Cold to Committed

by Kyle Vamvouris

  Wish

  Wish is slightly more common than need, but a little bit harder to identify. This is because you don’t often hear a prospect use the word “wish.” Because the word won’t come up often, it will require you to get good at identifying it within the context of the conversation. Let’s take a look at an example of a prospect with a wish.

  Prospect: I shouldn’t have to spend so much time in Excel, but it is what it is.

  This falls into the wish category because there is no evidence that this is a need for the prospect. However, you can tell this is something that they simply tolerate...something that they wish they didn’t have to do. Wish is a powerful, because the prospect is admitting that they are frustrated with something and that frustration can motivate them to book a meeting.

  Now let’s talk about the “A” in N.W.A. This comes up the most frequently.

  Action

  It is safe to assume that the decision maker you are speaking with has taken action at some point in their career. Odds are, they take action all the time to improve the business. Because taking action is required for growth, this is typically the most common on call alarm you will experience. Lucky for you, it’s also the easiest to identify. Take a look at the example below.

  Prospect: I just started looking into the drop in MQL conversion last week.

  The fact that the prospect has decided to take an action is important to us. It’s important because for action to take place there must be motivation. In order to book a meeting, we need to understand what is motivating the prospect and why it is so important. If the prospect has taken an action, it typically means that there is something that they need to accomplish, something that your product or service can help them with.

  Ok, so you’ve identified an on call alarm. It’s ringing loudly and you’re excited because this is the moment that will change the course of the call and will lead to a booked meeting! What do you do? Well, it’s similar to what you would do if there was a fire alarm and you were actually on fire…

  STOP, DROP, & QUESTION!

  The reason why I call these on call alarms is because they alert you to ask a follow-up question. Your focus, after hearing an alarm, is to dive in and learn more about that specific part of what they said. The beauty is that this gives you a path to booking a meeting, and this is exactly what you need on any call. So, what follow-up question do you ask? Take a look at a few examples.

  Tell me more about that.

  What motivated you to do that in the first place?

  What are you trying to accomplish?

  Why is that important to you?

  Why are you trying to figure that out?

  The simple way to think about this is that you are digging into the “why” behind their need, wish, or action. Your goal is to get the prospect to open up and tell you about their challenges. When you understand their challenges, then you can tailor the rest of the call and book a meeting on a solution. Let’s take a look at an example of how this might play out.

  Prospect: I just started looking into the drop in MQL conversion last week.

  SDR: What motivated you to do that?

  Prospect: I had a conversation with some of the sales people and they said that the quality of the leads have gone down and I need to verify this.

  SDR: What have you found out so far?

  Prospect: Nothing. Everything looks the same to me, but a lot of this data is hard to gather.

  SDR: You said that you need to verify if the salespeople are right about the quality...why is that a main priority?

  Prospect: Because I need to know the cause, so I can fix it.

  SDR: Is figuring this out still a priority for you?

  Prospect: Yes.

  SDR: Since this is a priority for you, why don’t we set aside 15 minutes tomorrow and we can walk through how other folks have been able to improve their data reporting so they can more quickly identify problems and focus their time on improving their MQL conversion. Do you have time tomorrow at 11:00am?

  Prospect: Yes, that will work

  In this example we had two on call alarms. Can you spot them both? “I just started looking into the drop in MQL conversion last week” is an example of action. The SDR, in this example, asked a great question and the prospect said that they “need to verify this” which is another, stronger, on call alarm. Understanding what problem your prospect needs solved is how you are able to tailor the rest of the call in a way that positions your product or service as a solution. Listen to one of your call recordings and see if you can spot the on call alarms. Did you notice it when you were on that call live? Did you stop, drop, and question? Hopefully, as you listen to your call recordings and make listening for N.W.A.s a priority, you will improve on your ability to identify on call alarms.

  FEEL, FELT, FOUND, FOLLOW-UP (FFFF)

  This next technique is a framework that will help you overcome objections, transition topics, and build credibility. The feel, felt, found, and follow up (FFFF) will also help you come across more natural over the phone. This technique can be used at any point in the call, which makes it very versatile. The idea is to relate to your prospect, express that they are not alone, and explain that others have been successful. Let me explain each piece of this process and then show you an example of it all together.

  Feel

  The first part, feel, is very simple. We want to relate to the prospect and show empathy by expressing our understanding of the situation that they are in. The reason why we do this is because it shows the prospect that we care about what they are going through. It also hints that we know about their industry, because we aren’t surprised to hear that they are facing this specific problem. Here’s a simple example.

