1Why this session is company-wide
This is your copy to keep. The gold Going deeper boxes go past what the session covers, for anyone who wants the fuller picture.
Prospecting is the work of starting conversations with people who could become clients. Two seats here do that as a job. Everybody else does it by accident, several times a month, and usually does not count it: a technician finishing a ticket and asking what else is slow, an intake seat noticing that three tickets this week came from the same department, a coordinator on the phone with a vendor who mentions a company down the road with no IT support. Those are contacts. This session is about planning them instead of hoping for them, and about being able to say who we are and what we fix in thirty seconds without sounding like a brochure.
This session assumes sessions 01 to 09: the seven steps of the system and the four outcomes that count as a result, how people decide whether to trust you, the agreement made at the start of a conversation about what it is for and what happens at the end, how to find what a problem is costing a client and how to ask about it, how to find out whether they are willing and able to invest, how to find out who decides and how, how to present and then keep a decision from coming apart afterwards, and the three parts of performance you can work on. This last one sits before all of them, because none of the seven steps happens until somebody starts a conversation.
The method here comes from the Sandler Foundations course. The examples, the figures and everything about how it applies here are ours. The chapter PDFs are in the reference folder of this program if you want the source.
2The only part you control
Take any opportunity you have ever worked and split it in two.
| We decide | They decide |
|---|---|
| How many conversations we start | Whether they pick up |
| Who we start them with | Whether there is money this quarter |
| How well we prepared for each one | Whether the owner's brother-in-law already does their IT |
| What we ask, and in what order | Whether they sign |
| Whether we did it on the day we said | When they get back to us |
The left column is short and it is the whole of what can be managed. The rule is that activity is what gets planned and managed, and the numbers that come out of it are what gets watched. Nobody at this company is measured on an outcome that somebody else decides, and that is not a special rule for sales. An activity you control can be planned. An outcome somebody else decides cannot be planned, only watched.
The obvious objection is that the numbers still matter, and they do. Their job is different. If the activity was done in full and nothing came of it, the numbers are the only evidence that the plan was built on the wrong ratios, which is a problem with the plan rather than with the effort. That is useful. Managing somebody on a closed number instead is not, because the quickest way to improve a closed number is to stop counting conversations honestly.
3The cookbook: working backwards from a goal
A cookbook is the arithmetic that turns a goal into a number of conversations you have to have today. It runs backwards: start at the money, divide down to sales, then multiply up through the ratios until you reach contacts, then divide by working days.
Three words have to mean the same thing to everyone or the chain is worthless.
| Term | What counts | What does not |
|---|---|---|
| Contact | A conversation with a person who could become a client or send us one | A voicemail, an unanswered email, a list entry |
| Initial meeting | The first proper sit-down, in person or on a call that was booked | A chat at a table at an event |
| Presentation | The meeting where what we propose goes in front of the people who decide | Emailing a proposal and waiting |
Worked example
Every figure below is a model example, chosen so the arithmetic is visible. None of them is a Hermetic target and none of them came from our history. Monthly recurring revenue means the part of a client's fee that repeats every month, rather than a one-time project.
| # | Line | Figure | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | New monthly recurring revenue to add each month | $4,000 | The goal. Chosen for this example |
| B | Average new agreement | $2,000 a month | Chosen for this example |
| C | Sales needed each month | 2 | $4,000 divided by $2,000 |
| D | Presentations it takes to close one sale | 3 | Chosen for this example |
| E | Presentations needed each month | 6 | 2 multiplied by 3 |
| F | Initial meetings it takes to earn one presentation | 2 | Chosen for this example |
| G | Initial meetings needed each month | 12 | 6 multiplied by 2 |
| H | Contacts it takes to get one initial meeting | 8 | Chosen for this example |
| I | Contacts needed each month | 96 | 12 multiplied by 8 |
| J | Working days in the month | 20 | Chosen for this example |
| K | Contacts needed each working day | 4.8, call it 5 | 96 divided by 20 |
The whole chain in one line: 2 sales, multiplied by 3 presentations, multiplied by 2 meetings, multiplied by 8 contacts, is 96 contacts a month, and 96 divided by 20 working days is 4.8 contacts a day.
Whether the daily number is realistic
This is the question the cookbook exists to force, and the only wrong answer is a vague one. Five real conversations every working day, on top of everything else you do, is either something you will do or it is not. Answer it now rather than in March.
