In this post I am going to talk about an “uncool” way to get sales meetings…ground mail.
Getting meetings with potential prospects is frequently rated as the top challenge for most salespeople and business owners. If you don’t get enough meeting with prospects, then your sales will inevitably be weak–not enough coming in the top of your sales funnel always means not enough coming out the bottom.
When faced with the challenge of getting more sales meetings, some salespeople assume all you can do is send dozens more cold emails or (if they’re the rarer type that likes to call) make several more cold calls.
Although these methods do work, there’s an increasing need to use “multimedia prospecting”, approaching people over multiple channels until you hit upon a method that works for that prospect.
Ground mail may seem like an antiquated channel to use in a modern sales process but because of this, I am a fan. Ground mail can be more useful now than ever, as it’s so much less cluttered than in its heyday.
Physical mailboxes are not as stuffed full as they used to be. Meanwhile email boxes are exploding with businesspeople I speak to commonly receiving many hundreds of emails per day.
The story goes that the “world’s greatest salesman”, Joe Girard, (according to the Guinness Book of World Records) used to write notes to his clients every day. He cranked out cards by hand to keep in touch with all this contacts. People felt he cared. They liked him and they bought his used cars.
These days a handwritten note, card or letter will stand out like a sore thumb. In this case “sore thumbs” are a great thing. Who gets a handwritten anything anymore? It’s very hard now not to open something with human writing on the envelope. And if the return address is from someone you know, then it’s pretty much certain that you will open that baby up before you even get down your driveway.
Working in other dimensions
Notes and letters can work very well but if you need to try even harder consider, “multidimensional mailings”, i.e. gifts.
Stu Heinecke sends cartoons, Dale Dupree sends coffee-stained letters in big envelopes and Dan Waldschmidt has sent swords! All of these have worked well for these sales experts. You can guess partly because they are so unusual. Sending people generic rubbish is not going to be that effective. Coffee mugs with your logo are not going to wow anyone.
What really works are gifts that feel like gifts! If you send someone something that they feel is valuable and they feel has thought behind it, then you will very likely get in the door. You can only send something meaningful, if you know enough about the recipient to personalize your gift. You are going to have to do your research. And this is where it depends how important this person or account is to you.
Research takes time and effort. You may be able to find what you need from public sources, or you may not. If you cannot, then you will need to find someone to be your information source on that prospect. Great gifts are rare but that’s why they can work so well. If you really care about getting to meet someone, gifts could play a part in your strategy.
Summary
- For many salespeople and business owners getting enough sales meetings is a critical problem.
- Sending more cold emails, or making more cold calls, may not fix the problem.
- Ground mail is underrated. This is good because then fewer people use it.
- Try a handwritten note to really stand out in someone’s mail.
- Go even further with personalized gifts (not coffee mugs with logos!) but realize that gifts need to be tailored to the recipient, which means spending time on research.