A Messaging Rant: You can not only ask questions, you have to tell them something

Every sales training I have every been a party to attending focused predominately on the right questions to ask and how to build strategies around the answers. Whether it is how to avoid objections, understand objectives, learn processes, they just assume that people will want to talk to you once you get them on the phone. Sales trainer after sales trainer seem to have yet another clever way to get people to open up and share with you without you sharing much with them.

No offense to my colleagues and cohorts in sales education, but what a crock! We preach this stuff, but everyone of us has crafted an amazong entry statement, several two sentence case studies, and several value statements that carry the weight of our reputation on them. When we place a call, or meet someone at an event we share this with them. Example one:

“I help startups in emerging sectors get to revenue generation.”

We have follow ups to, “really, tell me more.” We have story after story, and rarely have I sat with a great sales trainer that did not spend 50%of the time talking. Frankly, so do I, and I open and close with the best of them. The 80/20 rule is fine for the discovery session and healthy in negotiations, but when you first connect with a prospect, come on. I do not know many busy people that will take a deep breath and start sharing with people for no reason at all. What people need is some data, quick and concise data, that gets them into wanting to  know more. You get them talking by getting them to care, not by starting a investigation.

So instead, make a strong message. Here is the recipe; take the massive diatribe that marketing calls your sales slicks, combine this with the long winded stories of your CEO, then sprinkle in the customer stories you have collected over the days, weeks, months, and years. Now with all of these ingredients busrting from your pot,simmer it down to four sets of three words. That is right, deconstruction. These words are the basis of your pitch, your value, and what your offering can help accomplish. They should signify what is unique about you vs. that other company. Let me give you an example:

You sell nails, but your nails, as marketing likes to explain are made of hyper ionized ultra strong titanium. As your CEO likes to brag, your nails are crafted using the new righto light 6000 laser molder which means that everyone is exactly the same. Not just the same, but perfect. Your customers tell you that they end up using fewer nails and that they seem to have less incidents with replacing boards from bad nails. They also seem to get jobs done faster.

Stronger, efficient, savings

Now take these words and make a sentence.

We make stoinger nails that make your workers more efficient and save you money.

Now take each word and us it as the focus statement for value. Notice how in this example, the other points come up naturally:

Our nails are stronger meaning you will have less rework and more consistency from worker to worker. Eliminating bad nails means not only the savings on nails, but the ability to get jobs done faster. With you getting jobs done faster, you can bid on more work and give even more competitive rates.

Notice, once you get past the one little thing about your product, it is all about what these better nails do for them. Try this again focusing on efficient instead of stronger. Now go find magic triplets that relate the benefits of what you sell. Get to the point, get them excited, then get them talking.

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