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Making Cold Contacts -- Austin Lean Startup Talk
- 1. COLD CONTACT calling, emails, and more
- 2. Outline Know your customer Find your customers Find a channel to connect Offer value Make sales or do interviews
- 3. Know Your Customer This is the most important step because it influences all other decisions Don’t rush This process speeds up with market experience
- 4. Research Specific Prospects Company Websites (Who links to them?) Blogs Products, Trials Social Media, FollowerWonk Marketing materials: email, whitepapers, social media Industry groups
- 5. A fork in the road Value offer Simple pitch
- 6. Results After implementing your techniques my email to interview conversion rate went from zero to 25% in one market and 75%(!) in another. -Nick Karrasch
- 7. Value Offer Education-based marketing Teach them something useful Offer them something free Promotion
- 9. Whitetail Scout Intended for ranches that breed trophy whitetail deer I offered to visit their ranch, take pictures, interview them, and publish it on an industry blog I maintained http://whitetailsoftware.com/2011/07/how-i-got-a-100- conversion-rate-cold-calling-prospects-for-customer- development/
- 10. DonorElf Intended for non-profits to manage donor relationships Offered to provide exposure for quality non-profits on best practices in donor-management Content serves as customer promotion, content marketing, and fodder for later whitepapers, podcasts, videos, etc.
- 11. Quantity Has a Quality All its Own No commitment to a market Low up-front investment in time and money Lower conversion rates Still involves research, specific works Frame things to start conversations
- 12. Specific > General “talk business” “talk about your e-book” “how do you market your e-book?” “how do you rank for the best long-tail keywords for your e-book on tying flies?”
- 13. Spark conversation...Listen. We both went to Texas! What year did you graduate from Texas?
- 14. List Building Google Public Libraries Government Registries Professional Organizations Conferences Purchase, Outsource
- 15. Plan for multiple contacts Keep the initial talk short Use phone or email contact to schedule time later Work them through a process, offer them value...
- 16. Scripting Template your emails and calls Tailor your template to each prospect
- 18. Script Example: Email Hi John, Your blog post on closing deals was excellent. Your idea to catalog prospect objections is something I need to execute more effectively. I also run a blog on best practices for insurance brokers. Would you be interested in a 30-minute interview via Skype or phone? Good luck with your booth at ABC this year. Thanks, Gary
- 19. (Bad) Script Example: Call “Hi. I’m Robert Graham and I’m an internet entrepreneur working on software for deer management. I thought you might be interested in this project and I’d love to chat with you about it for fifteen minutes.”
- 20. (Bad) Script Example: Call “Hi I’m Robert Graham. I’m really interested in learning more about deer management. I noticed you guys on the [location] and was impressed by your work on [thing]. I was hoping you could chat with me for a few minutes about it.”
- 21. Script Example: Call “Hi, I’m Robert and I run a blog focused on deer management. I am looking for a few people to visit, tour your facilities, and talk with you about your business. I can then write up the experience and link you up on the blog.”
- 22. Script Breakdown Subject: Strange question Hi FirstName, I came across your website from yellowpages.ca in my search for established local Vancouver accountants. I'm doing some research on the biggest challenges in the accounting industry, and I was wondering if you could help me by answering one simple question. I'm not associated with any company and I'm not selling anything, I'm just putting together this report for a personal assignment, and I'd be happy to share it with you when it's complete.
- 23. Script Breakdown If you can spare a couple minutes, can you please answer the question: What are the 3 biggest ongoing challenges you face as an Accountant? If you'd prefer to speak to me in person you can contact me on 555 555 5555 or you can reply to this email with a convenient time for me to call you (or I'd be happy to buy you a coffee anywhere in downtown Vancouver).
- 24. Email: Subjects Critical to responses Vary your subjects to test Tips - think headlines Summarize the email Be honest Be specific
- 25. Questions to Dig Deeper • What is the most important activity in your business? ◦ Do you have any pain associated with that? • What would you say are your top 3 problems or frustrations you face as a Marketing consultant? ◦ How do you currently tackle this problem? • If you could wave a magic wand to make something in your working life easier, what would it be? • Do you know anyone else I could talk to or any networking events where I could speak to more marketing consultants?
- 26. Digging Deeper 1.Take me through a typical day's workflow for you. (force them to go painfully step by step and see which things they complain about) 2.Ask for a list of software they already have or pay for and how they use it. Who uses it? How much? How do they like it? Can I speak to them next week? 3.How do you acquire customers? 4.What do you do to make yourself different from other firms? What is your edge?
- 27. Take Notes Basic demographics Specific kinds of jobs, details When you call, if they answer, gatekeepers, excuses Pitch used Planned follow up date How they respond
- 28. Take Notes: Postmortem Tweak your script based on response Record objections and brainstorm responses Record jargon Highlight anything they emphasize about their business Note anything that caused you to lose composure
- 29. Follow Up Make it systematic Make it personal Contact them when you say you will, follow up builds trust
- 30. Key Differences Between Calls and Email Opening lines versus subject lines Confidence versus word-smithing Harder to hang up on you than ignore an email Scary to call Instant feedback versus unknown status
- 31. Case Study: Insurance Brokers Let’s look at an example.
