The Top Five Techniques To Use Personal Letters As Prospecting Tools

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The Top Five Techniques To Use Personal Letters As Prospecting Tools

Written by Kendra Lee

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9 Reasons Why Prospects Don't Respond

Some cold calling experts suggest that you leave a message when you receive a prospect's voice mail. Unfortunately, many sales people feel that this is an exercise in futility because most of the time their prospect does not call them back. If that sounds familiar, here are nine reasons why your prospects don't return your calls.

1. Your voice mail message is too long. The majority of voice mail messages decision makers receive are far too long. Decision makers are too busy to listen to a long, rambling, and disjointed message. That means you need to get your message across in 30 seconds or less. In fact, I suggest that you try and limit your message to a maximum of 20 seconds.

2. Your voice mail message is too cryptic. On the reverse side, a short, terse voice mail with no details will not likely motivate someone to call you back. You MUST give a prospect enough information to capture their attention and say, "I need to talk to this person."

3. You leave the same voice mail message. It is important to keep trying to connect with your prospect which often means leaving multiple voice mail messages. However, if you want someone to call you back you need to leave a different message every time you call. Plus it must be compelling (see the next point).

4. Your message is not compelling. Most voice mail messages do little to motivate someone to pick up the telephone and return your call. A compelling message MUST demonstrate that you understand your prospect's industry, situation or circumstances and portray that you might have a solution.

5. You have not developed a relationship with them. In today's competitive landscape, people want to do business with suppliers and vendors they know and trust. A call from a salesperson in an unknown company is not likely going to be returned.

6. You sound like every other sales person. The average executive receives dozens of sales calls a day so if you want a busy executive to call you back, your message MUST stand out from every other call he or she receives. I once sat in a Vice President's office as he listened to his voice mail messages on speakerphone and was fascinated how similar every sales call sounded. I was equally intrigued by how quickly this person deleted the messages, too. His finger hovered over the delete button, and in most cases, he erased the message in the first few seconds.

7. You have not done any research. When you leave a voice mail message that clearly demonstrates that you know nothing about your prospect's business, there is no chance they will return your call. For example, "Mr Prospect, we provide solutions that help call centers improve their productivity and performance and generate a higher ROI on their out-bound calls." If this message was left for a small business owner (and it was!) it is highly unlikely the salesperson would get a return call (and they didn't!). At the very least, do some basic research and make sure that your message reflects that homework. It will improve your chances of a return call.

8. Your product or service does not interest them. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone needs your solution and when you call companies that are not the right fit for your product, service or offering, you are simply wasting your time and that of your prospects. Improve your results by more closely targeting your prospecting calls to companies who can actually use your product or service (see point 7 above).

9. Your prospect is simply too busy. Most sales people fail to realize exactly how busy executives are. A client of mine once said, "I'm so busy right now I can't possibly take on any more projects." This sheer volume of work often prevents decision makers from returning your call because they don't have the time to talk to you and because they can't fit another project into their schedule. Unless your product, service or offering is something they desperately need right now, they probably won't return your call.

My article “Prospecting Letters Still Open Doors” sparked quite a response from readers recently and I just have to share their ideas with you! They disclosed their best secrets for using letters to gain access to some of their toughest prospects.

Most sellers today prefer to send an email in an attempt to get in the door and secure an appointment. I know because I train thousands of them every year on how to write prospecting emails that’ll get a response. While this strategy absolutely works, a personal letter causes you to stand out in a crowd of digital lemmings – especially in an over-competitive, reluctant marketplace.

These are the top five techniques they shared about using personal letters as a prospecting tool. See which ones you do now and which ones you might want to try to avoid becoming a digital prospecting lemming.

1.    Write a letter you’d like to receive. There’s something special about receiving a nice letter. Your goal is to write a compelling one that the executive will remember. Compelling doesn’t necessarily mean it’s full of issues they may be facing and how you can solve them. It can be a letter of congratulations for an accomplishment you heard about.

Congratulations on the opening of your second office. In today’s challenging market, it’s exciting to see such growth in Denver. Please think of me for any of your computer support needs. I’d be honored to work with a business of your caliber. Congratulations again!

Or, you may share the start of an idea you have about how to help their business soar. (You don’t want to share the complete thought. That you’ll save for when you meet.)

Congratulations on the success of your practice! I noticed your advertisement in the Thursday’s paper and it looks great. I’m sure it’ll be wildly successful for you. Your ad caused me to go to your website to learn more, and I had an idea about how you might reach an extended base of potential patients through it. It would be an honor to share it with you.

Draw your prospects in with a personal touch and make them want to speak with you.

2.    Integrate your approach. Letters aren’t as easy to respond to as an email or voicemail, so follow up with a phone call and then an email. What I like about this approach is that we know for a fact people respond differently based on their personal preference. Make it as easy as possible for prospects to thank you for that nice letter you wrote and show their appreciation by setting an appointment.

In your follow up, mention your note, asking if they received it and reinforcing what you wrote. Don’t be shy. Let them know that you’re calling to set a time to meet.

If you wrote a compelling letter, the executive will appreciate it and remember you. Your name will be familiar and he’ll take your call. Several sellers mentioned that they’ve actually had prospects comment when they follow up about how nice it was to receive their note.

3.    Use paper and envelopes that emphasize the personal nature of your letter. Write your message on a note card, greeting card, or monarch sized stationary. As long as your handwriting is legible, it feels much more inviting when your prospect opens it than a typed a letter.

Hand address the envelope and use a real stamp for postage. You want your letter to stand out as important, with no implication that it’s junk mail that should be discarded unopened. Your note needs to stick out when it arrives in the mail room, passes through the assistant, and finally lands on the executive’s desk.

4.    Consider sending a fax. In many industries faxes aren’t as common as they were 15 years ago. Your fax, handwritten, or nicely typed with a signature may stand out simply because people aren’t accustomed to receiving one.

One seller said he uses a series of faxes just as you might send a series of emails. He noted that in one instance where his letter was stopped by the prospect’s assistant, the fax made it through. Not only did he get the first appointment, but his creativity ultimately won him a significant sale.

5.    Don’t stop at one. Numerous sellers mentioned that one letter may not be enough. One cold call or email is never enough, so don’t expect that one letter will be either. Plan to write several letters. After all, you’re prospecting.

Have several ideas you want to share. Do some research. Watch their social media comments to see what they’re focused on or celebrating. Write letters about those.

Switch things up. Don’t always use the same note card or style paper. Consider sending a postcard with a fun picture on the front.

The rush toward digital prospecting as a singular strategy leaves a gaping hole for you to step through to distinguish yourself. When you reach out with a personal letter, prospects will remember you and take your call.

Learn more from Kendra Lee by clicking here.

Kendra Lee
		About the author:
		Kendra Lee is a top IT seller, sales advisor and business owner who knows how to shorten time to revenue in the SMB market in innovative ways. She is the author of the best selling book Selling Against the Goal: How Corporate Sales Professionals Generate the Leads they Need. Under Ms. Lee's direction her organization has assisted sellers in increasing referrals more than 328% in just 7 weeks, penetrating SMB markets in just 6 weeks, driving new client acquisition more than 31% year to year, and increasing annual revenue. .