Jun 21, 2020
Caryn Kopp is the Chief Door Opener at Kopp Consulting. Recognized by Inc. as 5000 winners for the Door Opener Service where they provide executive-level appointment setting. Caryn is an internationally recognized speaker, an expert in Business Development and is the author of the best-seller Biz Dev Done Right.
COVID19 is unlike any situation we have experienced before, and the seller must master the art of developing business in a virtual world. For the foreseeable future, we are not going to have conferences, trade shows and in-person networking even leveraging your network is going to be done differently. If you have done it before, says Caryn, it has changed in these last number of months, since COVID19. It is important to say on top of the changes, so the business does not experience a hiccup.
The one thing that has changed is that the emails of decision-makers are filling up fast, everyone is bombarding buyers with emails with the word COVID19 in the communication, makes the email vanilla. Prospects know it is a cold email. Few people are calling. The significant change is to use the phone, people that were working in an office are now at home they are crazy to hear a voice.
You must enter the conversation with empathy and recognize that they will be having things going on at home. People can be much more human than they ever were. You can connect with people now on a different level and engage with humans.
Caryn says you must get comfortable with video and see what is behind you because people will think you are disorganized if you work in a messy environment. What goes on behind you must represent you as professionally as you would like it to be. People are missing the in personal connection; video is the most efficient way to spend your business development time.
Kopp Consulting gets companies more meeting than they could get for themselves. Kopp will never send mass emails but create an email for one person and follow up call on one person. It is business as usual for Kopp, but they are entering the conversation with more empathy. Entering dialogue with prospective customers by asking - how has their life changed in the last couple of months? And when are they talking about you going back to the office? Do your research and make sure the conversation is meant for that one person, Caryn says you must know why the prospect would want to have the discussion with you.
Caryn mission is to educate people on what the process is like so those that want to do the door opening themselves but want to do it better and in the way business development needs to be done.
The biggest mistake Caryn see business development people make is, first, not setting a date and time at every stage of the sales process. She says, make sure you leave enough time, such as “ I’m watching the time and know you have a hard stop in 7 minutes, we can answer a few more questions but why don’t we go ahead set a date and time for our next call so we can continue our conversation, how is Thursday 11 am for you?” People try to fit so much into the meeting take they get to the hard stop and get off the call.
Secondly, not prepared with high gain questions. What are the questions that elicit the best information for you, so you know the path of dialogue to follow so you can uncover the best opportunities for the prospect and you?
Many lead generations companies say they will fill your appointment book, but if you want to get a meeting with a senior executive you cannot send the same connect request to thousands of people, this may work with transactional sales. If you are talking to an executive about a new idea, it is a personal call or email that includes research and insights that gives that person the feeling that spending time with you may be the best decision they’d made all week. That is a warm and interested prospect, rather than a lead, that is professional representation delivered by door openers that have over 15-years’ experience. Door openers use sales messaging that will pique the interest of the one decision-maker.
You must marry the sales message with technique and answer why now. Caryn created the Kopp Gap Method of Sales Messaging, which helps sellers clearly articulate their value. When done correctly, these three sentences can render the competition irrelevant.
Sell something people want to buy; otherwise, it creates an extended sales circle. Create the sales messaging, and narrow your target, have the right person representing you do the best job possible building great relationships with your prospects. If you fill the top of you funnel with those prospects interested in learning more, you become an obvious solution, says Caryn, then your closing ratio will go up substantially in number and speed.
Caryn Kopp Author of Biz Dev Done Right: Demystifying the Sales Process and Achieving the Results You Want