In this video, we provide an example of cold calling for IT consulting. After the recording, we provide some analysis with tips for how the salesperson could improve moving forward.
Product-Selling Sales Pitch
In this example of cold calling for IT consulting, the salesperson actually sounded really good. She communicated well, seemed confident, and prepared. But there is one problem with her approach and that is that she used a product-selling approach.
This is what most salespeople do, and it is where a salesperson gets connected with or in front of a prospect and primarily talks about their product or service and tries to see if the prospect wants or needs what the salesperson sells.
Which, on paper, is a logical approach. If you have been hired to sell a product, it would make sense to try to talk as much as you can about what you sell and see if the people you talk to need what you sell.
But there are three problems with a product-selling sales pitch and those are:
- The prospect is likely not in buying mode
- The prospect is likely getting sold to a lot
- The purchase is not the next step in the sales process
When you add all of that up, you get an approach that is more likely to lead to objections than anything else. And what you can do instead is shift the approach from one that focuses on selling the product, and move more toward one that focuses on selling the conversation.
Conversation-Based Sales Pitch
This small change can completely transform your sales efforts because not only is it easier to sell the conversation than the product, but the conversation is actually the next step in the sales process. If we are going to move forward at all, it is going to be to simply talk more and you can sell that instead of selling the product.
To apply this change to this salesperson, she could say something like:
The reason for the call is that we help software providers decrease the cost for software development. Are you available for a brief call to discuss how we do that?
That is what I would refer to as a quick close cold call script, and it is where we try to close for the conversation right out of the gate. You could also use a more indirect sales script and try to ask a few questions before you go for the close, and that might look something like:
The reason for the call is that we help software providers decrease the cost for software development.
I am not sure if that is a priority for you or not and that is why I am calling with a question or two.
Are you currently using domestic or offshore software developers?
With that approach, you make the questions the purpose and centerpiece of the cold call and if you design your questions correctly, they should help you to find challenges or areas for improvement on the prospect’s side. And once that is uncovered, you can use that as the reason for talking more and close for the conversation by saying something like:
Well, based on what you said, it might make sense to talk more because that is what we help with. Are you available for a brief call where I can share an example for how we helped a company like yours to decrease the cost for software development?
If you like this approach, this methodology is what we refer to as conversation-based selling. And we actually have a series of videos that explain how to implement this and it includes everything you need to know from creating your pitch, to how the sales process works, to how to organize and structure the conversations you have with prospects.
