Day in and day out, salespeople are always looking for different ways to get in front of their future clients. Being in the information age, we want value immediately! If the subject line of an email sucks; boom, deleted. If a voice message starts out boring; boom, deleted. You’ve only got a few seconds to capture someone’s attention… so you have to make it count.
“Here’s what you need to remember: Your prospects read your e-mails with their finger on the Delete key. They listen to you voice mails with their finger on the Delete key.”[note]Page 62[/note]
The majority of your prospects are inundated with multiple sales calls and sales emails a day. Why should they listen to you? Why should they care? What do you have to offer that is so different than what they’re already doing?!
Value… You’ve gotta give ’em value. “Well Jordan, you make it sound so simple.”
It is and it isn’t. You need to catch their attention and spark their interest but in a way where you’re not talking about your service/product. You’ve got to personalize your approach… and sometimes that can be time consuming.
“Being able to clearly articulate your value – from your customers’ perspective – is foundational to your sales success.”[note]Page 70[/note]
Knowing something about their business or their industry will go a long ways when you’re reaching out. Referencing their website and seeing that they’re hiring for a handful of new roles can get you in the door. (You can help them hire people faster.) Following their social channels and learning about the latest breakthrough they’ve had, shows them you care. (You can confirm their security is impenetrable.) That’s pretty black and white, but you get the point… I hope.
If you can articulate your value by referencing their current pains… you’ll have sparked their interest. Don’t lead with the product.
That is only two examples of how you can clearly articulate your value from the customer’s perspective. Jill Konrath takes it a step further and dives into ‘Trigger Events’.
“A trigger event is an occurrence that shifts an organization’s priorities. It could be internal or external to the organization. It doesn’t matter.”[note]Page 76[/note]
You better have just had a big Ah-Ha Moment Baby!
I have trigger events happen all the time! Whenever a law changes; people need to know about it. If something changes with the Affordable Care Act (ACA); I need to alarm my clients/prospects. Those are two examples… Think anything! They’re in the news, boom. New CFO/CEO, boom. One of your competitors gets acquired, Trigger. Growth, hiring, expansion… ETC. The list goes on.
If something changes (trigger event) and now you’re even more aligned with their goals/immediate issues… imagine how much simpler it would be for you to articulate your value from their perspective!
“Your prospects are just too busy these days to waste their time with you if you don’t pay this price of admission.”[note]Page 95[/note]
I’ve been talking about this for the past few months. It’s the idea of social selling and separating yourself from the rest of the competition. You must personalize your approach. You must do your homework on the company. Nobody wants to be pitched on the first phone call and they sure as heck don’t want a canned voicemail. Same thing goes for your emails. You can’t send them some junk, because, like we learned earlier… it’ll be deleted!
Spend a few extra minutes; go to their website and at least read their ‘mission statement’ or ‘about us’.
Okay, so let’s say you’ve done all that but no word back from the prospect. It happens… and it happens a lot. It happens to ALL of you reading this. No big deal… now it’s your job to find relevant information to send their way every once in awhile. I’m sure you’ve got some cadence of how often you call, email, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
“Content designed for your prospects should present business value, help build a business case, educate about problems, invite interaction across the buying cycle, share expertise and reduce the perception of risk. – Ardath Albee”[note]Page 111[/note]
There is so much reliable content out there about every industry. Find credible information and send it to your prospects. Depending on what organization you work for, your employer could provide that information. Statistics and numbers speak volumes to people. Saving people time and money, increasing security, minimizing attrition… the list goes on. Jill has some lists in the book that you have to read!
Leaving one voicemail and sending one canned email isn’t going to do it in the information age. Prospects are being bombarded daily… set yourself apart and rise above the noise. Everybody is capable… you just have to make it routine.
There’s more to come from me about:
Snap Selling | Jill Konrath
Get “Snap Selling” on Amazon.
Something that I’ve been sharing lately, with regards to social selling is the fact that personalization is huge… it goes a long ways and people feel like you care. It’s even better when you can show them you care!
Where did all the good storytellers go? Stories paint great pictures and people love putting themselves in the shoes of the characters. Remember “The Great Gatsby”? That’s an incredible story… Who wouldn’t want to be Gatsby for an evening. Hell, they have parties named after the guy because they’re so epic. Now take storytelling and relate it to sales!