CHAPTER
Selling Right to the Right People
Zig
For nearly forty years, it has been my privilege to be in as many sales situations as virtually anyone who ever called himself a salesman. I’ve sold everything from soap to securities, from sales training to you just name whatever the product might be. It has been my privilege to share the platform and learn from some of the greatest speakers and sales trainers our country has produced, and I’ve learned a great deal from them.
Experience is a great teacher, but it’s important to realize we don’t learn just from our own experience. We must learn from others’ experience, and that’s what we’re doing next. We’ve brought together four successful salespeople who have a wide range of experiences and backgrounds, from communication systems to computers and typewriters, from personal recruiting to training and consulting services.
First, we have Phil Wynn, who’s a classic example of how hard work in the sales industry will pay off. Phil began with our company as a part-time distributor of our books and tapes. He soon became the number-one distributor in sales and recruiting. As a result of his continued success, Phil was later offered the position of vice president of our video product sales team. Under his leadership, sales increased 195 percent in one year. Now Phil is vice president of all sales and marketing activities of the Zig Ziglar Corporation.
Then we have Jill Hammond, who received her BS from Texas Tech and her master’s degree from Mississippi State. Jill has established herself as a top salesperson. Jill came to our company from a retail sales and personnel recruiting background. We like to think we recognize talent when we see it, and Jill certainly has made us look good.
As a telephone salesperson and customer service representative for the video training group, Jill became a top producer, setting records for the largest single sale ever recorded, and for the top sales week of any salesperson in our company. Jill now represents our company as a speaker and training consultant.
Janet Rush brings some vitally important insights to our discussion. Janet became a top sales leader in the communications industry, dealing with the national accounts of major corporations such as Executone and Contel. Janet has been active in sales management and in the development of customer and client relation departments for companies within the communications industry. This experience has given her the expertise necessary to develop a top seminar on customer relations and telephone etiquette, which she delivers for Strawberry Communications, which is a subsidiary of the Zig Ziglar Corporation.
Bryan Flanagan began his fourteen-year career with IBM as a salesperson. IBM, recognizing Bryan’s ability to lead others as well as to sell, placed him in the position of sales instructor for the company’s national training center. In 1980, he earned the position of marketing manager of the largest branch of its office-products division.
In 1984, Bryan joined our company as marketing and development director in the area of corporate training. Since that time, Bryan has established himself as one of the top sales trainers in the country and has become the most highly scheduled speaker in our company. Why, he even speaks more than I do.
Here we will be addressing selling right to the right people.
There are some salespeople who will tell you that prospecting is the most important part of the process of selling. Others will say qualifying. Others will say presentation. Others will say closing. All will agree that until you have the prospect, you don’t have a chance to do any of the others. The top professional salespeople always put prospecting first in their list of priorities. Our economic life depends on it.
I like to think of prospecting as the sin of the desert brought to life. The sin of the desert is simply this: an individual who knows where the water is and will not tell someone else—that’s the sin of the desert. A customer who is sold on a product and who does not share that information by giving you the name of other prospects is guilty of the sin of the desert.
If you can persuade your customers of that, they will give you lots of prospects, but that’s just one way of prospecting. I’d like to ask Phil Wynn for his definition of prospecting and what a prospect really is.
Phil
A prospect is the name of an individual and an introduction to that individual who can make a decision on my product or service. It doesn’t matter whether I’m in real estate or an automobile dealership or whether I’m in computers or selling copiers, it’s that individual who can make that decision.
Wayne
Yes, but you need to be sure that the people that you’re talking to are prospects, not suspects.
Bryan
That really is the difference. What is the difference between a prospect and a suspect? To me a suspect is a name or a business, and it’s filled with hope, but it’s based on nothing else.
I say a prospect has a need for your product, has a desire, and has the financial backing to make that decision, or else you’re wasting your time talking to them.
