1: a brief pause
2: background office noise
3: "Oh, good morning, Dave, this is X X from IBDG, can I just confirm I'm speaking to Mr Dave Bull?"
The question is designed to make you say Yes - a standard sales technique that I myself teach in sales training. Teaching it makes me very aware when it's being used on me. Its purpose is to set up a psychological trend in your brain so that when he asks you to buy you'll still be in Yes mode.
Like you, I feel really really resentful if I think I'm being manipulated. So instead of answering I ask him what IBDG stands for - International Business Development Group. Hm.
He tells me they are consultants and he's working with the training managers and directors of the top 450 companies in the UK and asks if that would be a good target audience for me. Another Yes question. My response: "Are you telling me, X, that you are consulting with 450
training managers?" He backs down - first to say that that's between his whole team, then: "Put it this way, we only deal with companies that are in the top 450." Well, that could be just one company, but to be fair their website says they work with "over 150 top companies." Glad that's consistent then!
Finally he tells me what they do - they ask these managers what training needs they have, then match them up with "very carefully pre-vetted specialist consultants" at a kind of "dating seminar" and the managers can decide whether to engage you or not. More Yes questions follow, forcing me to call him: "So where does IBDG fit in, what do you get out of it?"
No straight answer at first, lots of waffle about packages and return on investment, followed by the bombshell: their smallest package (a two-person package - despite telling me that these training managers were specifically asking for independent consultants) is...
...a five-figure sum annual membership.
I laughed out loud at him, which he obviously didn't like because he then asked me if that was "a little out of my league".
Sales lesson No 1 - insulting your prospect is a fantastic idea if you love making phone calls but hate closing sales.
I apologise for laughing and advise him to move on to the next name on his list, but he tries to recover himself - more questions, more justifications. Too late. I repeat that he's wasting time on me and needs to move on. He puts the phone down on me. No goodbye. Rude.
Checking the company out they seem to be reputable enough - they complete their accounts and returns on time, for a small company. They've been registered for a few years, their registered office is on an industrial estate in Milton Keynes, not in someone's bedroom in their mum's house.
But the very business model is suspect - why would I pay the salary of a telemarketer to get into 17 "beauty parades" a year? Why would they build their package around a single upfront fee, when they could earn more than they asked me for with a percentage commission? I can only assume that it's because they don't really believe they can actually get me the business.
===
Now I have to apologise to you too - I don't usually use this blog to have a rant! Here are some of the lessons, please comment if I've missed anything else.
- Obviously scripted calls put people off. Obviously scripted pep talks and appraisal meetings are exactly the same. We can only truly get people's buy-in and co-operation by connecting with them and if you're reading a script you're not connecting to the person. Be yourself, tell your team (or your prospect) about your vision, your hopes, your dreams for the the team and what you see as its potential.
- Share risk - if you're telling me you can win me business then I will only believe you if you're willing to share in that reward and risk - I'll give a commission to anyone who comes to me with a customer I haven't already got - and do the same with your teams: you can reduce conflict by sharing risk and reward. Make your production department and your Quality department share in one reward rather than setting them up against each other.
- It's awfully easy to put people down - if you watch TV or films you'll see it happen all the time, and unconsciously we pick up these patterns of interaction all over the place. I don't imagine for a second he intended to insult me with "out of your league", but he did. An open question like "What was it that made you laugh, Mr Bull?" would have got him further.
- Get your story straight. If you have to backpedal on statistics within your first minute of a conversation, you've lost all credibility.
All the best,
Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd - http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com
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6 comments:
Hi Dave
Loving your humour and style. In the paragraph that starts with 'He tells me they are consultants', you have typed 'with'and 'the' twice.
Best wishes
Karen x
Haha, you got it all wrong Mr Bull,
Its top 750 by the way,
@Karen - thanks for the feedback!
@"The Truth" - not quite sure what you're trying to say. The front page of their website says
"Our clients include:
*Many of the leading Government Agencies in the world
*Over 150 top companies"
Are you connected with the company? I see you've set up a blog with their name in the title.
