Stop Cold Calling And Start Cardscanning

By Author: Lori Feldman
Total Articles: 6
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I took a sales course called High Probability Selling. It teaches you that to sell, you must dial the phone 150 times a day and go on sales appointments. To do anything else results in failure. It's high-probability selling because you rack up enough numbers to increase the odds of success.

If cold calling is on your list of strengths, it's a great system. If you're a ratio robot, good at repetitive tasks, you'll do well at things that require repetition. You'll set appointments or you won't. I know people who are hands-down great cold callers who do a phenomenal amount of sales this way.

Cold calling isn't something you will see me do. It's boring. No one wants to talk to you on the phone anymore (I can barely get my own mother to take my live calls.) But people (and I'm including sales prospects in this group) will talk to you at business networking events, voluntarily give you their business cards and mentally expect to hear from you again.

So I believe in creating a before, during and after business networking plan. And I start with the after first. For example, I think, What will I do after I get ...
... back from a networking event in order to leverage those contacts?

The answer is CardScan. The first step in the process is to scan all the business cards I collect into my business card scanner. It works just like a flatbed scanner for letter-size paper, but it's a cute mini-card reader for business card scanning.

Once you set up the business card reader software, the card reader scans and knows exactly where to put each piece of information. You can use the Card Scan database that comes with CardScan Personal or CardScan Executive. Or you can import the scanned business card information directly into another database like ACT! Software or your Outlook address book.

Next, I send my simple pre-written hi, nice to meet you follow-up letter. I mail-merge all the cards I've scanned with this letter. (CardScan also integrates with the Dymo Label Writer, so you can print labels for these contacts at the same time.)

The during step of my no-cold-call plan is to take two people I just met and introduce them to two people I already know. That means when I go to a networking function, I have to make an effort to meet new people. And I must ask questions instead of talking, so I find out who'll I introduce them to.

My after step is to make two introductions. I generally make the introductions right away. It's easy to do because I've already used the business card reader to scan the cards into my database. Now I'm just relationship building.

Invariably I get a thank you from both parties almost immediately. Because I've tried to help instead of asking for something for myself right out of the shoot, my new contacts are much more receptive to what I have to say next time I send them an email or a letter.

I find a direct correlation between the number of people I have calling ME, (instead of me having to call them) and how many networking events I attend. If I attend five to 10 events a month, I double the number of people who call me or come to one of my ACT! Software workshops. If I don't attend many events, I obviously don't collect as many business cards to scan into my business card reader to advance the process.

Can you see how much impact a business card scanner can have on your sales prospecting strategy? You can make a lot more meaningful contacts by meeting people face-to-face, collecting their business cards and then scanning those business cards into a cardscanner to continue a relationship-building follow-up dialog with them.