“Hello Miss Robins? My name is George and I’m calling from Acme Financial Services. We offer 401K and retirement plans for small businesses and I was wondering if you would be available sometime this week for me to sit down and talk to you about offering these benefits to your employees. Would that be ok?”
How many times have you gotten a sales call like this? Without making any effort to build rapport or interest, they ask me to take time out of my day to sell me something.
Do they really expect me to say, “SURE! I’m SO GLAD you called! I had nothing to do next week and I was so worried that I was going to have to find things to keep me busy. My calendar is completely open…why don’t you just pick the day that works best for you!”
I’ve heard this pathetic pitch so many times that I’m beginning to wonder if it’s being taught by some underground sales training operation with a mission to secretly drive all small business owners crazy.
With all the incredible books, tapes, seminars, and coaching programs on selling, you would think they could have come up with a better pitch.
If you’re having a hard time getting appointments from new prospects, maybe you should take a hard look at the pitch you are using.
Would YOU respond favorably if someone called you using YOUR sales pitch on you?
If you have a similar sounding presentation to the one above, I have no doubt that you experience very little success in getting appointments.
I’m also confident that you’re not enthusiastically picking up the phone and calling on very many new prospects every day because it is painful to do so.
This further means that your sales numbers are 100% at the whim of the economy, the referrals you get, and your luck because you are only getting the easy, low- hanging fruit.
Here’s the bottom line: The ONLY reason you’re not getting the appointment is because you are not offering something of profound interest to the person you are calling on.
Your prospects are exceptionally busy and will not make time for you UNLESS the appointment promises to deliver some type of value in and of itself.
“But I’m not selling something that is exciting or profound!” you whine? Too bad for you. If you haven’t figured out the core, compelling benefit of your products or services yet and have been employed as a sales person for more than 1 day, you should find somewhere else to work.
How can you possibly expect someone to spend time with you if you can’t come up with one single compelling reason to make them want to?
If you’re truly stuck for an answer, think problems. Everyone has problems and everyone wants less of them. Once you know the specific problems, frustrations, and headaches your products and services solve for your customer, you’ve now got some serious ammunition to get appointments.
Key Point: Do not assume you know what your customers key problems and frustration are. My experience shows that most sales people don’t have a clue as to the real reason why someone buys from them because they filter reasons based on what THEY FEEL is important, or based on what they THINK the customer SHOULD be concerned about.
Instead of leaving it to chance, have a heart-to-heart talk with your existing customers to find out why they buy from you specifically.
What problems have you helped them solve? Why was it important to solve those problems? What frustrations have you eliminated?
Once you are 100% clear on the answers to these questions, you simply promise to show new prospective customers how to get the same results, solve the same problems, AND offer proof (in the form of testimonials, case studies, or guarantees) that you can deliver on your promises.
