COMPELLING REASONS
In order to make a marketing campaign as effective as possible you need to give your prospects a compelling reason/ statement to listen then act on the call.
Particularly important when calling, is to provide your prospects with enough of a compelling reason during the first 30 seconds of the conversation for them to want to learn more about you and what you offer.
It should NOT be a long detailed explanation, rather it should be a short, sharp sentence on why someone should want to do business with you and what’s in it for them.
The biggest problem we come across these days is the difficulty businesses have to gain “cut through”. There are so many organisations competing for that same slice of pie, enticing customers with give-aways , chances to win something in a competition or vague and non specific promises that they all just seem to blend in together.
If you can’t or you don’t have a strong compelling statement that you are able to say in ONE sentence and what you do say or do is the same as your competitors then you can expect poor telemarketing results.
The challenge is to find a strong enough reason for a business or consumer to act amidst all the noise of your competitors. This not only applies to competitors within your own industry, it applies to all businesses trying to entice customers to act. Every business is competing for a slice of their prospective customers budget and or time.
You are competing against many other businesses that may have stronger offers that are, “to good to refuse” or so unique that it grabs your attention. So we need to have a strong reason why they should give us a slice today! And whilst doing this the path for a customer to act needs to be painless and rewarding in their eyes, not the eyes of the company making the offer.
What is it that you are actually selling
Some businesses believe that their professional title alone conveys an accurate portrayal of the product or service they offer. According to this philosophy, the title of Account executive, Lawyer, Programmer, Web developer, Graphic artist, Insurance agent, or consultant should be enough to educate a prospect regarding the type of service they offer.
Other businesses feel that merely stating the type of product or service they provide is actually what they are selling.
Your prospect is not interested in the actual product or service you offer, but what it will actually do for them.
Compelling reasons should not include the following;
- Your product or service.
- Features of your product or service.
- Unsubstantiated or unrealistic claims and guarantees, or
- Anything vague or non-specific.
Compelling reasons should include the end result of the benefit.
When making an initial call, we have seconds to grab the attention of the person.
Your compelling reasons should include the benefit of the benefit’s benefit. A great compelling reason is when you are able to break it down to its core or the specific result that the prospect will be able to take advantage of and most importantly, visualise and connect with.
Pass the “So What?” Test
You know you have the end result of the benefit when the statement can pass the “so what?” test.
For example, if I have a client that sells payroll services. If you asked them to list the benefits of their service, they would probably respond with a statement like: “We have a system that automates your payroll administrative duties.”
A potential prospects response would be: “So what?”
According to old-school feature and benefit selling, this is a fit. After all, a payroll system that automates admin is a great feature that clients would benefit from. However, in today’s economic climate it’s no longer enough to evoke interest, let alone action, from a prospect. Because the statement did not pass the “so what?” test, we need to go a bit deeper.
Let’s peel away a few more layers to uncover the end result of this benefit.
Q/ What’s the advantage of automating payroll administrative duties?
A/ By doing so, her clients can streamline their payroll operations.
This is still not enough.
Q/ So what’s the end result if clients were able to streamline their payroll operations and become efficient?
A/ They would be able to save a tremendous amount of time.
This is what we are after, the end result of the benefit and here’s an example of what we could say.
We have eliminated 8 hours of our clients workload every week, clients like XYZ company and ABC company. I have put a briefing together to show you how it was achieved.
Now this passes the “so what?” test, because it demonstrates the end result of the benefit that the prospect can realize and is compelling enough to grab their attention.
If we were to break down this example, this is what it would look like:
Feature = A Payroll Admin System.
Benefit = Automates your payroll administrative duties.
Compelling Reason and the End Result of the Benefit = Eliminate 8 hours of your workload every week.
Notice that the compelling reason, which is also the end result of the benefit, we don’t talk about what you are selling. As at this point, the prospect doesn’t really care about your product or how you’re going to produce the end result. They only care about the end result.
