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Fanatical Prospecting — Chapter-14: Message Matters
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14 Message Matters For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough. —Zig Ziglar “What do I say when I get them on the phone?” “What do I write?” “How do I approach this type of prospect?” “How do I respond if they ask . . . ?” We all want those magic words that will roll off our tongue like sugar and wow our prospect into complete submission. I know that salespeople secretly fantasize about having the perfect pitch that gets prospects to swoon and say yes to their request every time. The bad news is, that’s not going to happen. The good news is, with some introspection, diligent effort, and practice, you can craft impactful messages that move prospects to 132
take action and deftly turn around reflex responses, brush-offs, and objections. As we’ve already established, the thing that makes prospecting so hard is you are interrupting someone’s day and that interruption creates immediate resistance and, sometimes, not-so-pleasant responses from your prospect. Words and how you use those words—no matter which prospecting channel you are leverag- ing—can either increase the severity of that reaction and subsequent rejection or reduce resistance, break down emotional walls, and improve the probability that qualified prospects will respond posi- tively to your request for their time. In our crazy-busy world where everyone, is in a state of near- constant stress, asking for your prospect’s time is the most difficult request you will make during the entire sales process—including asking them for a buying decision. This is one of the primary reasons why prospecting calls meet such stiff resistance. Many salespeople freeze up at the first hint of rejection, spout nonsensical or cheesy pitches that turn prospects off, and say things like: “I would love to have a few minutes of your time to tell you about my company.” Messages like this add no value and generate instant resistance because subconsciously the prospect hears: “I would love to come by your office and waste an hour of your life talking all about me, my products, and my wants. Won’t it be awesome for you to spend your valuable time listening to my pitch?” Salespeople are making egregious messaging mistakes on the phone, in person, via e-mail, and social media because they don’t realize that prospects are not going to give up their time for: ■ A product and service features dump ■ An enthusiastic pitch about their company being “number one this” or the “biggest of that” ■ Regurgitated lists of generic facts and figures Message Matters 133
■ Marketing brochures ■ Information that is not relevant ■ Or any of the other mindless crap that spews from the mouths and keyboards of salespeople No one wants to be pitched. You hate it, I hate it, and prospects hate it. Pitching leaves prospects feeling that you don’t listen and makes them feel unimportant. This is the primary reason you face so much resistance getting prospects to give up their time. Prospects resent you interrupting their day to tell them about how you are going to waste more of their time talking about you and your generic kitchen-sink data-dumps. They would rather get a root canal than spend an hour listening to a mouthy salesperson. Prospects meet with you for their reasons, not yours. You must articulatethe valueofspendingtimewithyouinthecontextofwhatis most important to them. Your message must demonstrate a sincere interest in listening to them, learning about them, and solving their unique problems.This ishow you break downinitialresistance so that you earn an appointment, gain the opportunity to gather qualifying information, or engage in a sales conversation right in the moment. What I want to make clear is prospecting messages are not complex. Be careful not to overcomplicate things. Your prospecting message is designed for one purpose: to quickly persuade your prospect to give you their time. What You Say and How You Say It In most prospecting interactions, you have mere seconds to get your prospect’s attention. In those precious few moments, message matters. What you say (the words you use) and how you say it (nonverbal cues) are critical to your success. I’ve spent most of my life around horses. Horses have an innate ability to sense fear, and they will take advantage of riders the moment 134 Fanatical Prospecting
