Building relationships and adding value cannot be done by an algorithm, cookie or automatic drip campaign.
This morning I received an templated email:
"I feel horrible troubling you and I'm starting to feel like a stalker....
If hiring software engineering talent, specifically engineers who have the skills, experience, and DNA needed to write quality scalable code, we should talk. We let the quality of our work speak for itself..."
In some respects, whomever sent this email *should* feel horrible. It's terrible sales technique. It's obviously a mass-blast of a database of emails harvested from some low-quality source. It's creepy - not in a stalking way, but in thinking that this kind of opening paragraph would create feelings of trust and openness and willingness to talk. Even if a prospect *did* need someone to help them write code - which a tiny bit of research would reveal that's not even our business.
Talk about automated disconnect!
If you're "feeling horrible" about your prospecting method, isn't that's a CLEAR sign you should NOT be doing it that way?
After a year when people's willingness to be open, listen to each other and share value has been tested more than ever, you can imagine why most online lead-generation campaigns perform so badly. There's nothing helpful in there - just noise.
To ask for value, you must start by adding value.
To offer value, you must learn about your client's dreams first.
To learn about your client's dreams, you must ask and listen -
Not stalk them and trouble them and feel horrible about it.
"You cannot talk your way into a sale," a smart friend used to say, "But you sure can listen your way into one."
Selling is a noble art. The salesperson operates from a foundation of openness, honesty and trust. They offer a meaningful contribution to a specific and important goal that a person or firm desires. And they do it personally - not through the thin, bland veil of an automated noise system.
If all it took to make a sale was an algorithm and a list of meaningless templates, then we wouldn't really need the most important part of any good deal, now would we?
And that part is always -
YOU!