Doing demand generation (or prospecting) is a lot like swimming. If you don’t know how to do it, you want to stay in the shallow end where your feet can touch the floor.
Keeping that image in mind, engaging in a call is the same as starting at the shallow end of the pool and swimming to the other end.
If you don’t know how to swim, you’re out of your depth.
The point of this metaphor is that you do need a script, a structure of some kind, and your “floor in the shallow end” to learn how to do demand generation — but you cannot rely on scripting to make good calls (otherwise this would already be automated).
At In The Funnel, to properly engage a new prospect, we leverage relevant information about them and their company, to show how we add value.
Typically, my point of interest was general and pretty surface level, which was a mistake. My Achilles Heel for all of my early conversations was, “How’s that resonating in your target market?”
I tried one point and went back to my script if it didn’t land. BAD, bad, idea. Disengaging, pure and simple.
Here’s what I’ve learnt:
It takes about 1–3 different points of interest in the first minute of a call to generally get someone comfortable enough to open up about any potential problems they may have.
Make your point of interest dynamic! I do this by having their LinkedIn profile open and the company website on hand. The tricky part is adapting on the fly, and it takes practice.
For a marketing qualified lead, the first minute will look like this:
(Remember this: Always, ALWAYS, use open-ended questions. You’ll thank me later.)
1) Hey, I saw you downloaded our tool for (x). What prompted you to download it?
2) Interesting, well, I looked at your LinkedIn and saw you were a sales manager at (y), how does the structure compare at (z)?
3) I see. Well, your company (z) seems to specialize in a very technical vertical. How is your sales team at articulating that?
After that, the qualifying questions get aimed towards how their sales team is doing.
There you have it! Genuine, engaging questions that build off one another and each one getting one step closer to the problem.
My absolute best advice for sequencing these points of interest is to start with a) specific questions about your prospect, then ask b) questions geared more towards the structure of the company.
Try it for yourself!
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By Marius Royal
Sales Development - In The Funnel