Do you know who your customers are? Sure you do. You can probably describe them with some level of granularity. And you know, in a broad way, what they do and how they use your services. Good.
Well, I received a phone call (actually, they left a voice mail) yesterday that showed that not everyone is as smart as you.
Our name was in the press recently because we launched our new workshop. A sales rep for a Sample company saw it – evidently our name was not in their database – and proceeded to leave me a long message about how we had “never had the opportunity to talk” and how she hadn’t had the chance to tell me about all of her “survey research solutions.”
Yo! Sales Rep! WE DON’T DO RESEARCH! WE DON’T NEED WHAT YOU’RE SELLIN’!
Now I understand that sales reps have quotas and need to make cold calls to hit those quotas… but before you start dialing, take 2 minutes to make sure that the firm you’re calling fits some minimal profile of a client. It will save you and the sales prospect valuable time.
And it’s not a difficult thing to do… just go to their website (especially the What We Do section). If for some reason that’s not enough, you could also:
- Scan through the content they produce.
- Read through their blog.
- Check out the firm’s and the contact’s LinkedIn profile.
- Or Twitter, FaceBook, etc.
There are plenty of online resources to help a good sales rep prepare for a successful sales call. Those same resources can also keep a bad sales rep from embarrassing themselves and their company.