An extra bonus with a secondary objective is that it can be a seed that you harvest later. For example, a travel agency sales rep cold-called me, using the old alternate-choice close to try to set an appointment:
“So I’d like to come out there and tell you what we do. Would Thursday or Friday be better?”
I quickly replied that I was not a prospect for him. He then surprised me by responding brilliantly: “Oh?” It was brilliant, because it got me talking. I proceeded to tell him I was happy with my present agency, that I had actually used his agency before, and that the new agency was able to do things that his agency couldn’t at the time because of their size. I even told him more, all as a result of that one word. He responded that he understood but asked that if anything ever happened with my present agency, could he be the first in line to be considered—especially given that I had worked with them before (prior to his arrival there).
Fair enough, I told him. As he was taking down my informa-tion to send me his card, he slipped in another quesinforma-tion: “Kind of curious—what would have to happen that would be so severe that would cause you to even consider someone else?”
Now that was even more brilliant, and it got me thinking.
I hadn’t really established those criteria before. After some pon-dering, I said that I would probably reconsider my patronage if they
gave me a feeling of indifference, since I was a small deal compared to their big accounts. But the major reason would be if they did something that cost me money and would not fix it.
The rep ended by saying, “I understand. Let me just leave you with two thoughts. You would be a big account for us. We specialize in your size of account. In fact, not only would you have your own personal agent but also all of our agents are cross-trained on two other profiles, so you would always have someone here who knows you. And for the second point, well, it’s our president’s personal philosophy that doing business with us will never cost our clients money. So we will always make it right.”
Impressive, I thought. He sent me his card and I filed it, but I didn’t think much about him for about a year.
Then, several months later, I was running late getting to the airport for a flight from Phoenix to Omaha that I had to be on—it was the last one out that day. (This was pre 9/11, when you could pretty much show up at the gate anytime and still get on the plane without having to wait in lines and endure full body cavity searches, like today.) As I was running through the gate area—still two away from mine—I yelled to the still-distant gate agent before she closed the door to the Jetway, “Wait, I’m on that flight!”
Out of breath, I handed her my ticket and thanked her for holding the door. My heart dropped when she looked at me and said,
“I’m sorry, this ticket was for yesterday. I’ll need to close the door.”
I told her that was impossible because I had bought a bunch of tickets the prior week, and I even pulled out my yellow legal pad showing all of the flight dates, times, and numbers I had given the agency. She was unimpressed with my notes, but I managed to convince her to let me on the flight—at an additional cost of $600 for the last seat they had on the plane. It was in first class—which I didn’t enjoy as much as I usually do.
The next day I called my agent, ranting about how they made a mistake, it cost me $600, and what were they going to do for me?
She calmed me down, checked my record, and commented that I had called the prior week and didn’t speak with her, my regular agent, because she was gone. I worked with a trainee.
“Well, there’s your problem,” I announced.
“Actually, it’s not our problem. You know it’s your responsibility to check your tickets.”
She was right. But you know what? The next time I needed to buy a ticket—who do you think I called? I found the card of the guy who had called me a year earlier. I remember what he said about their agency always having someone who would know me, and how doing business with them would never cost me money. And they gained a new client in the process from something he said at the end of a call, during which he did not set an appointment—that had taken place a full year earlier!
You can have the same effect on potential clients that he did on me: You can plant seeds, many of which you might harvest later.
And that also can be part of your secondary objective. Remind them of any future, unfavorable circumstances they should look out for—which just might happen to include any problems you could solve. For example:
“Matt, even though there is not a fit today, if you find that your volume gets to the point where it would make sense to outsource your peak-level jobs, keep in mind that we can turn those around quickly for you.”
“If more of your customers ask for the type of unit we produce and you have to refer them elsewhere, please remember that we can help you help those customers and realize those profits that you would be missing.”
“Okay, Shelley, it doesn’t look like I have a fit for what you need today. Here’s something to keep in mind, though. When you do notice more of your direct mailings being returned because of bad addresses, we do have a software program that could help you reduce that number and save the printing and postage expense.
I’ll send you my card, and please keep it in the file you work from when you’re planning mailings, okay?”
Notice the last sentence in the final example. It asks, or tells, the prospective client to place the card (or literature) in a place they’ll see it when they’re most likely to need it. Do the same with your calls. Tell whomever you’re speaking with to put it in their Rolodex under Widgets, in their project file, in their contact management program—anywhere that they can easily access it when they need it.
We’ve all had people we’ve long written off call us and say, “Things have changed. Let’s talk.” This is a way to make that happen more often.
So, your secondary objective has two major benefits:
1. It ensures that you will never be rejected again, because you will always have some type of a win.
2. It allows you to plant seeds that you might harvest later.
Smart Calling Exercise
Write out your secondary objective for your prospect.
Smart Calling Action Steps
What else will you commit to do as a result of this chapter?
C H A P T E R