Do Your Salespeople Speak Marketing Fluff?

I once entered a competition and stupidly gave out my mobile phone number to a random website on the net. So you can say that I receive at least 2 - 3 cold calls daily. So rather than get irritated, I try to take them as learning opportunities to assess what was good and bad about the sales rep’s opening. Most of the time, they don’t even have a compelling short opening, but just ramble on for 2 minutes about how great their product is. But the few rare times that a sales rep is almost good, and deliver the famous WIIFT 20 second hook that they teach us in sales training, there’s something irritating about their opening. It’s vague! It sounds like the marketing fluff you see on a website's home page. I get that you have an efficient system that will streamline all my processes and save me time and money. And boost productivity by 30%. As well as help my profits grow by x%. But if you don’t tell me what it is exactly that you're selling in the first 3 seconds and how it’s specialised to me, then you've lost my attention.

What is it exactly? Be very specific. I want to know. My mind starts to play guessing games as you talk. Is it a CRM? Or maybe accounting software? Business Coaching? A time management planner? Vitamins? Life insurance? Is it Adderall? And, how is it related to my specific niche? Each time one of these vague cliche sales reps calls me, my brain is annoyed at having to work extra hard trying to figure out what they are trying to sell.

On a side note, I have the same experience when I visit most websites. I click on their home page and must once again read through their marketing fluff. Sometimes I leave that website never undertanding what they do exactly.

So let’s go back to the topic of outbound sales calls. Specifically cold ones. Below I will share two examples of how to open a sales call so you can be clear, concise, specific and fluff free.

Example 1 - The prospect is a sales manager who manages a small team of 10 sales reps. They sell building materials to construction companies.

Sales rep: "Hi Lisa this is Becky form XXX solutions. How have you been?"

Prospect: "Good thanks."

Sales rep: “Oh good to hear! The reason for my call is that we specialise building the easiest to use CRMs for sales reps who sell to construction companies. We get that many reps in this industry are mostly on the road and have little time for data entry and a lot of leads end up getting lost. So we’ve created a CRM that has your own personal assistant robot to create tasks, follow ups and even write notes while you’re driving.May I ask, are your sales reps currently using a software and if so which one?"

Example 2 - The prospect is a sales coach who has created online self-paced sales courses targeted at large enterprise.

Sales rep: "Hi Dave, this is Patricia from XXX Marketing. How are you?"

Prospect: "Good what is this about?"

Sales rep: “The reason for my call is that I follow your work on LinkedIn and I'm aware that you recently launched an online B2B sales course. So, I wanted to give you the heads up about our marketing services specifically for coaches who have online courses. We have a database of five hundred thousand companies that turn over between $20M to 100 M in revenue and have large sales teams who would be ideal for your courses. May I ask, how are you currently sourcing your leads for this online sales course?"

When making a cold, warm or even hot call. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

1.???Be specific. Tell them exactly what the product is. Don’t be vague.

2.???After introducing yourself, start your sentence with, “The reason for my call….” AI capturing data on millions of sales calls confirmed that starting your call with a reason, increases your success rate by 2.1x.

3.???If relevant, include a potential problem and how this product or service can fix it, or has fixed it.

4.???Be sure to mention what you specialise in and how it’s specific to that business, or job role.

5.???Even if you’re not niche, act like you’re niche for that phone call. Everyone wants to talk to the expert.

6.???If possible, demonstrate that you know what their job function, job function of their staff, or business function may struggle with.

7.???Don’t stay too long in the opening. Your opening line shouldn’t be longer than 20 to 25 seconds. Transition quickly into asking them a question and get them talking.

8.???The point of making sales calls is to get to the right person who needs what you have. Most people will say no. So be sure to work out your numbers, and how many calls you need to make on average to get a meeting and make a sale.

And finally, don’t be vague! Tell us exactly what you sell.?

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