Here are some examples of compelling reasons that could be used if cold calling Sales Directors.
Notice that each sentence begins with a powerful, descriptive word that describes either an action or a result they will realise:
- Improve your meeting rate with qualified prospects.
- Accelerate your sales cycle to generate more sales in less time.
- Exceed your sales quota.
- Increase your company’s income.
The objective of coming up with such a great compelling reason is to get your prospects to respond with a question that sounds like “how are you going to do that?”
Include Testimonials or Measurable Results
The more you can offer and demonstrate measurable results that other customers have realized, the more of an impact it will have. It adds to the clarity of the visual picture and experience that you are trying to paint regarding what they can expect from your service rather than the generally vague picture of “making them money or saving them money.”
Quantify your results
Use statistics, percentages, numbers, or testimonials. If you can save a client money, how much might you be able to save them? When it comes to saving time, decreasing client attrition, increasing employee retention, experiencing greater levels of personal satisfaction, peace of mind, well being, and happiness, boosting sales, productivity; and efficiency, you will dramatically increase the impact of the statement by attaching a measurement to it.
If you don’t know exactly what you can do for the prospect until you learn more about their business, then use teaser words or phrases such as, “Depending on your situation, we may be able to increase staff productivity by 15 percent.”
You can also weave in what have you done for other customers. Who else have you helped?
Here are some examples
“We’ve helped XYZ Company reduce costs by 20 percent.”
“Depending on what you are currently doing, we can show you how you can eliminate three hours of your workload every day.”
“XVZ Company increased their sales 300 percent as a result of using us.”
Think about the greatest pain, challenge, or headache that some of your prospects have.
- What do they want to avoid most?
- What is the personal pain that you will solve if they utilize your product or service?
- What are their main problems, personal stresses, or triggers of anxiety that they experience in their job that you can eliminate?
For example, if targeting sales managers, here are a few examples of compelling reasons that focus on some of their pains.
- Reduce your workload by 15 percent.
- Drive your cost per sale down by as much as 35%.
- Eliminate your sales team’s reluctance to cold call so that they can make the sales that your competition is taking from them.
Think of two to three problems/ pains your customer may have that you are able to provide a solution for.
For example, if you were in the recruitment industry, you may have identified the difficulty businesses have with being able to find the right staff for the job when someone leaves as well as how much of your time is consumed sorting through résumés.
Look for a need that you can fulfill and then sell them the benefits; e.g. Save you the time you are currently spending on processing résumés. Save the cost of the downtime between losing a staff member and finding the right replacement.
Think along the lines of what do you really do for customers. Is it to help then save time, save money, protect them, secure them, make them look good, attract customers, increase profits, reduce expenditure, improve their health, sell more, etc.
If we can pinpoint and then articulate your prospect’s greatest challenges or concerns during a conversation, it demonstrates the knowledge your company has about their specific problems and that you really get what their situation looks like through their eyes.
And once we can verbalise a prospect greatest pain or problem, they are more willing and ready to resolve it.
The more compelling reasons you can come up with the more tools we have. You must avoid using broad vague statements, try and get as specific as possible. Vague statements litter the marketing world and are viewed with skepticism or totally ignored all together.
Once we have collated all required information, we will then go into scripting design or modification of any existing script. When you receive your script, it may seem short but it is very effective. Remember that a script should be kept as short as possible and closed as soon as possible.
If you want us to go into more qualifying questions then please list as many qualifying questions you would like us to ask. Remembering that the purpose of qualifying is to essentially disqualify prospects. The more they are qualified the less will actually get passed on as leads.
Finding the magic compelling reason to enable someone to want to act now above everything else is something that can take time to develop. There is no one size fist all so it needs to be a methodical trailing of various call to actions until the right one is found.
Understanding the “Compelling Reason/s” you offer your customers will not only ensure your telemarketing campaign is effective as possible, it may also provide a clearer perspective for you on how other people see your product/ service that you may not have considered before.