sales training blog - startup sales mentor

How do you know what message works? It is not very often your first interaction with a potential client is face to face. When it is, you are usually competing with the clatter of a networking event or dinner party. Yeah, yeah, Karl we know, so what is your point? Everybody knows we have eight seconds, and if we are good we have eight more, tell us something new.

Here it is:

Tell them something that matters. Your name, unless it is Barack or Hilary, in 2008, who cares. Your company? Unless you employ Ed McMahon, again, ho hum. The client you just helped, frankly they have heard it all before. What gets people interested is how you can effect their day to day. How can you make their job easier? What will get their peers, superiors, and reports to appreciate the decision to bring you into the mix?

People usually are led my management and training to make the following mistake:

In sales training focused on products, we learn that a certain feature can do something of value, but we get specificatios and details instead of a core statement of effect.

In sales trainings focused on understanding our prospects, you learn what questions to ask and how to engage in conversation. This is good training, but even when we get someone to start talking, how do we know if they really care?

Where we must begin to take our sales opportunities beyond the norm is with a message that makes sense to the listener while simultaneously sparking interest. We should begin with:

1. Research

Only when we know that the message is tailored to the person we are talking to ca we be effective. If you are calling CEO’s, know the state of their company. If profits are soaring, they are not listening to how you can increase sales, but they may want to hear about how you can maintain employee loyalty. If you are calling HR managers, know how many open requisitions for employmet they have, or if they have turnover issues.

2.  Clarity

K.I.S.S. Keep it simple st—-!  No one cares about ROI and TCO! People are sick of these silly expressions, and if you have a new acronym, keep it to yourself! Look, if they engage in this banter, the by all means get out your Sililcon Valley abbreviation kit and have at it, but until then, speak ENGLISH (Or your native tongue). Say things that cut and get rid of the um’s, you know’s, and that cancerous passive voice. As my good friend Tim Rohrer says, “No good sales plan involves hope.” Nor does it include might’s, may have’s, and then there are those other sweet little scaredy cat statements that mean absolutely nothing.

3. Brevity

If you take more than five seconds to get to the point;YOU LOSE. Read that sentence again, 1,2,3,4 and done. Every few seconds you must make a point, and one that matters. Then make another one and another one until it is time to ask a questions. Between points, keep your mouth sealed shut. Brevity on your part should inspire long winded dialog on theirs. Get them talking by saying something compelling then shutting up.

4. Passion

If you have not felt it yet, then I suck!  People rarely walk away from me without knowing how I feel. If you are engaged in a conversation with me, you know my passions, and most of all you know what I believe in. This is what gets me going in the morning, and it is what allows me to sell. If I cannot transfer my passion it is either because I am not concentrating on my true self, or you are not ready for the message. After all if I make it compelling, succinct, and you can feel that I mean it, why would you risk not giving me eight more seconds.

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