Episode #192: The Cold Calling On Zoom Salesperson- Part Two

In Part One we looked at how to get a meeting when you are cold calling and cannot meet the buyer face to face. When working the phones, cold calling salespeople have a very low conversion rate of turning dials into actual meetings. The same barrier stays in place because we still need to use the phone to speak to the buyer, to make a virtual meeting appointment. If we can design a good enough hook, to get the initial phone contact interested on the phone, then they will take a risk and transfer us or connect us with the buyer. This is the hook value versus the personal risk equation in Japan. That equation usually ensures salespeople almost never get put through to the buyer. The person answering the phone concludes the risk/reward computation is not worth the effort.

If lightening strikes and you do manage to get the buyer name and contact details, or are transferred through to them, then what do you do? We repeat the whole hook delivery approach directly with the buyer again. Having successfully arranged the online meeting, we come on line and meet them for the first time. This can be a a hostile environment.

In the meeting room we have their full and undivided attention, but online is a different matter baby. American research shows that 88% of salespeople believed that buyers were multitasking during their sales presentation and not paying full attention. Also 62% of buyers didn’t even turn their cameras on and in fact, 82% of salespeople didn’t have the guts to ask the buyers to turn on the camera.

This is our first impression opportunity with the buyer, so we want that camera on. We should definitely ask them to come on camera. Just say, “Thank you for joining me today, please come on camera and allow me to introduce myself”. Being Japan, we may get a certain percentage of buyers who will push back on that and say, “I prefer the camera off”. That is not a good sign. We have few choices but to soldier on and do our best, but I would take that as a very negative buying signal right there.

Presuming they do cooperate and come on camera or are already on camera, what are they discovering about us? Were we punctual, trustworthy, on time and online before they joined? Do we look professional, dressed in our business battle gear? Do we have the camera situated at eye height, rather than zooming up our own nose? Are we talking to the camera lens rather than looking down at their image on screen?

Are we speaking fluently with no hesitations like um and ahs, being concise and clear in our communication. Do we sit up straight, away from the back of the chair, projecting confidence and credibility through our body language? Do we have an additional light source in front of us, which overcomes the other lights in the room and lights our face separately, so that we appear very crisp on screen? Have we wrestled our background into submission and eliminated anything that is a distraction or destroying our credibility, like giving the buyer a peek into a very messy room.

There are some basic rules in selling in person and online and building rapport is a good place to begin the sales process. We repeat the hook and explain why we are meeting. We then segue into something like this, “So much has changed, so quickly and February feeling like a million years ago to me. By the way, how have you found working from home rather than the office?”. We do this because we have been doing all the talking so far and now we want to encourage them to start talking to us. After listening to them, we express some empathy with what has been their experience. Now we come to a vital component of the sales call. We seek their permission to ask questions.

In our case, we would say this, “We started the company in 1912 and have been in Japan for 57 years now and have been active across all major industries here. We have worked with XYZ in your industry. What they really liked was the fact that we could produce increases in revenues above 20% in a three month period. Maybe we could do the same for you? I am not sure, but in order for me to understand if that is possible or not, would you mind if I asked a few questions?”.

Here we have started with a broad statement about who we are, why we are differentiated from our competitors and what we do for clients. We then provide concrete evidence of where we have been successful with their competitors. We do not say we can “definitely” help them, as Americans are taught to do in sales. We specifically say “maybe”. We do this to sound less pushy. Also, in truth, until we ask them some questions, we actually have no idea if we can help them or not.

Finally, we seek their permission to ask a “few” questions. This implies it won’t be too many questions or take up a lot of their valuable time. Ironically, if there is some interest there, then it could become quite a lot of questions and take quite a lot of time. When there is interest though, the buyer won’t mind. Now if we find there is not a match, we don’t try and slam the square peg into the round hole. We just politely terminate the conversation and go and find an actual buyer.

In Part Three we will continue with the next stage of the online sales cold call.