We’ve all been there.
You are standing in front of the perfect prospect giving your sales pitch. In your head are visions of your business taking off. All you have to do is nail this pitch.
You’ve done your homework.
You’ve come prepared.
But something is wrong. Deep down in your gut you know it’s not going well. The prospect isn’t asking questions. And even worse, she looks skeptical.
If you don’t think of something fast, you are going to lose this account.
Before I conjure up any more nightmares, I am going to tell you that this doesn’t have to happen to you.
Instead of panicking, there’s the Ace you can have up your sleeve:
Become a Superhero
Just like Superman.
Superman finds people in distress, swoops in, and uses his super powers to save the day.
Your prospect is in distress, otherwise she shouldn’t be wasting her time listening to you.
She’s looking for someone to relieve her of her most pressing problem. When you realize that your pitch isn’t going well, you may need to step out of your role as a salesman and become a superhero.
What’s Your Super Power?
I used to run a marketing agency where we helped B2B companies generate online sales leads in thirty days.
I made most of my presentations to jaded CEOs and executives who had already tried online marketing and failed. Many even tried to hire consultants who made big promises, and didn’t produce results.
Promising to get clients sales leads in thirty days is such a bold claim that it subjected me to a large helping of cynicism.
That’s when I morphed from a mild-mannered marketing consultant into a superhero.
Here’s how it went down:
The prospect would be disengaged and skeptical. I could tell in her eyes that she was looking for reasons not to hire us.
Then I would say: “I know you think what I’m proposing is impossible, but if I can get you sales leads by the end of this week, would you consider hiring us?”
The prospect never believed we’d come through, so they usually answered “yes.”
At the end of the week, when we had gotten the prospect sales leads, they were so impressed that hiring us became a no brainer.
And you can do the exact same thing in your business.
4 Steps to Become a Superhero
Step 1: Find the Ideal prospect
This is actually the hardest part of the entire process. In the world of marketing, almost every business seemed to need our help.
But only a small percentage of these businesses met our qualifications as an ideal prospect. We dealt mostly with B2B tech companies who did a minimum of $10 Million in revenue.
This was a niche that we knew well and could afford our services.
To find your ideal prospect, you need to ask yourself three questions:
- Do you know who you want to work with?
- Do they need your services?
- Can they afford to pay you?
Only if you can answer “yes” to these three questions can you move on to the next step.
Step 2: Identify the Problem
CEOs don’t want to hire marketing agencies and consultants. But every CEO wants more sales.
In B2B companies, getting more sales leads is a continuous problem. These companies want this problem solved fast, and they don’t care how it gets done.
Understand that your prospect doesn’t want to hire you or buy your product. But they do want their problem solved as soon as possible.
Once you identify the real problem that the prospect wants solved, you’ll have a clear path to becoming a superhero.
Step 3: Unleash Your Super Power
Knowing that our prospects only cared about sales leads, we were able to develop a quick and inexpensive process to get them.
First we signed up for Google Adwords. Every time a consultant signs up a new client in Adwords, they are given a $100 coupon.
Next we wrote a search engine optimized press release and distributed it through an online distribution site like PRWEb or PRNewswire.
Finally, we signed up for a free trial of GoToWebinar.com and drove all traffic to a webinar landing page.
On average, we would get 30 people to sign up for the webinar.
This entire process cost us $200 and took 2 hours to complete.
The “trick to this is that it’s not expensive, can be executed quickly, and produced results in a matter of days.
A process like this takes time to develop.
Brainstorm two or three ways you can show immediate results for your client.
For instance, if you have a book keeping service, you know your prospect wants help with cash flow management.
Your heroic deed may be that you show the prospect how they can source parts cheaper, making an immediate impact on their bottom line.
The only limitation to creating your superpower is your imagination.
Make the Sale
Once we impressed our prospects, we were in a much better position to make the sale.
Not only did we make a bold promise. We delivered on that promise and showed we had what it took to solve their problem.
Now we had to make the sale, which at this point was most often a formality.
The Bottom Line
It’s going to happen to you again.
You’ll be giving a pitch to a prospect and you’ll know from her body language and facial expressions that it won’t be going well.
But there is no need for you to panic.
Remember. Prospects don’t want to be sold. They want to be saved.
And you are just the person to come to their rescue.
So rip off that suit, remove those glasses and put on that cape.
Go on Superman. You’ve got prospects to save.
Greg Digneo is the author of the blog Sales Leads in Thirty Days. Check out his free ebook that shows business owners a step-by-step guide to generating over 100 sales leads in 30 days.