  SDR: I know how painful that can be.

  Felt

  The next part of the FFFF is the felt. We are going to give the prospect example of someone else in their same situation. You want to use an example in a similar industry or with the same job title. Our goal is to reinforce the fact that they are not alone and follow up with a description of the problem they are facing.

  SDR: A lot of marketing directors I speak with share the same frustration. They need to find the cause of a problem and in order to figure it out, they have to gather data from a lot of different sources and it sometimes isn’t accurate.

  Something to note here...notice how we have not used the words “feel” and “felt” so far in this example. You can use those words, but I opted not to because it doesn’t sound natural to me. I point this out because I think it’s important to make things your own so you can speak as confidently and naturally as possible.

  Found

  The next portion of our FFFF is the one that causes the most problems for people. This is because it is easy to turn this part of the conversation into a sales pitch. That is not what you want to do at all, because you will come across as pushy. You want to explain how this person was in the same situation as the prospect and what actions they took to solve the problem. Here’s an example.

  SDR: What they found was that once they had all their data accurate and in one place, discovering the cause was pretty simple, and then, they were able to move on to solving it.

  Follow-up

  The final part of our framework is the follow-up. This is simply asking a question to either book a meeting or to keep the conversation going. You will be customizing this often because the FFFF is a technique that can be used in a variety of situations. Here is an example of using it to ask for the meeting.

  SDR: That being said, do you have 15 minutes to walk through how we’ve helped other companies organize and improve the accuracy of their data? How about tomorrow at 2?

  Take a look how this example comes together.

  SDR: I know how painful that can be. A lot of marketing directors I speak with share the same frustration. They
need to find the cause of a problem and, in order to figure it out, they have to gather data from a lot of different sources and it sometimes isn’t accurate. What they found is that once they have all their data accurate and in one place, finding the cause is pretty simple. Then they can move on to solving it. With that said, do you have 15 minutes to walk through how we have helped other companies organize and improve the accuracy of their data? How about tomorrow at 2?

  There it is...the FFFF in action, and it has so many applications. Another way you can use this framework is to transition away from a topic that doesn’t seem to resonate with the prospect. Let’s take a look at an example of that.

  SDR: I see what you’re saying; that makes a lot of sense. Typically, when I speak with marketing directors who do not have a data collection problem, they tend to be focused on increasing the ROI of marketing spend. I’m curious, what is your current process for evaluating the ROI on your different inbound channels?

  With this framework we are able to build credibility while transitioning to another topic that the prospect may need some help with. This is the power of the FFFF—building credibility and relating to the prospect. Write down and practice your own feel, felt, found, follow-up that you can use next time you are speaking with a prospect.

  The takeaway

  The final technique I’m going to teach you is called the takeaway. I recommend that you use this after every one of the meetings you book. The goal of the takeaway is to increase your meeting show-up rate by getting the prospect to recommit to the meeting that they just booked with you. Take a look at an example.

  SDR: Ok, Terry, I’ve scheduled 15 minutes for you to speak with Kelly on Wednesday at 2pm. Before I let you go, I want to make sure that this is going to be the best time for you. If not, we can cancel this now and pick a better one. Is this time best?

  As you can see, the takeaway starts off by repeating the time and date that the prospect agreed to. Directly after that we mention that we want to be sure that this time will be best for them, even though they just chose that time. Before letting them respond to that statement, we ask a question, “If not, we can cancel this now and pick a better one. Is this time best?” This question is very important and I would suggest that you do not change it. This is because we are using the word “cancel” which implies that it has already been scheduled. People do not want to cancel the meetings that they have committed to, but will decide not to show up to a sales call. By using this language we are making this meeting more important in the mind of the prospect.

  Some SDRs have trouble using the takeaway, because they are nervous that the prospect will take them up on their offer and cancel the meeting. Do not be concerned about this for two reasons. First, if they agreed to a meeting with you, they most likely see the value and intend to show up. Second, if they do decide to cancel the meeting after the takeaway, then odds are they weren’t going to show up in the first place.

  Conclusion

  You made it! We’ve covered a lot of information in this chapter and I know your mind must be spinning. Don’t feel overwhelmed; take this information and implement it in pieces. Don’t try and attempt every technique in this chapter on the phone tomorrow. Pick one, master it, move on to the next. Your goal is to become a great prospector, but you don’t have to do that by the end of this week. Listen to your call recordings, focus on areas that you need to improve, then repeat. Stay disciplined and one day you will wake up and realize how much better you are now than when you started. Ok, let’s move onto the next chapter.

