Do you have a case of the “Iwouldlovetos?”
“I would love to show you our marketing automation solution.”
”I would love to do a demo.”
Whenever salespeople say, “I would love to,” I feel like saying, “Take ten steps back, and pull that damn mask over your nose. I can smell your commission breath.”
Why does this happen?
You think your product is more interesting than your prospect.
So if that’s your intent, you’re naturally going to be more absorbed in your product.
Same intent.
Same behavior.
Same results.
The way out?
Change your intent.
Tell yourself that your prospect is more interesting than your product.
Prospects are hardwired to dance with the devil they know. Change is risky.
“Will I lose my job if the product fails?”
“Am I being misled by false claims?”
“How long will it take to learn a new product?”
It’s called the status quo bias.
How do you loosen your prospect’s grip on the status quo?
Be the bearer of bad news.
Shine a light on a big expensive unexamined problem, so prospects realize the cost of doing nothing is greater than the risk of change.
In other words, poke the bear.
By way of example, here’s a cold call talk track that’s focused on an unexamined problem instead of a product:
Unexamined Problem:
“I’m not sure if you’re experiencing this, but many Biz Ops Managers we work with say they’re hard-pasting Excel pages into Google Sheets and then manually making adjustments to determine payouts.”
Poke the Bear:
“Just out of curiosity, how are you currently calculating and running commission statements?”
Pro Tip: Putting the unexamined problem inside a story like a similar customer lowers defenses because people don’t feel personally attacked.
This is for CaptivateIQ but you can easily customize it for your prospects.
Different intent.
Different behavior.
Different results.
Ditch the pitch.
Poke the bear.