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Strategic Guidance to Build Your Business
Volume 5, Issue 3, November 2011

"The Business Builder" is brought to you by VSA, Inc. in collaboration with Rink Consulting. VSA, Inc., founded by Valerie Schlitt, builds and implements B2B prospecting programs for businesses and professional service firms. VSA has a team of professional telephone callers who open doors to new business opportunities for VSA clients. Linda Rink, president of Rink Consulting, specializes in B2B and consumer marketing and research. Both Wharton MBA graduates, Valerie and Linda often team together to help clients identify and reach new customers. In this newsletter, they share some of their business development insights.
Three Reasons to Get Email Addresses
by Valerie Schlitt, President of VSA, Inc.
Valerie Schlitt photo

I encourage all B2B cold callers to collect prospect email addresses whenever possible. Email addresses are often akin to the annuity payout, after an initial cold calling investment. They are also akin to the EZ Pass when you are making a long trip.

Whether a huge side-benefit or a necessity, do not start a cold calling campaign without preparing the email portion to complement your calls.

Here are three reasons:

  • Ongoing Prospecting

    Once you've spent the time and money to call through a large list of companies and have identified a handful of prospects who fit your customer profile AND these prospects have given you their email addresses, you have a list that you can mine for a year or more.

    Very few prospects make a buying decision on the first cold call. Fewer have an immediate need. But anyone who fits your profile is a good target, and a percentage will purchase at some point.

    Keeping in touch regularly via email is virtually free. If your offer is strong enough, you will generate sales and revenue in the future from business emails collected from a cold calling campaign in the past.

  • Credibility


    • Decision makers receive cold calls all the time from firms they have never heard of before. While these corporate decision makers may have a real need for the products and services being promoted, they will absolutely not risk their reputations without first knowing that the cold caller is reputable and trustworthy.

    Professional emails can establish credibility instantly. These are emails with professional signature blocks, coming from URL's that don't say "yahoo or gmail." These emails also are well written and have PDF attachments that are professionally created.

    A telephone number must also be included which is answered professionally.

    A cold caller might still need to make many, many calls, set face to face appointments, and provide references before closing the sale. But, this caller would not even pass the first test without an initial professional email to establish credibility.

  • It's just expected


    • Email is ubiquitous in business today. We receive invoices via email. We sign and return contracts via email.

    If a cold caller plans a program and does not anticipate the need to send follow-up emails, this can be a red flag to any decision maker. Not having email capabilities implies a cold caller is interested only in quick hits and not long term relationships. It might also mean that there will be no way to communicate after the sale is made, and that service and quality are not important.

    Regardless of whether a cold caller plans to use emails to foster future sales, he/she must realize that a simple calling campaign cannot stand alone. Cold callers need the back-up support of email communication. It's an expected mode of communication.
In B2B Cold Calling - Emails are Essential

The days of picking up the phone and making a bunch of calls without following up with emails are over. Financially, credibility-wise or a required way of communicating, cold callers must include email as part of the program.

Next Article: How to obtain email addresses during cold calls.
Build a Better Mousetrap
by Linda Rink, President of RINK Consulting
Linda Rink Photo

"Think out of the box." "Push the envelope." "Build a better mousetrap."
Whatever clichés they use to describe it, "INNOVATION" is the mantra of many companies these days. And no wonder, it's the holy grail when it comes to beating out the competition.

From a marketplace perspective, developing innovative products and services can put you in the driver's seat. Because being out in front first means capturing more market share, brand awareness, and general "buzz." It's always harder to play catch-up.

Because it's charting new territory, innovation is inherently risky. Willingness to take on risk is necessary for the leaps of faith that truly innovative thinking often requires. Quoting from the McKinsey Quarterly: "The CEO of one Fortune 500 corporation, asked to explain his company's declining performance, fingered the 'lack of a culture of risk taking'; its absence, he explained, meant that the company was unable to create innovative, successful products." *

Innovation is a hard thing to achieve, though, even with a risk-tolerant attitude. There are no set procedures. It takes a special mindset, a different way of looking at the world or marketplace. And potential customers aren't likely to help you - many times they don't even know they have a need until they see the new product that meets it. Then they have to have it!

But I guarantee you one thing - successful innovation is not possible without an understanding of your customers and their marketplace.

What do I mean by this? To be truly worthwhile, innovation must be user-focused. In other words, the end user must perceive that the new product/ service is useful and better than what was previously available. Otherwise, it's just change for the sake of change - kind of like redesigning the package graphics or company logo.

That's where research comes in. The right kind of research can help direct and inform innovation. Here's a real-life example from one of my clients:

Mike Flanagan is Chief Marketing Officer of Bresslergroup, an award-winning product design firm located in Philadelphia. Mike is well-versed in innovative thinking - that's his bread-and-butter. Research plays an essential role throughout Bresslergroup's design process, Mike explains:

  • For background briefing on the category and marketplace, Bresslergroup relies on the trend information and competitive data that Rink Consulting provides before heading out into the field to question / corroborate what they have learned.

  • Field research is often a critical next step in the design process. Mike shares an anecdote about a recent medical device project: "We were doing observation and interview (important that the sequence was first observation and then interview) with surgical team members while studying how users work with surgical scalpels. We watched and video-taped the team interaction during the surgical procedure and saw how the nurse handed the scalpel to the doctor. Then we interviewed the two and they described how they handled the interaction. The only issue was that their story did not match our observation. The lesson for us was that research is obviously important, but the type of research is critical too. Had we relied solely on what the users said they did, we would have missed the most critical findings. Often it's the unspoken inputs that lead to deeper understanding and innovation."

  • The outcome? A truly innovative new medical instrument that better serves the needs of surgical teams.
Creativity is necessary for innovation; understanding is essential. The right kind of research supports both.

*(Source: McKinsey Quarterly, November 2003. Kevin S. Buehler and Gunnar Pritsch, "Running with Risk.")

RINK Consulting
1420 Locust Street, Suite 31N
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-546-5863
lrink@lindarink.com
www.lindarink.com
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