Part 4: A Fishy Tragedy, Avoided
As I wrote at the end of Part 3 of this blog series, the false “No” is the worst disposition one can get when making a cold call, because it tricks you into disqualifying the well-qualified, perhaps even the perfectly qualified. When you throw a prospect who literally doesn’t “get it” back into the nurturing pool, you better make sure they aren’t qualified, because they’re swimming right over to your competitor’s boat.
This is the true challenge of outbound outreach. Even if you are smart enough to buy a 10-line casting machine, you still need to stop your prospects in their tracks and get them to consider what’s on offer — with your personalized version of the Breakthrough Script. (For readers who haven’t picked up on it yet, a 10-line, effortless casting system that bolts onto your boat in less than an hour is what we sell over here at ConnectAndSell.)
It’s worth a thousand words!
Here’s a picture of what happens when the Breakthrough Script is added to the 10x calling power of ConnectAndSell.
It’s real data, collected over more than two years. It doesn’t show the numbers before they adopted our 10x calling machine — but they would have been hard to see anyway. In this case, four out of five of the reps made the awkward change (in 10 minutes) to a tailored Breakthrough Script on a single day. The next day they set lots more meetings, and, as you can see, these results have continued to flow for more than a year. Sure, there’s been a little drift now and again: it is awkward, after all, and reps will subconsciously seek comfort in preference rather than performance if they don’t receive active coaching — but it doesn’t take an ROI consultant to figure out that getting more than 4x more meetings for EXACTLY ZERO incremental cost in LESS THAN ONE DAY yields an infinite return on investment. Sorry about the shouting, but the wind seems to blow a lot out here on the seas of sales, and it’s pretty noisy. And I didn’t want you just to go sailing off without getting the message.
“Let me sum up…”
So, to wrap up this fishy analogy:
- Your boat (that’s your company) is very expensive.
- Your fuel (that’s your capital) ain’t cheap either.
- The fish (those are your prospects) are mostly out of sight until they reveal themselves by taking the bait (having a conversation with one of your reps).
- The number of simultaneously cast lines (dials) fundamentally limits both the size of your catch (your pipeline deals) and your ability to pick the biggest fish that sell for the highest price per pound (your pipeline quality).
- You really don’t know what the fish will bite on (your value prop) or which direction they are going (your prospect’s pains and goals) without actually hooking them (having conversations).
- The fish are surrounded by stuff that interests them (other fish, some yummier than others!) and won’t check out your bait (your value prop) unless you get them to pay attention (the Breakthrough Script).
- So, generally, you are letting most of the good ones get away by having too few lines (not enough dials) and not getting their attention when they are close enough to notice (they answer the phone, and your rep says something lame like, “Did you read my email?”), so you rarely even learn what they might be biting on (your value prop).
- And, tragically, you may run out of fuel (capital) in a sea of plenty (great and even perfect prospects) that swim right on by (the vast pile of false negatives your current sales process may well be churning out today).
- Running out of fuel (capital) eventually leads to either the rescue of your boat/company (if you’re lucky), which will be towed in and broken up for scrap (most acquisitions, regardless of how they’re portrayed as great victories), or sunk at sea to bury the evidence (don’t make me name this one; it’s not nice). Running out of fuel NEVER leads to anything good.
- Preventing this tragic end is a trivial matter of:
- Switching from casting one line (or zero — hanging out in port waiting for opportunities to swim up to the dock — otherwise known as a pure inbound strategy) to getting 10x more lines in the water;
- Attracting attention from almost every fish that gets near enough to notice (using the Breakthrough Script consistently in every first conversation); and
- Tuning your value prop to get bites from the most desirable fish (testing your Breakthrough Value Message, which is easy to do at 10x casting volume, but very challenging with only one line in the water).
Tragedy avoided. Let’s eat!