The Formula for Executive-Level Cold Calling

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>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Hi. My name is Gerhard Gschwandtner, and welcome to Selling Power TV. Today we have the pleasure of meeting with Mari Anne Vanella-Wright, and she's the author of a wonderful new book, " 42 Rules of Cold Calling Executives." Welcome, Mari Anne.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Thanks. Thanks for having me, Gerhard.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: What prompted you to write this wonderful book?

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Well, you know the book has been a great experience. It's related to the programs that we deliver, and I wrote it for several reasons. I wrote it for direct sales teams so that they could really have better experiences with cold calling. Sell a lot of sales reps, that's the part of their job they really dislike, or it's the part of their job that they don't really have a lot of time for, so they have to spend the time that they do spend on it doing things that count.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Can you give me some examples of the book?

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Sure. You know the book is really based on the psychology of the call, so what's going on on the other side of the phone.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Right.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: For example, one of them, rule 17, its use a script but don't be scripted. So a lot of people think of a script, and they think, " Oh, I don't want a script." Or, "that's for telemarketers."

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Right.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Or there's a lot of real negative association with that word, so they think of getting called in the middle of dinner and things like that. But really, what this rule talks about is being able to preserve the best version of your dialog, so I think anybody -- you know, in sales of all of us have had the experience of we hang up the phone and think, "oh I wish I would've said that." Or, "I forgot to ask this." So really, it's just having a version of the -- the best version of you available.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Right. Right.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: So that you make every call count.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: And it's very important to create content, as you say here, that's compelling, comprehensive, and concise --

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Right.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: -- which is not easy to do.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Right. Yeah, and so having that available to use at your fingertips really makes a huge difference in the quality of your calls. Another rule is rule 30, which is how to troubleshoot your calls. And, you know, in sales all of us have had a production slump. We've all just, all of a sudden, our production tanks, and so this gives you a way to be able to self-troubleshoot and self-diagnose what it is. And a lot of times, it's easy to externalize it and say, "oh it's the market." And, "they're not talking to me." And nobody -- you know, but --

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Right.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: -- Really, you changed some things, so what you were doing that works, maybe you stop saying something, or maybe you started saying something. But there's a way that you can isolate all the elements and components of your call, and then you can find where that breakdown is.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So this is really the beginning of the road of continuous improvement.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Right. Absolutely.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Right. So you've received a lot of good press. Congratulations. Is there anything that sticks out in your mind that gave you a big lift?

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Yeah, actually, it won the silver medal in the sales book awards the recently.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Amazing.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: It was -- yeah.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Congratulations.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Yeah, thanks. That was really exciting. And then it was number three at on Amazon in its category not long ago. The sales lead management association reviewed it. I've gotten really great feedback from my clients' sales teams, and a lot of people that have bought it have reached out to me and said, "Hey, this is great. I'm using these rules right now."

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So those are really the best rules for technology companies that need to get more prospects.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: Right.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So how do companies work with you? How do you implement all this wisdom in your work?

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: What this is, it's tactical methods that you overlay on what turned doing right now, and you start getting results. And so as an individual, you can read it and there's things you can take away right now and start using. As companies, you know, whether there's 10 reps or 200 reps, there's ways and a fast track solution that we have so that you can implement it in your organization. So our main solution is our lead generation, telesales model. And then within that, we have a sales optimization division where we have fast track programs and self-assessment and coaching and ways that companies can implement this in their own organization.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Now, your company, The Vanella Group, has been in support of Sales 2.0. Can you explain how your organization supports that model with your clients?

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: You know, we've evolved over the years with the whole progression of Sales 2.0. I remember years ago, companies -- when I first started this business companies didn't have a CRM, and now most of them to have a CRM.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Right.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: and there's a lot more things available for that. So we really stay on the leading edge of that. Back in 2007, we were a corporate sponsor of the first Sales 2.0 conference, and we're a corporate sponsor this year, in 2009. And I know selling power really leads the charge in educating and --

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Right.

>> Mari Anne Vanella-Wright: -- and promoting Sales 2.0 adoption and companies. And so we're really on that leading edge of doing that. We use the best Web 2.0 technologies, the best processes. So we bring a very optimized model to companies.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: We're going to continue our conversation with Mari Anne tomorrow, where we talk about her very unique prospect engagement model.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====