- 32. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 33. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 34. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 35. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 36. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 37. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 38. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 39. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 40. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 41. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 42. Case Study: Insurance Brokers
- 43. Questions Blog: whitetailsoftware.com Email me: rgraham@whitetailsoftware.com Book: coldcallingbook.net “This book is practically guaranteed to more than pay for itself and then some! I am a financial tight-wad so this was very important to me!...I recently hired someone, and just told them to read Robert’s book for sales training.“ - Jimmy Moncrief
Notas do Editor
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- Easy to enumerate, hard to execute\nChannel tonight doesn’t need to scale much, \nbut eventually for a business you need to have quality access to a market\nOffering value should be incremental (patio11’s rise in consulting parallels an upsell on a longtime customer)\nsports analogy: improvement in ultimate skills is also incremental\n
- The excitement will come later when the homework pays off\nYou don’t know these people or this market. If you did you’d have a rolodex.\n
- The website will tell you if they’re tech savvy and what kind of business they have.\nDo they have quality products?\nQuality marketing?\nIs there a value add you can make here?\n
- More upfront time with better conversion or less time and commitment with a lesser response rate?\n
- Not even value pitching. Just make it easy for them to say yes. Look interested, confident, and prepared.\n
- Star Furniture\nUltimate Sales Machine\nWhitetail Blog\nPatio11’s consulting case studies and public testimonials\n
- Rand Fishkin and Top 100 Seattle Startups\nEvery website w/ email signup gives away a freebie\nResearching the industry data/trends and writing it up (maybe by region? evergreen content?)\nLaura Roeder and contests\n
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- Stalin quote\nThis is the simple pitch approach and it works\nLess synergy\n
- how was your weekend?\nhow was skiing last weekend? \ndid it work better than last year?\n
- Do you remember X prof?\n
- Google SERPs bias toward tech savvy and leading orgs \nHoover’s and more are free at Libraries\nEngineers and other must register with the state\n
- James Kennedy “it takes 6-7 contacts to sell”\n
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- You can tweak these, but they have worked for me.\nSubject is most impt\n
- Greeting\n Connection\n Praise\n Pitch\n Close\n Signature\n
- This is broken because I’m leading with too much information about myself \nand I identify myself upfront as trying to sell them something even if it is a bit subtle.\n
- start talking about them almost right away and I show that I’ve done my homework on them. \nNo one tries this hard. \nIt really connects with people, \n\nThis script got people talking. It’s a good way to open a cold relationship to a followup, \nbut it limits where you can take the conversation.\n\n‘Really’ is hedging language\n
- This is a huge improvement because it opens the relationship, has a focused call to action, \noffers them something instantly, and keeps the initial call very short. \n\nI can bring up anything when we speak in person and it’s easier to gauge what to say when you can read body language.\n
- look at their site for a minute and make some relevant comment\nIf they specialize in accounting for small businesses then say that is who you're looking for. \nAnything that makes the email feel more targeted to them specifically will help. \n\nAny email written to everyone or even all accountants comes off as written for no one.\n\n'Personal Assignment' sounds really vague. Can it not be an article or whitepaper? \nMaybe ask them for something quote-able so you sound more like media? \nEveryone likes marketing and exposure.\n
- I would lead that paragraph with the bit about coffee as it's the more personal pitch. You could even mention a venue that is close to the address for their office if you have it (assuming they're downtown).\n \n ‘If you can spare’ makes it sound like you don’t believe in it. \n This is self-identifying as a risk.\n
- Mailchimp has great hard data on subjects\nDane Maxwell “Strange Question?”\n
- At the moment I'm asking the following questions:\nI'm shutting up and letting them do all the talking. But how can I get deeper into their problems? I really appreciate any input from yourself since you've been so helpful with me landing interviews with customers.\n
- #3 will give you a lot of information about your market. Is it completely relationship driven? Who matters? How are they connected? Do people have a common link like accountants or a survey firm? Those are great sales vectors where you can share revenue and talk to someone who knows a ton about these firms/people.\n\n#4 wants to understand how they view themselves. It will help you position your software to these people. Most of the answers you get will be vanity answers. It's how they think about themselves. Very few of them will have built an answer for this as part of their business, but those that have will really understand the market. If fast service, retention, or some other factor is a key to getting and retaining clients then you have an idea of where to focus your idea extraction.\n\n
- You don’t really know what is important until later\nYou get a lot better at figuring out what is important, like sorting out how a professor builds tests\nRecording calls can be good, legal in Texas IANAL\n
- Tweak when you have a good feeling, sometimes you have a bad call/email, don’t jump at all the shadows\nAvoid losing your composure. Avoid those subjects and situations.\n
- CRM software\nspreadsheet\nnotes\n-- use your notes to appeal to them, remember details\n
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