Prospecting: The Warm-up Letter
A while back I received a call from Pierre, a financial advisor who works for a major bank in Canada. Pierre called to tell me he had just listened to my online audio program on prospecting, Don’t Count the Yes’s: Count the No’s; really enjoyed it and had a question.
He wanted to know if when preparing to make your calls, after identifying who you will be calling, would it be helpful to send an introductory letter to each person telling them you will be following up with a phone call. The answer to this is not as cut and dried as you might think.
First off, for those of you who think sending the letter makes the call “warmer,” it only makes the call “warmer” for the caller. The people receiving the letters either don’t read them or forgot what they read soon after. On the other hand, and this is what I told Pierre, if sending a letter will make it easier for you to overcome the fear of calling, then, by all means, send the letter. Since call reluctance is the biggest problem salespeople face, anything you can do to motivate yourself to generate more activity, to me, is a good thing.
If you are going to send out a letter before the call make sure, at the end of the letter, you write, “I will be calling you on (and plug in a specific day and time) to set up an appointment so we can discuss this further.”
By doing this you are making sure you keep the focus on what you want to achieve (getting the appointment) and you just might find there will a small number of people who will actually be expecting your call. One word of caution: if you tell people you’ll be calling them on a specific day and time, make sure you follow-up and do it.
If you found this idea useful and want to learn more about how to sell more appointments, get in front of more hot prospects and increase your business, make sure to click here and sign up for my next Prospecting Simulcast (Jan. 20th at 6pm EDT) to get your sales effort on track for 2010! You can attend by listening via webcast or by calling in from wherever you are. Additionally, you will receive a recorded version of the event.