If the answer is no, four things can change. Working harder is not one of them, because the 4.8 came out of arithmetic rather than out of effort, and the chain already assumes you do every contact in it.
| What changes | What happens to the daily number |
|---|---|
| The goal | Halve the goal to $2,000 and $2,000 divided by $2,000 is 1 sale, so the chain becomes 1 multiplied by 3 multiplied by 2 multiplied by 8, which is 48 contacts a month, and 48 divided by 20 is 2.4 a day |
| The average agreement | Double it to $4,000 a month and $4,000 divided by $4,000 is 1 sale, giving the same 48 contacts a month and 2.4 a day, with the goal left intact |
| The ratios | Cut contacts per meeting from 8 to 5, because the contacts are referrals rather than strangers, and 12 multiplied by 5 is 60 contacts a month, so 60 divided by 20 is 3 a day |
| The time allowed | Give the goal two months instead of one and the monthly requirement halves with it |
Your own cookbook, blank
| # | Line | Your figure | How to get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | New monthly recurring revenue to add each month | Your goal | |
| B | Average new agreement | From what we have actually signed | |
| C | Sales needed each month | A divided by B | |
| D | Presentations to close one sale | From Nutshell, or your best honest estimate marked as an estimate | |
| E | Presentations needed | C multiplied by D | |
| F | Initial meetings to earn one presentation | From Nutshell, or an honest estimate | |
| G | Initial meetings needed | E multiplied by F | |
| H | Contacts to get one initial meeting | From Nutshell, or an honest estimate | |
| I | Contacts needed each month | G multiplied by H | |
| J | Working days in the month | Count them | |
| K | Contacts needed each working day | I divided by J | |
| L | Is K realistic, yes or no | Answer it. If no, change A, B, D, F, H or the deadline |
The ratios in lines D, F and H are the parts worth improving, because each one multiplies everything below it. Cutting contacts per meeting from 8 to 4 halves the daily number on its own. That is what a referral actually buys you, and it is why the first row of the activity plan in the next section is worth more per hour than the fourth. Ratios that come out of Nutshell history beat ratios somebody guessed, so the second time you build a cookbook it should be a better one.
4The activity plan
The cookbook says how many contacts. The plan says where they come from. A target with no named source is a wish, so every row carries three things: how often it happens, how many contacts it is expected to produce, and what has to be ready before it can start.
| Activity | Frequency | Target contacts | Preparation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Referral conversations Asking a client, an accountant, an attorney or an insurance broker who else they know that fits | 2 a week | 2 multiplied by 4 weeks, so 8 | Name the company type you are asking for before you ask. "Who else do you know" gets nothing. "Who else do you know running 40 people on an old server" gets a name |
| Existing-client conversations that surface new work A business technology review, or BTR, the recurring account meeting with a client; a site visit; or the call at the end of a ticket | 3 a week | 3 multiplied by 4 weeks, so 12 | Read the Hudu documentation and the open Syncro tickets for that client first, and go in with one thing you already know is out of date |
| Networking events Chamber, industry associations, anything where our size of client is in the room | 2 a month | 2 events at 8 contacts each, so 16 | Rehearse the thirty-second introduction out loud beforehand. Know who is going and pick three people to find |
| Calls to businesses that fit the profile 10 to 200 people, Richmond and the major Virginia cities outside Northern Virginia | 2 blocks a week | 8 blocks at 6 contacts each, so 48 | The list built in Nutshell the day before, the time blocked on the calendar, and the five parts of the call in front of you |
| Reviving old opportunities that went quiet Leads with no activity for ninety days or more | 1 block a week | 4 blocks at 3 contacts each, so 12 | A saved Nutshell filter on last activity date, and one specific question written for each company before you dial |
| Total contacts for the month | 8 plus 12 plus 16 plus 48 plus 12, which is 96 | ||
The total is the point. If the rows add up to less than the cookbook asked for, the plan does not reach the goal and you know that today rather than at the end of the quarter. All the frequencies and counts above are model figures picked to reach 96, not targets anybody has been given.
Rows two and five are where most of the room contributes without making a single cold call. A technician who closes a ticket and asks what else is slow has had a contact. Somebody who spots three tickets from the same department and says so has found work that nobody was looking for. Those count, and they should be written down.
The preparation column is the one that gets left blank, and it is the one that decides whether any of this happens. An hour blocked with no list in front of you becomes email.
5Competitive advantage and the problem we solve
Before you can say anything useful in thirty seconds you have to answer three questions. Answer them in this order.
| Question | Worked answer |
|---|---|
| 1. Why do clients buy this kind of service at all? | Because email, files and the applications the business runs on have to work and have to be safe, and an organization of 10 to 200 people cannot keep that range of skills on staff. Because the questions being asked of them about security now arrive in writing, from insurers, from large clients, and from regulators, and somebody has to be able to answer them. |
| 2. Why do they buy it from us? | Twenty-two years in operation. Locally owned, with a team that is entirely local, so the person who answers is in Virginia. We cover Richmond and the major Virginia cities outside Northern Virginia. Organizations of 10 to 200 employees are the whole of what we do rather than a segment we also serve. We have healthcare clients, which are the environments where the rules are strictest. And we take on neglected IT, meaning environments that have been left alone long enough that nobody is sure what is in them. |
| 3. What would they lose by not buying it from us? | They keep an arrangement where no single company is accountable for the whole environment, so the parts that have been left alone stay that way. The date those parts get dealt with is then set by whatever breaks first, or by whoever sends the questionnaire they cannot answer. |
The test that makes question two useful: if a competitor could say your sentence word for word, it is not an advantage. "Great service" and "we care about our clients" fail that test immediately. Every answer in the row above is checkable by somebody who wanted to check it, which is what makes it worth saying.
