The biggest mistake companies make with B2B cold calling is to ask their salespeople to read, use or memorize a sales script. Instead of understanding what the customer wants, the salesperson focuses entirely on their product’s features and benefits. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t address the fears, concerns or requirements of the customer. In the end, the customer easily dismisses each selling point, while the salesperson is left with a disinterested customer.
Three Simple Steps to Cold Calling Success
In order to understand why these sales scripts fail, think about what your customer goes through. They get a call and the salesperson immediately enters into a prolonged sales pitch. They listen and listen and listen as the salesperson desperately tries to cover all of the main selling points. During the entire process, the one constant is the customer’s thoughts:
“None of this applies to me. None of this addresses my concerns. I don’t need this.”
For the salesperson, the impetus is on capturing the customer’s attention. After all, they only have so much time to incentivize the customer to move forward. They know the customer may cut them off at any time. As such, their focus is simple: Cover as much as possible and then ask the customer if they’re interested. Fortunately, there is a better way and it's defined by the following three steps and video below.
1. Define Value Assertion
Your value assertion should clearly define the value you bring to your customers. When thinking of your value assertion, think both in terms of your company’s internal and external business strengths. The best way to define that value is through a value chain analysis like the one outlined below.
The above is taken from the post: Your Value Chain Defines Your Value Assertion: B2B Marketing Essentials
Each of the above operations can be considered a part of your value assertion. You may have strategies in supply chain management that shorten your delivery times. You may have a CRM, MRP or ERP system in operations that improves the speed of your business, in addition to the speed of your response to customers.
You may have engineering and design capabilities second to none. You could be a market innovator best defined by your proactive product management team. You may have a business development team that is recognized for its business acumen. Simply put, you could have all these things and more, but your salespeople won’t completely understand it until you define it for them.
So, why is this so important in B2B sales cold-calling? Well, the purpose isn’t to regurgitate your entire value chain. The purpose is to use portions of your value chain that best addresses the specific fears and concerns of your customer.
2. Define Customer Fears & Concerns
The second step involves coming up with a list of the most common fears and concerns your customers have. Include all of the concerns – even the ones not addressed by your value assertion. This list is needed by your B2B sales team so that they can easily recognize which customer concerns your company addresses, and which ones you don’t.
The idea isn’t to ignore the fears you don’t address. Instead, the focus should be to accentuate the ones you do address by explaining how your value assertion removes them as going concerns.
You can learn more about dealing with customer fears and concerns by going here.
3. Use Leading Questions to Link Customer Fears to Value Assertion
Finally, throw away the sales scripts. Instead, focus on having your salespeople ask leading questions that get customers to discuss those fears your company can alleviate. The best salespeople don’t do all of the talking. The best salespeople ask questions that get customers talking. Next, they use those answers to structure the call, their response and their solutions.
Your sales team’s questions should be structured around getting prospects to open up about issues that concern them. Once you get passed the sales pitch, and onto asking pertinent questions, you’ll be that much closer to moving your prospect forward.
Going back to our earlier example, isn’t it obvious that running a cold-call from a script is problematic at best? Of course it is. Does it make sense to assume what your customers want by using a long, drawn-out sales pitch? It doesn’t. The difference is that sales scripts are most often used in business-to-consumer (B2C) markets, one where telemarketers are taught to close the deal on the first call. Operating in a B2B market is entirely different.
You have more than one chance to speak to a client, which means you have many opportunities to do it right. Get your customers talking and don’t assume to know what they need.
To read about how best to use leading questions, please see: B2B Sales Success: Be A Rookie Again - Simple Questions to Win Business
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