Bryan
As Zig said earlier, that’s vital, because I learned long ago that pressure selling is caused by a lack of prospects. When you’re the last person I’m calling on that day, and my list is empty, you’re the last name, and I’m in front of you. I have to make that sale. If I turn to the next day, and there’s no prospects there, I’m going to put some pressure on me, unfortunately on you.
Zig
That’s especially true if that gas tank is empty.
Jill
When’s the best time to prospect? Whenever, wherever, however—all the time. It’s not an 8:00 to 5:00 kind of thing.
Janet
I’m always thinking that someone needs my products, and I need to tell them. In a social situation after working hours—you may be at a social gathering, on a plane, in an airport—somebody is bound to ask you about what you do.
In my mind, that’s prospecting, because if they give me an opportunity to share about what Janet does, and I find out what they do, you’re immediately prospecting with people, whether you’re sitting down at lunch, or whether you’re sitting next to somebody in the theater. Everyone is a potential prospect.
Zig
Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you are thinking prospecting. As long as you think of prospecting all the time, it’s amazing how many times prospects will suddenly pop up out of the blue.
I’d like to add another thought: the last name you got, provided you had the proper amount of information on them, is the best prospect.
Why? It’s not because they’re better qualified; I’m assuming that you are qualifying them. They’re the best because they’re the last name you have, and you’re the most excited about them. Something happens when you keep a superb prospect on file for six weeks. In some cases, nothing happens to the prospect, but a lot happens to our thinking about that prospect.
Here’s a key: when you get that prospect, get busy and go see them.
Wayne
How do you go about doing that? What are some how-tos in prospecting?
I ran across a fellow that was selling with the IBM Corporation. He had a COD prospecting method. He said that the C stood for communication. Every time you communicate with somebody, make those contacts, drive those prospects. O was for observation—whether it be listening to conversations in elevators or walking down the hall and looking at the listings in the marquee. The D stood for dedication. You need to be dedicated to it. As Jill said earlier, if you’re in an 8:00 to 5:00 mentality and are not dedicated to prospecting on planes, airports, and social situations, then communication and observation alone won’t do it. You have to be dedicated to driving prospects.
Phil
That is a very effective way of prospecting, but I found another one that I believe has done a tremendous amount for a lot of salespeople around the country. Some know it as radiation prospecting. Others call it center of influence.
It’s like dropping a stone in a pond: you see it ripple out from the center. Radiation prospecting or center of influence means, I have an opportunity to present my product to one individual, then that individual introduces me to another, who introduces me to another. It radiates out through the whole circle of their acquaintances and friends until just from that one individual, I can have a number of different opportunities to talk to people about my product.
Janet
I had a friend pull me aside one day, and say, “Janet, why do you spend so much time selling everybody but the people you know best?” I stopped, and I thought. I said, “I didn’t want you to think I was pushing my product on you.” They said, “If you think it’s good enough for all those strangers, why isn’t good enough for your friends and your family?”
“That’s pretty interesting,” I said. “What would you like to buy?” Although the one group of people I seemed to back away from were friends and family, that was my strongest center of attention, where I would get good sales and good referrals. Many times we forget that circle of friends and family.
Bryan
We want to go out and make contacts and sell someone and use them as our center of influence. To me, Janet’s point was that we need to think and say, “We have a center of influence. We can be a center of influence.” Maybe the people that we go to church with, maybe the people that we socialize with, that we run into at different clubs, organizations, activities. We’re a center of influence there.
A lot of times we get the impression that just because someone has given us a half dozen prospects they’ve run dry. I well remember one lady who had eleven dinner demonstrations for me, and each one was extraordinarily successful.
She did the demonstrations because she felt like she was doing her friends a favor, and she was a friend of mine. So she was introducing one group of friends to another friend, and so she had another motive in mind.
My major two points are these. Number one, the well is probably not dry from the person who’s been supplying you leads. Number two, it is a social activity for a lot of people. If the product and services are good, they’re pleased to introduce their other friends to what you’re doing.
