Ferrisbeboolin

Inside Sales Representative

How Do Y’all Make Qualifying Natural?

hey savages noob back. boutta hit the phones for the first time next week. work for a major IT hardware vendor. been doing good in mock calls but I doubt a IT Director or SysAdmin or CIO is gonna answer to "who is your vendor for storage?, what projects are y'all rolling out? what are some key apps y'all use?" I know that you want to come with something relevant and I don't wanna waste 20 minutes and make someone pissed knowing they're being qualified. How would y'all go about getting this information so you can make your calls more pinpointed and relevant.

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16 comments

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Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Find out if they're interested first, then engage in a conversation where you can ask your questions and also provide information about why you're asking (when using our company's storage, we've found customers experience x benefit right out of the gate, etc).
Do you have a good opening line you've been practicing?

Ferrisbeboolin

Opinionated

Inside Sales Representative

I honestly just go with hey ___ it’s ____ calling from ____ how’ve you been?

Do you have any other suggestions

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Go with what you are comfortable with. Everyone has an opinion, but my advice is to simply do what makes sense toyou
I like "Hey "Name", this is "My Name" at "My company", I know I am calling out of the blue,but do you have one minute, so that I can tell you why I am calling you and then you can decide if it makes sense for us to have a conversation?"

I have been told Permission based openers don't work, but it works for me.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

stay away from asking how they have been, it's a waste of time and they don't have much of it to spend with someone they don't know.

Ferrisbeboolin

Opinionated

Inside Sales Representative

Yeah I’ve been wanting to change it they just really emphasize “building repoir before” but they don’t care about me lol

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Always use what works for you, regardless of what others say.
I like the open, direct approach myself.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Right, Kosta's approach is direct and gets to the point quickly. Honestly, I find most people appreciate that.

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Asking a stranger "how've you been" doesn't build rapport, it annoys people and sets off their spam filters. If a stranger stopped you in the street and asked "how've you been?" how would you feel.

I use the same lines as @Kosta_Konfucius and it works well.

Google "30 minutes to presidents club cold call playbook"

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Asking how they've been is terrible. Don't do that. You don't care how they've been and they know that. Its the biggest "tell" that its a sales call.
You need to bring relevancy in the first 10 seconds of the call or its over. You won't get 20mins unless they are killing time at their job. In which case YOU'VE wasted 20min.
You just need to determine if there is interest and schedule a follow up call when they have time to talk. That's it.

FoodForSales

Politicker

Agreed

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Throw out what you do first then if theres a common problem/pain they usually will open up and then willing to talk about it further then or at a better time

yosoybill

Account Manager

Job posts are an easy way to find information about an orgs tech stack. They’ll sometimes list need X years of experience with Y technology. If you know your space well, you can try to lead in with some trap-setting questions of that.

Technology also enables the business, so if you see a technology on there that does a specific thing, it likely ties into a larger business challenge that you can ask around.

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

I'm making a few assumptions (this is a cold call and you're in a mature market with lots of true competitors)

Generally try to shift your mind set from "are they a qualified prospect" to "do they have a problem that we can solve" - your questions will naturally be more curious and about them rather than "selfish" BANT type questions.

Once you've gotten the initial interest, that's when you've earned the right to ask the BANT type questions. But, you need to frame it as beneficial for them not just you.

something along the lines of:

You: Hi blah, my name is X and i'm calling from Y...have you heard of us?

Prospect: Yes/no

You: (if yes) great, the reason I'm calling is because Roles have found that they are able to Value prop A,B,C through us/our product and I was curious to about (prospect ORG)'s experience in those areas has been. Are you open to talking about your experience with you A,B,C ing?

You (if no) No worries, mind if I tell you why I called?

I'm calling is because Roles have found that they are able to Value prop A,B,C through us/our product and I was curious to about (prospect ORG)'s experience in those areas has been. Are you open to talking about your experience with you A,B,C ing?

From here, the prospect will either blow you off or tell you they have a solution in place.

For the latter, say something like "great, what are you utilizing."

Then throw 3 darts (reasons people leave that service for yours) and ask if they've had a similar experience.

If no, say that's great and ask them if it would make sense to reach out when they typically re-evalute tools.

If pain, ask if they're open to exploring other tools.

NOW you can ask the qualifying questions by saying "to help prepare for the meeting would you mind sharing XYZ"

If NO, log a task in your CRM to follow up with that account around that time.

GDO

Politicker

BDM

Preface the questions by telling them why you ask. Make it about helping them.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

i would do some digging on linked in, look for job postings that are relevent and see if it lists the product you would replace so you know what they are using.
then i would learn from your team the common problems they face and ask them how they are handling that. could be a good way to get a conversation going.
"hey sam this is Tennis from X, I know im giving you call out of the blue, can I tell you why im calling before you hang up on me?

Thanks! I see you are using ____ for storage and I was curious on how you are handling (insert problem they may have that you solve.) "

The_Sales_Badger

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

Social Proof -

“Hey,

I’m Ferribeboolin from XYZ company - working with other (industry specific) companies on increasing xyz by 26% year over year.

I know this is a focus for a lot of my clients - without assuming to much about your company, how are you currently handling this?

Is it worth your time to understand how a few of your competitors are addressing this with success?”

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Ferrisbeboolin

How Do Y’all Make Qualifying Natural?

16 comments

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