A few years ago I was chatting with
a very well respected VP of Sales at a software company in Chicago. One of the
things he shared with me was that his company had a process for setting
appointments that constantly kept their sales reps in front of new prospects.
He admitted that he had challenges in other areas of the sales process, but
setting appointments was not one of them. They had more appointments than they
knew what to do with. He shared his appointment setting process with me and I immediately
put it to work with my sales team and the results were amazing. If setting
appointments is one of your sales responsibilities and you want to set more,
read on.
At the time that I heard about this
technique, I had a team of sellers who had sole responsibility for setting new
appointments for our outside sales reps. Their quota was based on how many
qualified appointments they set in a month and they also received a bonus if an
appointment turned in to a sale. They were trying all of the best cold call
techniques, and with some success. But until we implemented the “Circle of
Leverage” (COL) process, it was a game of hit and miss.
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The COL process was developed by
Michael Boylan, and is described in detail in his book, The Power to Get In.
The book can be easily found at any online retailer.
Boylan had been a successful entrepreneur
with a strong desire to become a professional musician. In 1990 he put his
efforts in to music full time, self producing ten songs and a music video, all
with top musicians. He then started selling his music to the industry. He
discovered two important things during the sales process: first, he was not
going to become a professional musician; and second, he had an incredible
ability for meeting with the industry’s top brass. In fact, he became fairly
well known among top industry executives for gaining access to them. This,
without any track record, reputation, or prior hit records. Wondering aloud how
in the world Boylan had gained access to so many music executives, one of them
challenged him to help his own sales team gain executive access like he had.
Boylan moved on from music to become
a VP of Sales an at a Fortune 500 company and further refined his technique,
later writing his book.
In short, the COL is a process of
writing a letter to three to five executive prospects and letting them know
that you have also reached out to each of the other executives. For example,
let’s say that your company sells legal products to the telecom industry. You
may find that you have the following prospects inside the organization:
- Don Bennett, General Counsel
- Michael Stevens, VP, Law
- Bill Thomas, Asst. VP Governmental
Affairs
With those contacts you craft a
letter that starts out like this:
“Dear Don:
I am writing this letter to you, Michael Stevens, and Bill Thomas, to find the most appropriate person or people to deal with regarding scheduling a twenty-minute in-person appointment on March 10th…..”
Then you send the same letter to Michael and Bill, each time referencing the other recipients.
“Dear Don:
I am writing this letter to you, Michael Stevens, and Bill Thomas, to find the most appropriate person or people to deal with regarding scheduling a twenty-minute in-person appointment on March 10th…..”
Then you send the same letter to Michael and Bill, each time referencing the other recipients.
Boylan’s theory is that by letting
the “Circle” know that you have reached out to each of them you have activated
one of their “Key Engagers”. Those are,
- Their fear of loss.
- Their curious insecurities.
- Their competitiveness.
- Their desire to be a serious player.
Boylan then goes in to further
detail explaining these engagers and why they work. He also talks more about
the specifics of the letter, the follow up phone calls, etc. All of those
topics are very important for implementing this particular way of setting
appointments.
And, it works.
My team set hundreds of great
appointments using Boylan’s COL technique. We conducted the research to
determine who our letters should be sent to and off they went. After we sent
the letter and waited a few days we started our follow up calls. We found that
it gave our reps a “warm” reason to place a call and have a meaningful
conversation. Many times the letter was on the decision-maker’s desk. Other
times the secretary had the letter, knowing that we would be calling to follow up.
And there were lots of occasions that the prospect and their secretary had no
idea what we were talking about – but we were having a conversation!
The really powerful advantage of the
COL process is that you can gain access at very high levels in an organization.
If you are hearing from your manager that you are calling on people too low in
the organization, here’s a great way to get to the very top. Even if you don’t
gain access, it is very likely that you’ll get a referral to someone at a high
enough level to make your appointment setting time well worth the effort.
The COL process is not a shortcut
for setting appointments. On the contrary, it requires painstaking research to
discover the names and titles of your key prospects. For this we used all the
online tools – Hoovers and Jigsaw to name just a couple. It also takes time to
write the letters, each one referencing the other prospects – a very tedious
process. We had an automated solution that made the letter writing process
fairly streamlined.
I’ve referred folks to the COL
process many times and they have reported good results with it. While there are
many effective techniques for setting new appointments, this is the best one
that I have found that embodies a repeatable and scalable process regardless of
the target market, geography, or personality of the rep. By following the COL,
you can increase your likelihood for new appointments just like my team did.
