When you think about cold calling, what is the universal purpose of interrupting a stranger and delivering the right few words?
It's to open up a dialog, right?
Well your cold calling skills need to be good to great in order to make an elevator pitch that has any chance of succeeding. When you are crafting your pitch, whether on the phone or in person, its always important to avoid anything that sounds like a sales pitch. But what's even more important... the person you are talking to.
You know by now that the key to good communication is to listen 2x more than you talk. Meaning, you should be focused on what the other person is saying by listening, then summarizing and asking questions relating to their story.
If you did nothing else but followed that simple technique, you would be in top 10% of sales professionals.
But here's how to take basic communications and make it an effective sales tool.
There are two general approaches when making an elevator pitch or even a cold call. Direct and indirect.
An indirect approach is when you are having a casual conversation. Here's how to turn that into a possible sale. If you are at a trade show where your potential prospects are gathering, you have a great opportunity to make some new contacts. You start by making a normal greeting and introduction. And here's how you incorporate your pitch. You make a statement like...
"You know how some people have a problem with [problem]...? Well, I offer a way to solve that with [solution leading to your product/service]
This method allows the conversation to stay casual, but at the same time plants a seed of curiosity into your potential prospect's thoughts. If they are interested, most of the time they will usually jump right out and say "Hey! I have that problem, can you help me fix it?" or sometimes you'll hear "You know, my colleagues in accounting have had that problem, do you think you can help them?"
Using this approach, you completely 'tamed' the sales talk and left it open ended. If they bite, you can talk about your products, if not, nothing lost and the conversation can remain casual.
A direct approach is when you are having a conversation that either you initiated or the other party did. When you get to the "So, what do you do?" part, you respond with:
"I help [type of prospect] who have a [problem you fix] achieve [desire result] without [common pain or inconvenience]. Do you know anyone who [summarize]?"
This is more of a direct pitch, but by stating it in the third person, you stay away from the obvious sales talk and tricks. If they are interested, they will tell you immediately. If not, you can resume to the conversation and move on to the next prospect.
Developing a good elevator pitch is great tool to have that will carry over to your cold calls and help you move away from sounding "salesy" and instead you'll sound like a professional problem solver.
Don't forget to use Jigsaw for lead generation and cold calling. I use it to find just the right people to call. That improves my success. http://www.jigsaw.com/join/ItsFree
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