Reasons for calling with sales trigger events



I recently discussed my DRESS code, the five steps of social selling= Detect, Reach, Engage, Strengthen, Snowball.

While the formula looks good as a step-by-step methodology, there are two pragmatic issues to solve to make things right : 1) time-to-action and 2) alibi for calling.

When I call a prospect, send him an email or ring the bell of my client to strenghten my relationship, I always feel a sec of unconfort, wondering: « is this the right time to do this ? » and « what do I start with ? ». We need to know the contact is ready to talk, and we need an alibi for raising his interest.

Know the right time to act and know what to say can be achieved, even on a large scale. This is called sales trigger events.

Sales trigger events respond to 3 sales needs :

  • Alibis for calling> to break the ice, raise interest, stay top of mind
  • Best time to call > to have the ear of your contact
  • Warnings / alerts > to respond to a threat or an opportunity

 

Preparing alibis

What matters here is that you break the ice, build trust, show your concern and prepare your contact to talk. At the end of the day and as soon as he knows you deeply understand his challenges and pains, your contact will surely be keen to hear what you have to say.

I personnaly use the following sources of intelligence :

News : Articles or press releases that talk about your accounts are huge trigger events to detect opportunities : acquisitions, new offices, recruitment waves, new appointments, strategic events… First time calls or follow-up calls are very easy when you act based on a published story. News articles are not only reasons for calling but are also roots for discussing strategy and opportunities.

Tweets, posts: The tweets of your accounts (corporate tweets) and business contacts are a good way to stay connected with lives and interests of the decision makers you follow. In case business contacts post comments, share articles or write articles, it is even best.

Depending on their level of activity, reading tweets (even if you don’t post yourself) can be time consuming. On my side, I built a Twitter list with the feeds of my business contacts. Thus I keep the load under control. I also read their posts/shares on my LinkedIn timeline as I’m connected with all my business contacts.

Birthdays: Wishing an happy birthday is not a bad alibi even if you don’t know your contact closely. Usually I use this : « Happy birthday ! You know I have a tool to remind me of my clients’ birthdays… Do you have special plans to celebrate tonight ? ». It’s a start ! Acting on birthdays is also a good method to ensure that I call all of my contacts at least once a year.

Job changes: A job change is always a good reason for a call, even if my contact made a slight change at his headline. « I’ve just seen you changed job. So what are the next challenges on your side ? ». If the contact enters a new company, it is time to map the account in a friendly manner. Close to 50% of my contacts change to new positions each year.

 

Best time to call

Considering you have the right content to engage a rich conversation, the best time to call is always when your contact is ready to talk. But when does he have free time to talk ? My best answer is : when he is active online. This makes me think he stands in front of its computer or has his smartphone in hand, is usually not in a meeting (bad habit though) and does several things in parrallel without concentration.

As soon as I see contacts tweeting, sharing, commenting or posting articles, I think this is the best time to call. I have to react quickly as this non-productive activities usually do not last long.

Warnings / Alerts

New relationships of my business contacts are very strong events in a sales process. Why this ? Because relationships uncover what is really happening on my market :

  • Who does my contact meet, discuss with ?
  • Who influences him these times ?
  • Has he just met one of my competitors ? (Threat ? Opportunity to address new needs ?)
  • Do I now share a mutual contact I can leverage to close a deal ?

All of these sales trigger events can be used as alerts if properly filtered and analyzed. Instead of calling alibis, these alerts require quick (while not instant) reaction to stay within the window of opportunity.

 

Most of these sales trigger events have been implemented in the IKO social selling app. The rest of them are on the roadmap.

Note : Please contact me if I forget other trigger events you experienced. Thanks in advance.

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