Cyriac Caillive

Articles

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  Discovery questions: the 20 I actually ask on the phone

  Tuesday, 10:20am. The prospect picks up, I do my opener, and he cuts me off: "We had your competitor for a year, it was a disaster." The reflex is to pounce. "Oh, I get it, we're much better." Wrong move. I just said: "Really? Tell me, what happened?" He talked for four minutes. Four minutes in which he gave me his budget, his timeline, who decides and what he never wants to go through again. I had pitched nothing. I had asked a question. Here are the 20 discovery questions I actually ask, grouped by goal, how many I ask on a cold call and in a meeting, and the mistakes I made (often) before I got it.

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  Cold call openers: the first 10 seconds that decide everything

  A prospect picks up. You have ten seconds. Not to sell: to keep them from hanging up. I am a sales rep at Flunter, I spend my days on the phone, and I have tried pretty much every way there is to blow the start of a call. Here is what I kept: openers that work, word for word, the ones I have banned, tone, posture, and how to get from the opener to the first question without losing the person along the way.

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  Getting past the gatekeeper: my word-for-word lines

  The first time an assistant asked me "What is this regarding?", I said "It's about a partnership". Silence. Then: "He's not interested." She did not even know what I was selling. Neither did I, apparently. Thousands of calls later, I have learned one thing: you do not force your way past a gatekeeper, you get through with the right lines and some respect. Here is exactly what I say, what I never say any more, and how I call around the gatekeeper when I can.

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  "Call me back in September": following up with a prospect without being pushy

  June. A prospect tells me: "Look, now's not a good time, call me back in September." I hang up happy. He didn't say no. September comes, then October. When I finally call, he says: "Oh right… January would be better, actually." I shared that scene on LinkedIn and hundreds of salespeople recognised themselves. Because we all have a graveyard of "call me back later" in our CRM. Here is the method I use today to follow up with a prospect without being pushy, and above all without losing them.