Ilse van Velsen
Yes, you finally got the decision-maker to grab during B2B cold acquisition! But how do you ensure that you hold his or her attention? Important in telephone acquisition is that it is immediately clear to the conversation partner how you can be of added value. It is essential that you pick up on the point where you add value for the organization in question. By making your message explicitly relevant to the prospect, you make the interaction personal. In addition, the conversation will probably seem much less like a sales call. After all, you really go into how you can help the prospect. In this blog we go deeper into how you can set up your conversation in such a way that you pick up where it is relevant to your conversation partner.
Preliminary research in B2B lead generation
It is very important that you do research in advance and determine where you can add value. You need to know what kind of organization you are going to approach and more importantly, what problem do they have and how can your services be the solution to that? It is essential that you know how to put your finger on the sore spot and how you can heal it. In other words, you need to tap into the prospect's need. Research can help with this, because it helps you know what need needs to be met.
Hook up with sales pitch about your proposition
Catching up can be done in a variety of ways. A common catch-up is to hook in from your unique selling point. Why are you unique? Are you cheaper, faster, do you work with higher efficiency than competitors? Here you have to ask yourself how your proposition can add value to that particular company. At the same time, with your unique selling point equal how you stand out from your competitors. For example, are you specialized in a particular industry or do you have a lot of experience in a specific area that the client can really benefit from? Provide a short elevator pitch in which you name these things.
Also read: ‘Tips for an Elevator Pitch in sales interviews’.
Catching up from the prospect
You can also hook in precisely from the prospect's perspective. For example, in your research you find out that they are looking for new employees where you can add value. Capitalize on this by explicitly mentioning that you can fulfill such a task in the vacancy. You can also respond to an event taking place in the organization or in society. When companies change, their needs may also change and you can make a difference.
In addition, it is often smart to return to previous contact and ask how things are going now. In this way you indicate that you already have some kind of relationship and you can lower the threshold to share more about subject X and it is immediately a reason to call. Tip: also try to facilitate this by mentioning at the end of a conversation to come back to it later. When hooking on previous contact, make sure that the previous contact is a reason why you are calling now. If, for example, during previous contact someone immediately indicated that they were not interested and gave no further explanation, this person may actually be averse to your call and think ‘I have already indicated that I am not interested. Don't call me again.
Also read: ‘Sales pitch in 3 steps’.