rapport,
just a minor critique.
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The other thing is is that
this guy says that the purpose
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of his call is to introduce
his company to the prospect.
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Now, that is the most uninviting
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or unappealing purpose of a call.
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And, the reason why is because everything
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that you say should factor in
the other person's interest.
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Meaning, if you're talking
about the purpose of the call,
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describe the purpose of the call in a way
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that it's appealing to the other person.
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And, the way to know
whether or not the purpose
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is appealing is to stop and think
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about the other person's interest.
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Now, before talking about
the prospect's interests,
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let's talk about the
salesperson's interest.
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The salesperson's interest
is to sell their product
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and in order to sell their product,
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they have to make the prospect aware
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of their product and their company.
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And, in order to make the prospect aware
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of their product and company,
they have to introduce
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their product and company to the prospect.
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So, when the salesperson says,
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"The purpose of my call is to
introduce my company to you."
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Everything around that is aligned
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with the salesperson's interest.
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Well, the prospect does not
share those same interests.
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The prospect does not care
about the salesperson selling
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their product, the prospect does not care
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about the salesperson's
company or product.
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So, why would you say that
as the purpose of the call?
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Why not say the purpose of the call
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that aligns more with
the prospect's interests?
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So, what does the prospect care about?
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The prospect cares about making more money
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for their company and for themselves.
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The prospect cares more
about their job being easier
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and less stressful, those types of things.
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And, most likely the
product that you sell,
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delivers some sort of value
that will help the prospect
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achieve those things,
find out how your product
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helps the buyer and then
express that as the purpose
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of the call, he could have said,
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"Hey, the purpose for
my call is I help owners
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of small businesses to reduce the time
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and money they spend
on payroll processing."
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Right, so that's not his interest,
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that's aligned with my
interests as the prospect.
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The only objection that came up,
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I always like to look at
what objections came up
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on a cold call is that this salesperson
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asked a question and I
gave him an objection.
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He asked, "How many employees
we're processing payroll for?"
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And, this really wasn't
calculated on my part,
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but I gave him the objection of,
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"I don't want to share
that information with you."
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So, we can look at that as an objection,
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but let me share why
I gave that objection.
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I gave that objection because
to ask a prospect how much,
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let's say to ask a prospect,
how much revenue they generate?
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That is like asking someone how much money
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they make every year, it's a
bit personal of a question.
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Now, when you have a, when you
have an established dialogue
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with a customer, with a prospect,
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and you're asking discovery questions,
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you can certainly ask them
what is your annual revenue,
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but would you ask that
question on a cold call?
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I would say that you shouldn't
because it's a bit invasive.
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You want to basically
kind of, let's warm up,
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and establish a conversation,
and relationship
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before I ask you very personal questions,
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like how much money you
make, so the question
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of how many employees
you have is correlated
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with how much money your company makes.
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And, as to a business owner that's how,
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correlated with how much money you make.
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So, it's not a horrible question to ask,
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but this guy is asking that question too,
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in my opinion, too early, now obviously,
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it is a question that he wants to ask
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to pre-qualify me and I'm fine with that.
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And what he does is with,
when I give him the objection,
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he actually responds to it in a great way
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which is to say, "Hey yeah, I understand,
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let me just ask you real quick,
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are you above or below
this," and while that number,
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getting to a range kind
of gets to the same level
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of personal information,
it's a little less invasive.
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So, he does a really good job there
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and I give him the information he needs,
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and he's able to disqualify me.
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So, that was good, but
that's an important thing
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to talk about because
while you might not need
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to know how many employees someone has
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or ask that same question, a
good example that that converts
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over to is oftentimes, you
want to ask the prospect
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if they have enough money
to spend for your product.
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And, this is a very common question.
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So, let's look at this real quickly,
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which is if you were to say to someone,
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"Do you have enough
money to spend for this?
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Or how much money do you
have to spend for this?"
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Whether or not you use those exact words.
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That can be an invasive
question for two reasons.
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One is maybe the prospect
doesn't have a lot
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of money to spend, and they don't want you
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to lose respect for them
because they don't want
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to be embarrassed, so they might not want
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to answer your question
honestly because they're scared
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of how it would make them look,
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if they don't have a
lot of money to spend.
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Another reason why someone might not want
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to answer the question is
for negotiation purposes.
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If you say, "How much money
are you able to spend on this?"
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They might not want to answer that
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because if they give you that answer,
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then they know that, that
might impact the pricing you
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give them or the discount you give them.
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So, they want to retain that information.
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So, what you can do to
avoid those situations
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which is similar to the asking
how many employees you have
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is to ask a range, so
let's say that you sell,
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you do web design services, right?
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So you could say, "Hey,
are you looking to spend
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two to $5,000 on your
website design, redesign?
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Are you looking to spend five to $20,000?
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Or are you looking to spend 20 to $50,000?
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I'm not saying how much the web design
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that we need to do for your website costs,
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but if I can understand
what range you're in,
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that can help me identify what you need
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or maybe if we're the
right provider for you.
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So, can you help me understand
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what range you would put yourself in?"
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So, using ranges and different bars
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can make a prospect more comfortable
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and the prospect might say, "Oh yeah,
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we're in the five to $10,000 range."
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And, they might share that information
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with you much easier than if you say,
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"How much are you looking
to spend on this?"
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That's pretty much it, the
last thing I want to talk
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about is one thing I
always like to reflect on,
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especially with my own cold calls,
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is what questions could I have asked
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to keep the call going or
to get more information?
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The only thing I can think
of with this particular call,
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if you reflect back on the call,
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he said, "Are you above
or below 40 employees?"
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I said, "We're below," and he let me go.
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Obviously, he doesn't
want to spend time with me
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because I'm not a
potential prospect for him,
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but you know what would have
been a good question to ask is,
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do you see yourself going above 40?
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If you look at your growth plans,
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how far are you from
there, I'm not saying that
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this is the case for
us, but what if he said,
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"Are you above or below 40 employees?"
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And, what if I was at 35
and in the next 12 months,
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we probably will cross 40,
that could have been the case
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and he wouldn't have known
that and he let me go.
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So, a question he could have asked is,
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"What are your growth plans,
when do you see yourself
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crossing 40 employees, do you see that?
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Is that in the next five years?"
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And, based on my answer
that could have impacted his
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follow-up to us or maybe he would've
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determined he never needs
to follow up with us.
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But what we described there
maybe would have led him
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to adding us to an email drip
system or a follow-up call.
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So, just an example there of thinking
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about what question could I have asked
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to either keep the call going
or to get more information.
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Anyways, I hope that cold call example
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and the analysis helps give you ideas
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of how to improve your cold call.
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Look for other cold call examples
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and analysis on our YouTube channel
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and on our podcast,
thanks, have a great day.
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