Dominic Lachmuth is a former Sales Training Director with Groupon and Head of Sales for a Google start up. He is responsible for more than 6 outbound cold calling centers for Liberty Global’s upc and he is also a cold calling trainer.
Through his online platform Selling Unleashed, he helps ambitious sales professionals and business owners earn more cash and close more deals by picking up their phone. His cold calling script has done wonders for numerous sales professionals. His script lets a caller read the mind of the target person and establishes trust and sympathy within the very first seconds of the call.
In this Interview, Dominic shares with us some important tips on cold calling and how to handle sales rejections.
Dominic, Thank you for talking with us. Please tell us more about your journey as a sales professional.
I started selling insurances and financial products by cold calling B2C prospects. This was a great experience to quickly learn how to cold call the hard way. Within a couple of weeks, I even became the guy with the most meetings with prospects that were unknown to me. Next step was my own sponsoring agency, where we cold-called small business owners to support their local sport clubs by donating some cash. I eventually sold this venture to my business partner and was recruited by Groupon.
Because of my sound sales experience and drive I quickly became one of their top sales guys in Europe and was promoted as a Sales Coach and Sales Training Director. After the IPO of Groupon I worked for a Google subsidiary as a Head of Sales and as a Manager Direct Sales for Liberty Global leading their Key Account Management teams. Finally, I started my own business as a cold calling trainer to help B2B salespeople close more deals.
Everyone hates sales calls and most companies transition from cold calling to social selling. Where do you see the future of cold calling?
There is in fact a trend in the market to focus on social selling and online lead generation. It is highly scalable and of course, the salespeople are happy too because they don’t have to pick up their phones calling strangers.
Everyone talks about how cold calling is dead but I strongly disagree. You can think of social selling and email marketing as artillery strikes. You push a button and you will hit a lot, but you can’t really pick out individual targets. Proper cold calling is comparable to sharpshooting. You won’t generate as much leads but you will get the accounts you really desire.
The problem is that, especially in the US, cold calling is done as a volume game. Calling hundreds of prospects each day, pushing a generic pitch down their throat and hope that someone will show any interest. This kind of cold calling has no future. It is a pain for both parties at both ends of the telephone.
A proper prepared cold call with a smart cold call script will trigger the interest of the prospect within the first couple of seconds and will lead to a serious conversation on eye level with very, very high conversion rates. These kind of calls are the future. Sales people and Companies emphasizing on this skill will benefit a lot because most of the companies don’t know how to do it the right way.
Rejections are a part of the life of a sales professional, especially when they are cold calling. What are your tips on handling rejections?
That’s a good question. And one that is not so easy to answer. First, one must know that rejection is part of the job. It is nothing personal. They don’t know you personally. You will develop thicker skin eventually. Second, with a professional cold call script, you won’t run into a lot of rejection so it becomes even easier handling it
How to respond to “I am not Interested” responses from your prospective clients?
The “I am not interested” objection is a classic and one of the most used of all time. You can avoid it by establishing rapport very early in the call. If you have the attention of your interlocutor and he allows you to propose your offer and how it will provide value and he still isn’t interested, then there is not a lot what you could do. But in 90% of the cases, you will hear this objection very early in the call because the prospect is not interested in talking to a generic salesperson. As I said, you can avoid these objections easily with a proper script.
When you are a sales professional and you pitch your proposal, many a time, your prospective clients ask for more time to respond. You know that these clients are in that grey zone of acquisition. How to handle such clients?
You have to conduct proper fact-finding during the sales process. You need to know who is deciding what within the organization and what and how your product will be of benefit for each one of them. If you can’t answer one of these questions you aren’t in control of the next steps and your deal could get derailed.
What are your tips to someone who is planning to work as a sales professional?
Learn how to cold call properly. You will learn so many important things to benefit from in your later career. Helping your customer must be your first priority. If you are honest about understanding and trying to solve your customers’ problems and challenges you will sell way more down the line. Become an expert consultant within your industry, your clients will love you and recommend you. If you follow these tips, you don’t need to learn how to hard-sell or hard-close. The close will become a logical part of the sales process eventually.
