Fishing and Cold Calling

My son, Matt, and his wife, Melissa, visited us in Maine at the end of August. Matt is an avid fisherman and went fishing most days that he was here. Mohamed downloaded my 100 Best Sales Questions yesterday and must have poked around my website a bit and found that he could schedule a call with me. So, he did.

Mohamed indicated that, "I found it's a bit difficult to let the person you're talking to get interested in talking to you " In other words, when he's making a cold call, he finds that strangers don't want to pay attention to him while he tells them who he is, how great his company is, and how they could make the stranger's life so much better.

Let's think about that in terms of fishing. Picture this. Matt wades into the ocean, grabs a fish around the body, opens it's mouth, jams the hook down there and hooks the fish. Then brings the fish home. Isn't that kind of what a cold call is? How does Matt fish? Read his blog. He picks his spot. Reads the water. Casts from afar and plays with the line to allow the fly to catch the fish's attention, then he casts from afar and plays with the line to allow the fly to catch the fish's attention, , then he casts from afar and plays with the line to allow the fly to catch the fish's attention, until he catches the fishes attention. Some fish move on, but sometimes they bite. Then he nurtures the fish into his net.

This is what I suggested to Mohamed. Rather than calling someone and talking about himself, his company, his offering, send the 'target' a short email that says something like, "I was looking at your profile on LinkedIn, and when I saw what you do, I remembered this article and wondered if you saw it." That is the cast from afar. See if you get their attention. (BTW, I used that article. Feel free to substitute your own.)

I just received this email from Mohamed.

Hi Rick ,

Thanks for your time on the phone , I am the same Mohamed who spoke to you 30 mins ago , was really great conversation ,

I believe that AsiaInspection would be interested to have you as a coach for their teams , will convey my very positive feedback to them

First of all , I liked that you're on time , your interest to reach me even it's a free service , you listened to me first and show your interest about what we do , which really made me interested in the rest of the conversation .

I really like your idea about sending an email to the lead showing him/ her that you've seen him opening your email

May be I was too direct in explaining the services that we offer without letting the clients to express themselves , sending an article to the lead to initiate the conversation was a smart idea ,

I will follow all you articles from now on , once I land my second big client on board , will let you know

Cheers ,

Mohamed Sobhy

I have a great life! BTW, Mohamed's company has some cool capabilities in Quality Control. Click his name to check him and his company out and if you want to set up a strong 2015, read this.

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