Warming up a Cold Call with a Hot Opening

Here’s how the typical B2B cold call goes: “Hi, I’m so-and-so from XYZ Co., the leader in [insert undifferentiated and buzzword-filled boilerplate here]. I’d like to schedule a meeting with you to learn about your organization’s plans and challenges and discuss how our solution can help you optimize/leverage your [whatever].”

How successful are you with this approach?  I’m guessing not very. Theoretically, this approach should work – you’re being consultative, wanting to learn all about the prospect so you can tailor your message to her specific requirements – but it doesn’t.  Why?

Why Your Cold Calls Get the Cold Shoulder

Years ago there was a study done by AT&T that showed that, when you are cold calling, you’ve got 10 seconds to get a prospect’s attention from the time she says, “Hello.”  By kicking off with your generic boilerplate and then requesting time so that you can ask questions to educate yourself about her company and then turn around and sell to her, you’ve given her something she’s heard a thousand times before and good reason to resent you for taking up her time.

Grabbing Their Attention

You need “Grabbers.”  People are most attentive right out of the gate, so you’ve got to hit them with a hot opening – insights that would make it feel almost criminal not to engage in the next five minutes of conversation.

Grabbers break the pattern that your prospect is programmed to expect.  They give the Old Brain something different than what it thinks is coming.  Grabbers give you a way to break the pattern and create a hot and compelling opening along with spiking attention during your call.

Grabbers get your prospect emotionally involved and leaning into the conversation – they are the WOW of your message.  Here are three types of Grabber techniques:

• What-if-you questions
  There are two common reactions by prospects when asked “what if you”:  1) excitement imagining the “what if you” scenario you’ve described, or 2) skepticism that the “what if you” is even possible.  Either way your prospect is looking for how and proof, which translate into interest.  Your Grabber did its job as a hot opening.
• Number plays
  You can prompt immediate attention by delivering numbers in an interesting story as part of your message. When you lay out a series of distinct and mysterious numbers and then tell a compelling story that brings those numbers to life, it will grab your prospect’s attention and linger in your prospect’s memory after you hang up the phone.
• Customer stories with contrast
  Sharing your customer stories well works for getting attention. Memorable stories can help your messages be remembered and be very persuasive. But you need to tell the story of your customers’ situations before they implemented your solution. It’s through the before story that your prospect will start to see her own company’s similar struggles and the need to consider doing something different.

By using Grabbers to heat up your call opener and punctuate the rest of your call, you can turn an ice cold call into a hot prospect. You’ve changed the customer conversation.

For more information on Grabbers or for examples of successful Grabber techniques, check out my book “Conversations that Win the Complex Sale.”

Power Messaging a Political Ad

A Number Play Creates Impact

We’re obviously in the thick of a crazy election season. Seems 80% of the ads on TV are for one candidate or another. For the most part they all start to blend together. Except when they use Power Messaging techniques. In this ad, the “outsider” candidate is trying to establish his credentials at the same time as he is trying to contrast his experience with the “insider” incumbent.

He could use a lot of words to explain this difference. Instead he chooses to use four numbers: 100, 57, 0, 1. What do they mean? Click and watch.

Disclaimer: The Messaging Feed is not being used to endorse a political candidate. We are simply endorsing the use of high-impact Power Messaging techniques to make your story unique, remarkable and memorable. When used correctly, these powerful selling tools can provide an unfair competitive advantage.

Quick test – do you remember what the four numbers stand for? 100?  57? 0? 1?

See what I mean?

It’s the same in sales. Too many companies are essentially saying the same thing about themselves and each other. It becomes a bunch of confusing noise for your prospects and customers. Then, “BAM,” someone uses four simple numbers and it cuts through the clutter to change the conversation. Your numbers “walk the halls of your prospects,” telling your story all along the way, as people repeat your little number play for their colleagues.

I’m Tim Riesterer, CMO of Corporate Visions and I approve this Power Message.

– Tim Riesterer
CMO and SVP Strategic Consulting and Products
Corporate Visions, Inc.

Grab Attention with Word & Number Plays

With seven minutes to grab your prospects attention, Word and Number Plays are simple techniques to establish credibility, highlight key benefits and link your Power Positions to your prospects needs, pains and desires – fast!

“What if you…” Questions
Asking relevant “What if you…” or “Imagine….” questions get people thinking about how their life would improve with your solution. When you link each ‘what if you..’ question to one of your Power Positions then no other competitor can even ask these questions- because they can’t provide the answers/solutions you can.

Word in Common Questions
“Words in Common” questions use a variety of words with a common denominator as an analogy for a Power Position. Example: If ‘dependable’ is one of your Power Positions, write: Mountain climber, Skydiver, Deep-sea diver, and a Financial clerk on a flipchart. Ask: “What do these words have in common? They all rely on dependable technology for their survival.” Then segue into your ‘dependable’ Power Position.

Number Play
Only give numbers that are meaningful to your buyers. Number Plays are a great technique for highlighting general company statistics, versus the traditional PowerPoint run down. Example: write: 150, 73, 50, 500, and 1 and ask, “What do these numbers mean?” Explain each answer as you write it down:

150 (# years in bus)
73 ($ millions of annual revenue dollars)
50% (of telecommunications that pass through our switches)
500% (shareholder growth over the last 18 months)
#1 (Our industry rating)

“It’s who we are at <name of your company>

Both of these techniques are effective in person as well as over the phone, in email, faxes, websites and in letters. Why not make your difference easy and compelling to understand?

A few simple guidelines:

• Make your questions short and easy to follow. (No jargon).
• Pause between each question.  They need time to contemplate these ideas.
• Make each question about their life, (“What if you…”).

Let Your Client’s Product Sell Your Solution

Ann Taylor, the women’s clothing retailer, was looking to experience some revenue uplift from its online channel while decreasing administration costs through an e-commerce system upgrade. Greg Miller and his EasyAsk team, (a year-and-a-half into the sales cycle), were being undermined by a cheaper competitor. From the buyer’s perspective, both companies had similar dynamic search and navigation systems – except one was cheaper. In reality, EasyAsk had a differentiating merchandising and analytics benefit that easily warranted the extra expense.

Greg used a number play to explain how EasyAsk understood Ann Taylor’s business challenges. Greg asked, “What do 10, 5, and 1 have in common?” Ten (10) e-mails currently needed, plus five (5) people to make one (1) change.

For contrast, Greg shared a success story of one of EasyAsk’s customers using another Number Play: 34, 18, .3. Their conversion rate is now up 34%, with an 18% increase in order size, taking only .3 (1/3) person to do the effort.

In the past, we would leave a demo or presentation meeting with some open items. This time, the last thing the CTO said was, “This is great, I don’t think we’ll have any problem implementing.”

Greg concludes, “The difference? This time it was all about them. We had set the bar so high that our competitors were now chasing us.”