What does our favorite radio station have to do with Cold Calling?
It’s all about how the message is perceived by the Target
What’s your favorite radio station? Are you an easy listening fan, a classical music, hard rock, soft rock, or rap fan? Let me share with you my favorite. It’s WII FM. It’s very difficult to find for some reason, although it’s playing in every market in the country. I don’t care if you’re in Chicago, Miami or Gun Barrel City (that’s in Texas if you hadn’t guessed). It plays whatever you want to hear. As a matter of fact, that’s the whole point of WII FM. You see, WII FM stands for ‘What’s in it for me?’
Cute…but where’s the tie in to sales and appointment setting? Simple. Too many of us, when writing our value proposition statements that we use in our cold calling scripts (you are using a script, I hope) concentrate on the value of what we sell from our (the seller’s) perspective even though we think it is from the potential customer’s perspective.
I recommend that you take some time and go back to some of your current customers and ask them what they think is the overall value they derived from doing business with you. Notice that I didn’t say what value they thought your product or service brought to them. By asking a much broader question, you might get a totally different answer regarding why they do business with you.
Once you get a consistent answer that you’d like to talk Targets about, build that into the purpose for the call portion of your script, but do it in following way. Don’t just tell them you’d like to meet with them to tell them about the great benefit you can deliver to them. Tell them that you’d like to share with them what your customers are telling you about the impact on their business they believe you did deliver. And, if you can make it quantifiable it’s even more powerful. i.e. – they told us we helped them increase profits by 10%, cut waste by 23%, or double the number of Initial Appointments set (I couldn’t resist!).
It is a subtle difference, but it gives us third party credibility (your customers) and it piques their curiosity a bit, particularly if it is something about what one of their competitors, customers, or suppliers is doing (and curiosity killed the cat, right?). Otherwise, we’re just another peddler who is paid to say good things about our product or service. You believe everything sales people tell you about their products, right?
Give yourself an edge and let your customers say it for you.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
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