Here’s how to nail the first 30 seconds of a cold call.
Without putting prospects into the Zone of Resistance.
Or feeling salesy or manipulative.
Five steps.
Nice and slow.
1. Mine case studies for a ‘crispy’ or specific customer quotes about what sucked before switching.
By way of example, here’s a crispy quote from Albert Wong, former Business Operations Manager at Gong:
“Determining payouts involved a lot of manual data entry and customizing reports for individual reps. This meant hard-pasting entire Excel pages into Google Sheets and then manually making adjustments one sheet at a time.”
Rationale: Solutions have no value without big expensive problems. Customers are better a creating messaging than you are. The language needs to be in between the quotes. When you understand your prospect’s problems so well, they subconsciously think, “OMG; he knows exactly what I’m going through. What does he have?”
2. Create a list of titles similar to the case study.
Rationale: Everyone wants to be happier. However, what makes a CFO happier is different than what makes a Business Operations Manager happier. Happiness is relative. Group similar titles together.
3. Ask for permission.
“Hi Matt, my name is James with CaptivateIQ. We’ve never spoken, and I know you’re probably in the middle of something, but I was on your LinkedIn and was hoping I could ask you a couple of quick questions. Do you gotta sec?”
Rationale: People are more likely to chat when asked. Why? Humans are hard-wired for their actions to be congruent with what they committed to. We want to stay in homeostasis. If not, we feel bad. It’s called cognitive dissonance.
4. Make sure you’re talking to the right person.
“Are you still involved with determining payouts, or am I lost?”
Rationale: Ensure the person is still doing the job so your message is relevant.
5. Normalize the enemy using the voice of the customer.
“Thanks. I often hear from Biz Ops Managers that determining payouts involves a lot of manual data entry and customizing reports for individual reps, stuff like hard-pasting Excel pages into Google Sheets, and then manually making adjustments one sheet at a time. If you don’t mind me asking, how are you determining payouts today?”
Rationale: Nobody wants to be told they’re doing their job wrong. Normalizing is intended to communicate that the enemy (problem) is not uncommon for many people like you.
This is for CaptivateIQ, but you can easily apply the process and framework to your prospects.