Wayne
Sometimes we sell a customer and then throw them aside. Even when we get a new product or a new option for the product they’ve already bought, we don’t tend to think of our old customers. But you can go back to them: you have a new excitement, a new product or a new option, and you can turn to them.
Phil
When I was in the computer industry, I used to meet with the maintenance engineer and the service engineers about once a month and say, “Who have you been calling on that needs service on our equipment? What type of problems are they having? Do they need that piece of equipment replaced?”
Many times the serviceman would be talking to the librarian, and she’d say, “I’d like to have this new terminal over there in one section of the building.” He’d come back and tell us. Or she’d say, “I’d like to have this new feature of software in our program,” and he’d come back and tell us.
By sitting down with this guy once a month, I was able to find out the needs of many of our current customers, as well as of other prospects, and I could go out, visit with them, and make additional sales. So one referral type is to get acquainted with your service people and know what they’re doing.
Bryan
Right here in the Dallas area, there are a lot of lead exchange clubs. When I was involved with a lead exchange club back in Baton Rouge, Louisiana way back when, it was a little bit less formal.
The lead clubs have changed over a period of time: they’ve gotten more formal and sophisticated. There are now sheets of paper. You must come prepared with five leads that you know and you’ve called on. You write them down on the form, and check off whether you want the salesperson to use you as a reference or not. There are fifteen or twenty people at a meeting, so you get fifteen or twenty sheets of paper, each with five names. You’ve got some leads there. That’s at least a half-day’s work.
Phil
We have a tremendous opportunity when we do that, because every one of us is in the sales environment all day long, and we’re talking to people who need the products and services of our salespeople friends.
Janet
When I sold communications systems, I tied up with the person who was also selling communication, but a different service, in my area or field. When he sold something, it was natural for me to come and sell equipment. If I sold equipment, it was natural for them to have his service, so we did double legwork. We worked for different companies, but we networked between the two of us, and we actually doubled our sales in less than six months. I contributed that to him, and he contributed his doubling to me. That was the type of prospecting or referral that we used.
Phil
In referral prospecting, if I’ve just made a sale, I want to find out who the customer knows, but one of the first things I have to do is let them know why it’s important to me.
Why am I going to ask for a referral? Many times I’d make a statement like this: “Bryan, you know, one of the most important tools that I have as a salesperson is a prospect. Today you’ve just taken that away from me, as you’ve become a customer. I need to replace that, so I need to be able to talk with someone else about my product and service.”
Zig
When you’re asking for prospects, the way you ask for them is of paramount importance. I’ve seen salespeople say, “I’d like to have five prospects. Would you fill these out for me?” Well, you put five prospect cards in front of some of your new customers, and they’re going to panic. They can’t think of one. If you get far more specific, and say, “I know that if your best friend, or a neighbor, you’d be willing to introduce them to me, wouldn’t you?” they’re going to smile and say, “Well, of course.”
“I’m going to ask you to introduce me to your next-door neighbor or to a friend of yours by way of their name and address so that I might share your excitement about our product with them.” I would specifically ask for a neighbor or a friend. I would ask for one. As soon as they’ve answered that, then I ask, who else do you consider a good friend that has an interest and need in whatever it is that we’re selling? I’d go down the list one by one.
Some of the best prospectors that I’ve ever seen in the world of selling use prospecting as kind of a trial close. As they were getting down to the nitty-gritty of asking for the order, I’ve had a lot of instances where the prospect would say, “You know, old Charlie would sure be interested in this.” I would instantly stop and write Charlie’s name down.
Then I might get two or three more leads, and because he had given me the assurance that he was interested because he was getting Charlie involved, I would assume the sale and go ahead. I was prospecting and closing the sale all at the same time.
