Tip 1: Set your alerts and profiles to prioritise projects
Revisiting the alerts and profiles you have set up to make sure you strike a balance between not missing out on the right projects and receiving too much information about projects that are not a good fit for you. This way you can use your time to best effect.
We find there the two main areas to think about when refining the alerts you receive are:
- Project criteria
- The type of Build
- The Location
- What services and products are required
- Project value
- What stage of the Build you need to receive alerts at
Depending on the type of product or service you offer will determine when you need to influence the Build process.
If you have a design led product or service, you might want to influence the Build before the specification is finalised, so will need to be alerted to projects at the planning or even pre-planning stages. The lead times can be long and you usually have to target a number of contacts involved in the project so can be time consuming.
If your product or service is mainly specified to a standard format, you will probably wait until the main contract has been awarded. Lead times before winning the business are shorter, the project will definitely happen and you only have to target the successful main contractor. However, you are likely to face competition and you will not have been able to influence the specification before has been finalised.
- Monitoring projects
You may find it useful to project alerts at the early stage of the Build and use Glenigan to track their progress until they are at the right stage to actively engage with the relevant contacts.
Tip 2: Use Glenigan’s information to build long term relationships
In addition to information on specific projects, Glenigan provides insights into the overall projects that different companies and individuals are involved in.
If companies and individuals are regularly procuring your product or service there can be a lot of value in building relationships with them, beyond just contacting them when there is an active project on.
Once you have profiled these prospects, you can plan your contact strategy through phone calls, event invites, emails and letters.
Tip 3: Set your objectives and targets
Main objective
Decide what you want to achieve from your Glenigan follow up calls:
- An introductory appointment: When a contact regularly procures your product or service or you are want to influence the Build specification
- Site visit: If needed in order to price for the job
- Pricing: When the project specification document provides all the details you need in order to price the job
Secondary objectives
You only get through to a small percentage of contacts you dial on any given day so it is worth trying to obtain something useful from every call.
You can confirm you have the right contact details to build up your mailing list and dig for further intelligence on the project to check whether it is productive to continue following up.
Example targets
We tend to work on the following estimates for a 7 hour day of following up Glenigan project leads:
- 80 dials
- 10-15 conversations with decision makers
- 1-3 results, which tend to be appointments, arranged follow up calls, pricing requests or a combination of these. Results very much depend on how often contacts need to review alternative providers on their projects
Tip 4: Organise your time
Block out regular times for calling
It is essential to book a regular time slot of at least 2 hours for your Glenigan calls, in order to have a chance to convert the project leads to actual business. Squeezing in a few calls on an adhoc basis will result in limited success as you need time to track down the right contacts.
The information also quickly becomes out of date as contractors have to select their suppliers to commence their project work.
Use a methodical approach
Use a methodical approach for following up the Glenigan leads, from determining if a lead is worth following up, the information you research from the Glenigan system, to the approach you take making your calls.
Prioritise your favourites
If there are projects that appear to be particularly attractive, you can tag these as priorities.
Emailing prospects
We will usually send an email if we are unable to reach a contact after several call attempts. If you specify the name of the project in the email title you are more likely to receive a response back. Write a series of email templates that cover different scenarios that can be sent out quickly, rather than spending a lot of time writing each email.
Tip 5: Use a CRM system
Use some form of CRM system to save all the information you obtain from the construction project leads and record the follow up call you need to make.
The Glenigan system provides you CRM tools that allow you to input notes about each project lead.
Project lead information including your notes can be transferred to your CRM system via an excel download and depending on your system, it may be able to directly integrate with Glenigan.
Tip 6: Demonstrate the relevance of your call
Demonstrate quickly to a decision maker in your call the relevance of why you are contacting them. This will encourage them to see the value of entering into conversation with you.
The fact you are calling about an actual project helps as does asking questions and responding with thoughtful answers based on their needs.
Asking questions also allows you to find out if a project is going to be the right type of work for you to try and win.
Tip 7: Close for a result in an effective manner
You still need to close effectively for the result you want, even if you feel the prospect is interested in your company, otherwise they have a habit of asking for you to send information. You then have to spend the extra time of trying to get back in touch and when you do, relying on them to have read and remembered your email.
For Glenigan project leads, we finding that arranging appointments is the main area where closing plays an important part.
Rather than arm twisting a prospect to accepting an appointment, we find that closing in a ‘professionally persuasive’ style of work best. Here are some tips for doing this:
- Show that you are genuinely interested to meet
- Suggest actual dates and times
- Know your calendar so you can suggest dates that coincide with other meetings
- Prospect will often try and accommodate you if you have let them know the location of an exiting meeting nearby to them
Tip 8: Follow up leads
Include follow up time in your Glenigan activity, as you need to stay in regular contact with prospects where you have established an initial interest.
If a colleague or a telemarketing company are following up the Glenigan leads on your behalf, here are some tips for following up the opportunities you will be given:
- Prepare some extra questions so you can engage the prospect in conversation again
- Follow up any opportunities in good time as they go cold quickly
- You may have to make several calls before you reach a decision maker as they can be difficult to reach
- Even if an opportunity has been warmed up for you, there is still going to be a sales challenge to fully win round a prospect
Tip 9: Measure and refine your processes
Keep monitoring and refining each stage of how you deal with the Glenigan project leads to make sure you are getting the best results. The stages could be broken down as follows to give you a checklist:
- Glenigan project alerts
- Initial call
- Following up opportunities
- Pricing, appointment or site visit stage
- Closing the sale
There is a raft of questions you can ask to see if you need to refine your process. Could you become overloaded with too many pricing requests? Are you bidding for work that actually does not make financial sense to do? Are you giving yourself enough time to fully follow up the leads?
We have found that making small changes to a number of stages in the sales process has a marked effect on the returns our clients see from their construction project leads, making small changes to a range of steps in the sales process.
Tip 10: Use the Glenigan team for advice and help
The final tip is to use your Glenigan’s team for suggestions on how best to use their data If you can make one or two small improvements to how you use Glengian could result in a significant increase in the number of sales you win through it.
Posted: 5 June 2017 | Knowledge, knowledge bank
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