Get Prosects Talking to You

To be successful in sales, your prospects must find a need, a want or a benefit to doing business with you.  When we communicate by telephone we must grab their attention quickly in order for us to discover their wants and needs.  Creating a statement that helps hold their attenition is the first step.

In order to create interest, we must step out of who we are and take on the mind-set of our prospects. Based on past interactions with prospects, what have you found to be major hot spots for them? This is what you lead with.

Make a list of the three most important wants or needs your customers have. Base this on what they've told you - not what you think it is or should be. A mistake many people in business make is falling in love with their products. They feel they know what the marketplace wants. However, often the marketplace buys our products for different reasons than we think. Discovering these reasons makes it easier for you to sell to more prospects.

Once you've made your list of wants or needs, rank them. When speaking on the phone or even writing an email, you need to grab people's interest quickly - and quickly means about 10 seconds or so. 

Next write 3 statements based on your list. You'll want 3 because you may find you need to follow up your initial statement. Your statements should be worded positively. Try to write them as conversationally as possible. Now, I know your middle school Language Arts teacher may not approve, but we need to remember that spoken and written speech is differenct. Think about how you speak and write that down.

Finally once you have written your statements, create a cooresponding open ended question to be asked. This question should follow your statement immediately. It's purpose is to get the prospect involved in your conversation. For example:  "We've found that many inside sales reps are often reclutant to prospect because they are not sure how to close. What's your experience with that?"Notice I've used a "need" statement followed by a question starting with "what". Open ended questions always start with who,what, where, when, why, which, how. Using these words will help you get information and get the prospect talking. I've also stayed away from a question that's judgemental. We're trying to get their attention and get them involved in the conversation.

What do you think?  How do you get attention and get your prospects talking to you?