A draft problem statement
A problem statement is two or three sentences describing the situation our clients were in before they called us, said from their side rather than ours. Written from the three answers above:
"Most of the organizations we work with are between 10 and 200 people, and their IT had been left alone for years before they called us. They could not say with confidence what they had, who had access to it, or whether it would come back after a bad night. Usually somebody outside the company, an insurer, a large client or an auditor, had started asking questions in writing that they could not answer. What they wanted was one local company that would take the environment as it actually was and be accountable for it."
That is a draft. It is written to be argued with in the room and it is not approved marketing copy. The test is whether a client we already have would recognize themselves in it, and if the room thinks they would not, the sentence is wrong and the room should say so. Notice what the draft does not do: it never says the word we until the last sentence, and it makes no claim about what anybody else in this market does or does not do.
6The thirty-second introduction
Three parts, in this order, and nothing else. Sandler's name for it is the 30-second commercial.
- Who you are and where you are from. One sentence. Your name, Hermetic Networks, and where we are.
- A short version of the problem statement. Two or three sentences, about them rather than about us.
- One question that invites a real answer. It cannot be answerable with yes or no, and it cannot ask a stranger to agree that something is wrong with how they run their company.
Worked, using the draft statement from section 5:
"My name is [name] and I am with Hermetic Networks, an IT company here in Richmond. We have been at it twenty-two years. Most of the organizations we work with are somewhere between 10 and 200 people and their IT had been left alone for a while before they called us. They could not say for certain what they had, who had access to it, or whether it would come back after a bad night, and somebody outside their company had started asking questions in writing that they could not answer. I have no idea whether any of that is close to where you are. How are you covering it at the moment?"
The last line does the work. "Are you happy with your current IT?" gets a yes and ends the call. "How are you covering it at the moment?" needs a sentence, and the sentence is the information you called for. The same is true of "who picks it up when that happens on a Friday night?"
Memorize it at first. Not so you can recite it, but so you stop having to build it while you are speaking and can listen instead. Once you have said it thirty times it stops sounding memorized, and until then a script delivered evenly is still better than an improvisation delivered nervously. The part to keep fixed is the question. The middle can shorten to one sentence when the person is busy.
7The low-pressure first call
The purpose of the structure is to take the pressure off the other person. Somebody who feels they cannot get off a call defends themselves, and the defenses are the brush-offs everybody recognizes: send me some information, we are all set, call me next quarter. Give them a way out at the start and the rest of the call is a conversation rather than an escape. Sandler's name for this is the no-pressure prospecting call.
| Part | What it is for | Wording to start from |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Opening | Say who you are and hand them an easy exit in the first ten seconds | "This is [name] with Hermetic Networks in Richmond. Did I catch you at a bad time?" If yes: "When would be a better time to try you for two minutes?" |
| 2. The agreement about the call | Say what the call is for and how long it runs, so they know what listening costs them. This is the same up-front contract from session 03, an agreement made at the start about purpose, length and what happens at the end, shrunk to one sentence | "Would it be alright if I take two minutes to tell you why I called, and then you decide whether it is worth going any further? Are you comfortable with that?" |
| 3. The thirty-second introduction | Give them the problem statement and the question, then stop talking | Section 6, delivered as written, ending on the question |
| 4. The close | Ask them to suggest the next step, so the invitation is theirs rather than yours | "May I make a suggestion. Pick a day that suits you and have me come out so we can look at it properly. What do you think?" |
| 5. The cancel question | Surface whatever would break the meeting now, while it can still be dealt with | "Between now and Thursday, is there anything likely to come up that would make you need to cancel?" |
Part four is worded that way on purpose. "I can do Tuesday at ten" makes the meeting yours, and something that is yours has to be defended. Asking them to pick the day makes it theirs, and people keep to a day they chose themselves.
Part five looks like it invites the cancellation. It does not. Whatever would cancel the meeting exists whether you ask or not, and the phone call is the only moment when anything can be done about it. The usual answers are ordinary: a quarter close that week, a planned absence, a person who has to be in the room and has not been invited yet. Each of those is solvable while you are still on the phone and none of them is solvable at eight in the morning on the day.
Either outcome of the call gets written into Nutshell before you dial the next number: a next step with a date on it, or the lead closed with the reason. A call that leaves no record did not happen as far as the plan in section 4 is concerned.