In sales, the real truth is that the impression you make on your prospects is far more important than the exact figures you quote, although quoting a figure that's flatly contradicted on page 1 of your own website is a bit careless and makes it look like you're trying to deceive people.
RE: IBDG
Dave,
Just had the same experience. How do they think they can get away with it when they are calling Sales Trainers?
I was offered a up to 20 meetings in 24ours with Directors of big companies for the measly sum of £12K. Payable upfront of course.
I was intrigued and played along for a while. When i offered to pay after the meetings he didn't like it.
He couldn't quite answer why i would be happy to pay so much for for these meetings when there would be upto 20 other vendors there. Besides couldn't i just do this myself.
I was really keen to find out if they had a relationship with any of them. Or more to the point if they would say they did. He skirted the issue.
When I told him never to call again he laughed and told me i was highly targeted and they never work off lists. Besides they have plenty of my competition on board who will gladly pay to get the meetings - Hmmm!!!
Hi Dave,
I used to work for IBDG and you have hit the nail right on the head with the sales pitch.
IBDG is one of these very high pressure sales houses that is purely about cold calling. They are trying to follow the Marcus Evans philosophy (another similar events company - to those that have been lucky enough never to have come across them). From what I can gather, this is where they talk down to the prospective customer in the hope they will think you're better than them and want what you have. In the brief training scheme that we had we were directly told to keep talking to the DM (Decision Maker) until either we had the sale or they hung up, we were advised to employ any means to get them interested, honest or not. You may have seen a film called boiler room in which they sell fake shares, this is IBDG’s philosophy through and through (except they don’t seem to be breaking any laws – apart from the laws of good taste and decency).
Now while I am hugely against this highly outdated method of sales, I was lucky enough to get the chance to speak with people who had previously attended and, as much as it pains me to say it, the events do seem to be successful if you can stomach paying between £14,000 and £19,000 (and that’s for one event by the way, not an annual membership!!!) The event is essentially a speed dating process where you will pitch your business to ‘pre qualified’ directors and decision makers – there is no guarantee they will buy but that’s the idea. It can be very successful for the right individual but you would need to be VERY confident in what you do and what you’re selling to get them on board.
I was not employed there for very long as they have an absolutely staggering turnover of staff (in 1 year they hired and fired over 100 people) but from what I could gather from the few staff that had managed to hold on by the skin of their teeth, there is 2 sides to the business, they have a management consultancy based in Milton Keynes who are a very well respected name in the industries they work. This is where the grand sounding top 100/250/450 (whatever that particular consultant decides sounds best) companies come from. These companies do actually exist and have a good relationship with the MD and Chairman and as the events cost nothing for the delegates to attend they will be there if there is companies they are interested in meeting, that part of the sales pitch at least is true. Ultimately, they do have a good product and I believe the company would do a lot better and have a far better reputation if they offered alternatives to the huge cash investment that they currently demand.
I don’t mean this to be a rant to put people off working with IBDG but I have been looking for a long time to see if there is any info on the net as to exactly what they do to no avail. I’m sure I will not be popular for writing this if they see it as IBDG don’t like there to be any information written down. This is so (and again I quote) if something is said over the phone there is no proof, if they see it in writing then we can’t tell them they’re wrong! – A timeless sales ploy I know, but I think that there is no need for this type of mentality in the digital age of the Noughties and these companies are a thing of the past.
Hope this helps you to know a little bit more about them and helps you to come to an informed choice as to whether you would attend. My advice, if you have £20,000 spare and don’t mind risking it on the off chance of a good return then do it. If you are like many of the companies they target and £20,000 is actually a considerable sum then my advice is stick to the conventional means, marketing advertising and building relationships the old fashioned way. There is no substitute!
Regards
Mike
Hi How... and Thoughtful...
Thank you both for your comments, and thank you, Thoughtful, for the insight into how IBDG works.
Dave
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