  Story Telling and the Art of Captivation

  Back in the old days, towns would have large fire pits, where people would sit around and listen to the local storyteller. There were grand stories of giants, dragons, and epic battles; Game of Thrones has nothing on these guys! Times were simple back then and stories captivated the minds of many.

  As humans, we love stories. It takes away from our daily life and allows our mind to let go of the stresses of life.

  Between television, social media, and books, we are surrounded by stories all the time. We have more access than we’ve ever had in history. Can you imagine the storyteller at the town firepit holding an iPad? So much of life revolves around stories, I would even argue that a big part of living life is the creation of stories. This doesn’t mean that everyone has the gift.

  Many people are overwhelmed by the idea of telling a story because they don’t feel they have anything interesting to say. This is far from the truth. Everyone has a story that they can tell, but they just don’t know what it is yet. In most cases they simply lack story-telling confidence and their ability to deliver it in an interesting way.

  Stories don’t have to be about something extraordinary. Here’s an example from when I was an SDR. I had a decision maker on the phone who told me that she couldn’t speak because she was leaving for Italy in a few days. Before she hung up I asked if she had ever been there before. She hadn’t. I launched into a story about a trip I took to Rome and caught someone trying to pickpocket me on a bus. The guy I caught was “the world’s greatest pickpocket” according to an old Italian man standing across from me. I’m not sure how good a pickpocket you are if people know you as a pickpocket.

  Does my story about a pickpocket in Rome have anything to do with the marketing software I was trying to sell? Absolutely not, and it’s not even that great a story. I literally caught a guy with his hand in my pocket—I didn’t discover Hogwarts. The prospect I was speaking to got excited and we spoke for another five minutes about the trip she had planned. The simple story I told ignited our conversation and I was able to book a meeting with her for after she got back from Italy.

  Stories are about building connections, rapport, and trust. Stories are arguably the most powerful tool you have in your belt for booking meetings, but it’s a tool very few people know how to use.

  Three Types of Selling Stories

  Telling a story on a cold call isn’t always relevant. Because of that it can be difficult to know when it’s appropriate. In order to tell a story you must make sure that you’ve earned enough of your prospects time to tell it. Your story will not be effective if you get cut off halfway through with an “I’m too busy for this.”

  There’s another important factor—the type of story you would like to tell; i.e. what are you trying to accomplish? There are three types of stories that come up on a cold call. Each type applies to a specific result you’re trying to achieve. The three story types are social stories, solution stories, and pain stories. Each of these has a time and a place, so let’s go through them one by one. While you read about each different type, write down a few ideas that you think might make a good story to use on your calls. We will talk story construction later on in this chapter.

  Social Stories

  A social story is used when you’re trying to build rapport with the prospect. This should be a story that is either funny or interesting. A social story can be built from something a prospect or client tells you or even your own personal experience. Remember the example I gave about my trip to Rome? I told that story with the specific purpose of building rapport with the prospect and it’s a great example of a social story. The important thing to remember about a social story is that it must relate to what you are talking about and should be entertaining or interesting to the prospect. You do not want your prospect wondering why you are telling them this story halfway through.

  Solution Stories

  Often, when we’re on the phone, we want to start talking about our product or service and how wonderful it is and how its specific features are going to help out the prospect. You and every other cold caller has the desire to do this and you better believe that your prospect has been through this song and dance before. A solution story is a great way to illustrate the results of your product or service without going into a full sales pitch.

  The goal of a solution sto
ry should be to illustrate to your prospect the impact that solving their problem has. Do not pitch your product or service here. You will be building interest by association. The prospect will understand the benefits of your product or service and it will come across as more natural instead of being pushy and pitching your product or service.

  Pain Stories

  Pain stories are probably the least-used story type of the three. You may find yourself in the position of having to use an example of someone failing to solve a problem. This would come up if your prospect doesn’t think that their problem is a big deal. A story we can tell to this type of prospect would give them an example of what happened to someone who didn’t solve the main concern that the prospect also has.

  Failure is a powerful motivator and using it to our advantage can be very useful. Careful story construction is necessary because you do not want to come across as negative. You do not want your story to shame the prospect by directly comparing what they are doing to someone else who has failed. You want to use a pain story as a way to agree with what the prospect is saying while giving an example that confirms their point.

  Constructing a Story

  The first thing you need to know about constructing a story is there has to be an actual point to telling it. You don’t want to tell a story if there isn’t a point to make. It is supposed to help you book a meeting.