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How to Inspire Prospects in Less Than 5 Minutes
Instead of jumping into your qualifying call eager to “sell” because they replied to your email and/or you have a meeting booked. Take a step back and think of a process to produce the biggest impact with a high impact conversion — and it takes more thinking than you will definitely plan to prep around.
With initial calls we often fall into the tendency of believing the call is about us, about our service/ product and about our targets.
This is natural. However, to be a top performer you need to start thinking about them.
This is intrinsically a hard position to frame your mind because ultimately you are worried about you, your quota and the fastest path to conversion.You need to get outside of your own head and think about how to scale conversations beyond your narrow view of the outcome. Your sole focus should be getting a process around these outcomes:
Goal #1 — Inspire a vision in the other person’s mind (you don’t have to be an SME)
Goal #2 — Make it clear that you are the guide in their process to transform
Goal #3 — Get them excited around a clear outcome and next step.
It sounds like a simple process but it is incredibly hard to implement (if you don’t plan your mindset in advance). Use the first 2 minutes to inspire a future vision for the individual before you deep-dive into qualification, challenges and the product / service.
The key step here is to practice and be super tight with an elevator message — not elevator “pitch”. The crucial difference is you pass over your beliefs of the new possible and teach them something inspiring — then you listen to draw out the challenges.
Through this approach you will build more trust in the process, ultimately you’ll open it into a conversation more than just that standard meeting. You’ve done something different, kicked value off right from the start and positioned yourself as someone who will add value.
Bonus Tip:
The combination of inspiration, clarity of the purpose around your message and asking the right questions will give you leverage (think of the long game, the value, the importance of adding value and why that is impactful. Remember, not because you need to book another meeting — you’ll get your rewards as a consequence.
Action:
- Using this approach, before your next sales call — jot down a new structure to the flow of the call.
- The high level inspiration, the reason for the call, the value you will provide (let them know).
- The questions to open a dialogue and the clear CTA with next steps — these should be insight led.
- The same approach to qualification will never yield different results.
Further Reading:
- https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/psychology-tips-to-enhance-your-sales-calls
- http://blog.close.io/b2b-cold-calling-tips
- http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/06/25/how-to-make-an-important-phone-call-effectively/
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