8Practice
- Answer the three competitive advantage questions from section 5 in your own words, from where you sit. If you are on site with clients, question two is the one you can answer best, because you hear what they say when they are comparing us with what they had.
- Write a thirty-second introduction in full: one line of who you are, two or three sentences of the problem, and one question that cannot be answered with yes or no. Write it out rather than planning to improvise it.
- Say it out loud, standing up, to somebody. Time it. If it runs past forty-five seconds, cut the middle rather than the question.
- If you carry a pipeline, fill the blank cookbook in section 3 with your own figures, show every multiplication and division, and answer line L honestly with a yes or a no.
- If you do not carry a pipeline, fill three rows of the activity plan in section 4 with activities you genuinely do, each with a frequency, a target count and the preparation named.
- Do one of the rows this week and write down what came of it.
9Check for understanding
Two people have the same monthly target. One made 96 contacts last month and closed nothing. The other made 30 contacts and closed two. Whose activity do you manage, and what do you change?
Someone works their cookbook and lands on 20 contacts a day, which they will not do. Name the four things that can change, and explain why working harder is not one of them.
An activity plan row says "more calls to local businesses". Name the three things the row is missing and say what each one prevents.
A hook question gets "no, we're fine, thanks" every time. What is wrong with the question, and what would you replace it with?
The opening of the call hands the other person an easy way out in the first ten seconds. Why is that not giving the call away?
The last part of the call asks whether anything might come up that would cause them to cancel. Why ask a question that appears to invite the cancellation?
10What happens now
There is no session 11. This was the last of the ten, and what you have now is the whole system in one piece.
The seven steps, in order: bonding and rapport, the up-front contract, pain, budget, decision, fulfillment, post-sell. Steps three, four and five are the qualification steps, and steps six and seven only happen once those three have real answers.
What the ten sessions covered: why a system exists at all and the four outcomes that count as a result, meaning a yes, a no, a referral, or a clear and well understood future, how people decide whether to trust the person in front of them, the agreement made at the start of a conversation about what it is for and what happens at the end, how to find what a problem is actually costing a client, the questions that get a real answer instead of a polite one, how to find out whether a client is willing and able to invest money, time and resources, how to find out who decides and how and by when, how to present what was asked for and then keep the decision from coming apart afterwards, the three parts of performance that can be worked on separately, and the activity that fills the top of the pipeline in the first place.
What happens next is that this gets run against real opportunities instead of examples. From Monday:
- Every live opportunity in Nutshell is placed on one of the seven steps, using the earliest step that still has an unknown rather than the furthest one reached.
- Every first meeting opens with an agreement about what the meeting is for, how long it runs and what happens at the end of it.
- No proposal is written before pain, budget and decision have real answers written down.
- Every meeting booked on a phone call ends with the question about what might cause a cancellation.
- The activity that produces the next opportunity is planned in advance with a count against it, rather than being whatever is left over at the end of the week.
Keep this guide and the other nine. They are the reference, and the only part of any of it that is yours to control is in section 2.
11Glossary
- Prospecting
- The work of starting conversations with people who could become clients.
- Contact
- A conversation with a person who could become a client or send us one. A voicemail is not a contact.
- Initial meeting
- The first proper sit-down, in person or on a call that was booked.
- Presentation
- The meeting where what we propose goes in front of the people who decide.
- Cookbook
- The arithmetic that turns a goal into a number of conversations a day: goal, divided by average sale, multiplied up through the ratios, divided by working days.
- Monthly recurring revenue
- The part of a client's fee that repeats every month, as against one-time project work.
- Activity plan
- A table of prospecting activities, each with a frequency, a target number of contacts, and the preparation it needs, adding up to the number the cookbook asked for.
- Competitive advantage
- Something true about us that a competitor could not say word for word.
- Problem statement
- Two or three sentences describing the situation our clients were in before they called us, said from their side.
- 30-second commercial
- Sandler's name for the thirty-second introduction: who you are, a short version of the problem statement, and one question that invites a real answer.
- Hook question
- The question at the end of the introduction. It cannot be answered with yes or no.
- No-pressure prospecting call
- Sandler's name for the five-part first call: opening, the agreement about the call, the thirty-second introduction, the close, and the cancel question.
- Up-front contract
- An agreement made before a conversation about what it is for, how long it runs, and what happens at the end. Covered in session 03.
- BTR
- Business technology review, the recurring account meeting with a client.
12Sources
- Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations, chapter 10, Prospecting Behavior: chapter PDF.
- Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations: full workbook PDF.
The cookbook, the 30-second commercial and the no-pressure prospecting call are Sandler's terms. Every figure in the worked cookbook and the activity plan is a model example chosen to make the arithmetic visible, the five prospecting activities are ours, and the competitive advantage answers and the draft problem statement are ours and are written to be argued with.