Jill
It wasn’t so much that customers were unwilling to give me referrals. I’ve found that they’re more than happy to give them to me. But they pulled a blank when I started asking for them. They just couldn’t think of any right then. So they’d say, “Let me write them down and send them to you.”
You know what happens. Things get in the way, so I found one of the best things I could do was to give them, for lack of a better word, mind joggers. Instead of just throwing it open and saying, “Who do you know who’d be interested?” I’d start talking about their centers of influence. “Do you play golf? Any of your golf buddies, bridge, whatever it was?” I would think of whatever mind joggers I could give them to start thinking of people. I found if I could give them mind joggers, their centers of influence, they would be more than willing to give me prospects.
Janet
I think a point here would be to make sure that you get back with your customer and let him know that you made the contact. Do it either do that by note, by card, or by a phone call: “I wanted to let you know that I did call your friend Mr. Jones, and we had a wonderful meeting, and I appreciate your interest also.”
He’s glad to hear that I did follow up on that or get some kind of feedback, because it’s hard for me to go back and ask him to do it again. Otherwise he says, “By the way, did you ever call Mr. Jones?”
“Oh, I sure did. I did that a year ago,” although you never let him know. So be courteous and let people know that you did use that referral or prospect.
Zig
I’d like to amen that, Janet. If you’re going to build a career, that’s an absolute must. It’s good PR. It’s building the base solidly. It really is important in that career.
Phil
I’d like to ask a question. You did a lot of work with IBM, and I’m sure that you learned to ask for referrals. Let’s say the client gave you the names of three people—did you get any qualification from them?
Bryan
Yes. Specific to what Zig was saying earlier, I’m always trying to narrow that gap, to make sure to know, if I have five people, who I should call on first. Obviously, if you can qualify that referral, it makes it a lot easier for you as you do legwork. Say the customer has just bought your product. You’re either installing it or delivering it or signing the order, and he’s given you five or six names.
Ask that person to rate those for you. “Who should I call on first? Who has the most burning need for this?” That way you’re getting qualifications from the referral.
Zig
I think it’s most important there, though, that when you’re getting the name, you don’t do any qualifying at that point. You do not want to stifle the flow of names. You write those names down as fast and furiously as you can. Once the well has run dry on getting the names, then you go back to the top of that list and start getting specific information about each one. Now you’re qualifying. Get the name first, qualify second.
Phil
Zig, a quick question. How do you handle the situation where a customer shows some hesitation in giving you a referral because they’re a little bit concerned about using their name?
Zig
I make the presentation, and I simply leave the decision up to them. Probably the most unusual and most sincere compliment I’ve ever gotten, and the one I’m the most proud of, was when I was getting referrals once and I said to the lady, “As you know, all I do is demonstrate, and if they want what we’re selling, that’s fine. If they do not want what we’re selling, that’s fine too.”
She said, “Yes, that certainly is true. You’re really not much of a salesperson.” That’s so precious to me, because she had just written me a check for the biggest order the company had made. She had bought; I had not sold, and that’s the dream circumstance to be in.
I would say to them, “I simply promise to represent you as a friend.” When I went to that person, I would simply say, “I’m Zig Ziglar. Mrs. John B. Smith asked me to stop by and chat with you, and I promised her that I would. She said to me, ‘I don’t have any earthly idea whether or not they’re going to be the least bit interested,’ but she made me promise that I would come by and let you make that decision.”
I’ve already covered a major objection when they say, “Well, I’m not interested.”
“Well, that’s what your friend said, but she was so excited. I really promised her I’d let you see this. Would now be the best time, or should I come back this evening or whenever?”
Phil
Say I’m a brand-new salesman. I’ve just gotten started in computers. I don’t have anybody that I can get referrals from. What am I doing now? How do I get prospects? Where do I go from here?
That could be the start of the observation part of the COD we talked about earlier—communicate, observe, and then dedicate. Sometimes we fail to look in our own backyard. In your office there are probably some user files, customer files, or a particular customer you may want to grow. You may want to take a customer and make that into an account and grow the account. They’re right there, but too often we restrict ourselves by not looking around for some avenues to pursue, and they’re right there in our own offices.
