An Outbounding Story

My first sales job (aside from pitching my snow shoveling empire) was in outbound sales. So much has changed, but something key hasn’t. 

My friend, and colleague for the summer, and I pitched market research services to local businesses. A service that we’d then conduct. Sitting in a small, stifling office at our university, we’d go through a list of target accounts, look them up in the white pages (this was the mid-90s), and call them. 

There were a lot of ‘no thank you’s’ and clicks. We’d land a couple, sure. But mostly it was us interrupting small business owners to tell them why they needed two college kids to research international expansion opportunities for them. 

Then, one call I made threw me for a loop. I got the owner of a local manufacturing company on the line. I went through my usual spiel. But he stopped me mid-pitch and asked me what *I* needed. Not what we could do for him, but how he could help me. 

I was completely speechless and he had to ask me again: how could he help me?. I was dumbfounded. He patiently waited for me to figure out what I was actually asking for. I was a college kid looking for experience in international business. I told him about our mission and why it mattered to me. That excitement translated into me getting excited for him. He shared the energy and booked with us. The business was great, but he taught me a lot more:

1. Biting the Car: Rejection is such a common thing in prospecting that it can be a bit surprising when someone says yes (especially if they do it in an unconventional way). Be ready to close the deal / meeting etc. and know how to make it easy for them.

2. Mission Wins: In our case, we were two college kids trying to get some experience. By communicating that, the prospect was much more interested in helping us. Now, you might not be charity-adjacent like we were. But communicating your mission upfront does set you apart and make it clear that the prospect is part of a movement or trend that would benefit them. That could be your mission to eliminate waste from HR processes. Or your goal to help finance teams automate with AI. What’s your big goal and where you get the energy from?

3. Be Nice: Sometimes as a recipient of an outbound call you’re busy or didn’t expect to be on a sales call. That doesn’t mean you can’t be courteous to your sales development callers. This gentleman went above and beyond to help me out. Can you help by offering to point out the right prospect or some other advice?

I’ll be writing more on the importance of signals and using data, but for now, I hope you enjoyed this little story.