Phil
I’d like to hear a story that Zig has shared with us a time or two as it relates to prospecting whenever, wherever, and however. I think it has something to do with a patrolman.
Zig
I was coming in from Wilmington, North Carolina, one Saturday evening, and I was in somewhat of a hurry to get home. To tell you the truth, I was in a ridiculous hurry. I was driving over ninety miles an hour, and the long arm of the law got me.
He gave me a ticket, but we had a real nice visit. I maybe could have gotten away without a ticket. We really visited well and I persuaded him to let me stop in Monday when I was on my way back through and pay the fine. That was in the little town of Whiteville, North Carolina.
I went in to pay the fine on Monday, and as I was turning loose those $40, the thought occurred to me that this is not the way to increase your net worth. There was an attractive young lady there with a diamond on, so I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
She said, “No.”
I said, “I noticed that you’re wearing an engagement ring.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I also obviously noticed that you’re working, and I’m just wondering if you’re saving any money for your marriage while you’re working.”
She said, “Oh, yes, I am.”
“Well,” I said, “if there were something available which you will definitely need and use in your marriage, could you increase your savings by as much as $1 a month in order to take advantage of it?”
She said, “Oh, I sure could.”
“If I had something out in the car that was absolutely beautiful that would fill a need that you will definitely need and use, would you be courteous enough to spend a few minutes looking at it?”
She kind of smiled and said, “I’m just fixing to go on break, so yes, I’d be glad to do that.”
So I scooted to the car, brought my samples in, and put on a fast demonstration, and I asked the obligating questions. She was with this other lady, who also was on break. The other lady was married. I asked the obligating question, and she turned to the married lady and said, “What would you do?”
I cut in. I said, “Excuse me. Let me ask you a question. If you had known before you got married what you know now about raising a family and making house payments and all, and you had had an opportunity to get something like this before you got married, would you have done it?”
“I sure would,” she said.
I turned to the young lady who was getting married and said, “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”
She said, “Yes, I do.”
I wrote the order, and when I finished writing it, I said to the other one, “Ten years ago, you didn’t have this opportunity, and I’m certain you don’t want to miss it this time, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” she said.
I wrote both of those orders, and on the way out of town, I saw that same highway patrolman. This time I stopped him, thanked him for the ticket, and told him what I had done. So, as you say, Phil, you prospect where you are. That’s really the way to do it.
Phil
But that’s not a method you’d recommend to all of us, would you?
I think you can get prospects for less than $40, and you don’t have to go ninety miles an hour to get one, but I do think you need to be aware at all times.
Phil
When I was selling training materials in Utah, I used a method that I learned to call the eagle-eye method. I used to carry a tape recorder right on the car seat beside me. As I would drive from one call to another, drive by a building that looked like it might have a company in there that could use our material, I would just record into my recorder the name of the company and the location.
When I got home, I would give that to my daughter, who was working with me, and she would take the information and put it on a 3 × 5 card, look it up in the telephone directory, get the phone number, call the company, get the name of the president and how many people they had and a few other qualifying items of information. She’d set aside the ones that were not qualified and would me give just the ones that were qualified.
I would then call them up, set an appointment, and go out and see them. That’s what I called eagle-eye prospecting—always looking for the prospect in whatever situation.
There’s a source in the library that a lot of people are not aware of called Contacts Influential. You can go into the library, pick up a copy, and get the names of organizations listed by street. So if you’re doing what some people call cold calling—I’d prefer to call it warm prospecting—you walk down the street and you know the names of every business on that street. It also gives you the CEO, so you have a little more information when you walk in the door than if you just walked in cold.
As a matter of fact, Bryan, I think you mentioned one time that the library has a lot of other sources, business lists, and I believe you even mentioned the Chamber of Commerce.
Bryan
The Chamber of Commerce has lists. So does the Better Business Bureau. Again, we need to put our thinking caps on, be creative, and seek out those organizations that have done a lot of the legwork for you. The courthouse has lists of new businesses opening. There are permits being filed, different buildings going up, leases, etc. Too often, though, we want it a little easier than to go into that library. If that’s the case, if you want to work easy, you’ll get paid easy.
Zig
The newspaper announces new births, and if you sell products that are related to that or if it indicates there might be an additional need for insurance, anything of that nature, you may have some leads. Prospects are everywhere, but we need to have that prospecting awareness.
Phil
I think it goes back to the comment I’ve heard Zig make before about the hardest work—what is it you say, Zig?
Zig
The best-paying hard work in the world is the world of selling. The poorest-paying easy work in the world is the world of selling. The salesperson who is sold on what they’re doing never thinks of it as work.
I have a friend who always says, “I’m going out to play today, and I’m going to play hard. I’m going to play with a lot of different people.” He does literally refer to it as play. That’s important.
This might not be applicable, but I’d like to bring this thought out. In the last fifteen years, I’ve been very fortunate inasmuch as I have not had to solicit a speaking engagement. I believe one reason is, every time I make a presentation, I give it my very best shot. As I sat here listening to each one of you, I thought, “Well, won’t that work for salespeople?” If each salesperson gives it the best shot, keeps it professional all the way, maintains all of their promises, won’t their customers be doing what my customers are doing, sending them to other people to share the good news about their good products and services?
I’d like to wrap this up with this incident, which we talked about a great deal within our company. When I entered the world of selling, we were knocking on doors. I was in the cookware business. A lot of people still knock on doors for prospects, some in residences, and some in businesses.
I knocked on doors every day for ten days. I was getting absolutely nowhere. In ten days, incredibly enough, I could not even persuade anybody to let me in the house to tell my story, and yet I kept knocking on those doors.
I so well remember that August day in Columbia, South Carolina. There were two long city blocks. It was Idalia Drive. I was headed for Divine Street. In my mind I said, “If I don’t at least get in somebody’s house, I am going to quit this business.” Down the street I went, doing my best to persuade people to let me show them what we had to offer.
I knocked on the next to last house in the block. A Mrs. B.C. Dickert, who was an older lady, came to the door. I told her my little story. She said, “Well, it sounds like something my brother and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. J.O. Freeman, next door would be interested in. Why don’t you go see them? And if they decide to look, tell them to call me.”
I ran next door. That was the first ray of hope, the first bright bit of sunshine I’d encountered. I knocked on the door. Mrs. Freeman was there. I told her a little story. She said, “Why don’t you come back this evening?”
I got back that evening, and they called Mrs. Dickert over. I made the presentation, and Mr. and Mrs. Freeman bought a set of the cookware. It was set number 541. It sold for $61.45, and the down payment was $16.45. Oh, how well I remember it.
I was so elated, I sat there basking in the glory. At long last, I had a sale. I was just sitting there grinning, and then Mr. Freeman said, “Mr. Ziglar, I believe if you ask her to, Mrs. Dickert might buy a set of this cookware.”
So I said, “Well, what about it, Mrs. Dickert?”
“I don’t have my money with me,” she said.
Very diplomatically, I said, “Well, shoot. You just live next door. Go get it.”
“I just think I’ll do that,” and she went next door, got her checkbook, and came back, and I made that sale.
I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was. I’ve thought about that so many times. I was two houses away from ending my career. I made a decision that day that I would not ever again stake my career on what somebody else might do. I decided I would make the decision.
But there’s a major point I want to make. Sometimes you do have to suck it up and tough it out and hang in there, but in today’s world there are an awful lot of prospects out there, and if you’re selling a good product at a fair price and you really believe in it, if you’ll use the principles we’ve been sharing with you, I believe you can find all of the prospects you want.