they sense that the person is afraid or lacks confidence. Horses have a 5-to-1 weight and size advantage over the average person. If the horse doesn’t believe that you are in charge, it can and will dump you. Prospects are no different. If they sense fear, weakness, and lack of confidence, they will shut you down or bulldoze right over you. Delivery matters. Fanatical prospectors exude confidence, which is why they are so successful at opening doors that others believed were nailed shut. One of the truths about human behavior is people tend to respond in kind. If you are relaxed and confident, you’ll transfer that emotion to your prospect. If you want prospects to be enthusiastic about meeting you, be enthusiastic about meeting them. A relaxed, confident, enthusiastic demeanor and tone will open doors when nothing else will. Nonverbal communication includes: ■ Voice tone, inflection, pitch, and speed ■ Body language, facial expressions ■ The way you dress and your outward appearance ■ Sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and the words used in written communication—e-mail, text messaging, and social messaging Enthusiasm and Confidence Confidence and enthusiasm are the two most powerful and per- suasive nonverbal messages you send to prospects. A simple definition of confidence is “a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something.”1 Enthusiasm is defined as “a strong excitement about something; something inspiring zeal or fervor.”2 Being enthusiastic and feeling confident in the face of rejection can be very difficult. This is why it makes sense to develop techniques for building and demonstrating confidence and enthu- siasm even when you don’t feel confident and enthusiastic. Message Matters 135
This begins with developing your mindset and mental tough- ness to allow you to regain focus and bounce back from rejection and fatigue. Even the best of us, those who have experience and success, struggle with enthusiasm and confidence from time to time. Studies on human behavior from virtually every corner of the academic world have proven time and again that we can change how we feel by changing our facial expressions, the words we use, our self-talk, and our physical posture. In other words, what is happening on the inside of you manifests itself in your outward confidence and enthusiasm. This is not just a psychological response.3 It’s physiological.4 Studies are coming in from across academia that the hormones cortisol and testosterone play a significant role in confidence. Work by researchers, including Harvard University’s Amy Cuddy, reveal that your posture and body language can shape your emotions— including enthusiasm and confidence. Cuddy’s research demonstrates that “power posing,” physically standing in a posture of confidence, even when you don’t feel confident, impacts testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and that influences confidence.5 This isn’t something new, though. Thought leaders, self-help experts, teachers, and moms have been giving us this same advice for years. Sit up straight and you’ll feel better. Keep your head up. Most inside sales trainers teach salespeople that putting a smile on their face will transfer that smile to their voice. Some trainers suggest that you should put a mirror by the phone when you are prospecting so you’ll be aware of your facial expression. We know that when you dress your best, you feel your best. When you put your shoulders up and chin up, you look and feel confident. Tell yourself that you will succeed and your chances of success go up. Use assertive and assumptive words, phrases, and voice tone and you will be more powerful and credible—and more likely to get a yes when you ask for what you want. 136 Fanatical Prospecting
Act enthusiastic, think enthusiastic thoughts, and use enthusi- astic language and you will begin to feel enthusiastic and eventually become enthusiastic. Even the simple act of saying “I’m awesome!” when someone asks you how you are doing can lift your mood and cause you to feel awesome—even if you don’t. What You Say Prospecting is primarily designed to quickly engage a prospect and persuade them to give up their time. You don’t need to craft elaborate pitches or come up with complicated scripts. In fact, this is where most prospecting goes wrong. You are interrupting your prospect’s day. If a salesperson were interrupting your busy day, what would you want? Think about it. ■ You’d want them to be quick and get right to the point so you could get back to your day. ■ You’d want them to be clear and transparent about their intentions—to tell you want they wanted. ■ You’d want the interruption to be relevant to your situation, problems, or issues. Your prospecting message must be quick, simple, direct, and relevant. The relevant part is the critical element. Prospects are going to agree to give up their valuable time for their reasons, not yours. The lower the risk to them for giving up their time, the more likely they’ll be willing to give it up. This is why, for example, it is more difficult to get a yes when requesting an hour-long meeting to do a full demo than when asking for a 15-minute discovery meeting to determine if there is enough interest and reasons to move to a next step. You lower the risk for your prospect by answering WIIFM— the most important question on their mind: What’s in it for me? Message Matters 137
Of course, it is not always possible to know which reason will lower the risk enough for your prospect to say yes to your request. Sometimes you’ve got to make an educated guess. In his book Smart Calling, Art Sobczak calls these assumptions about WIIFMs “Possible Value Propositions.” He suggests that for each class of prospect and decision-maker role, you should take time to define the possible reasons that would create enough WIIFM for them to give up their time to spend it with you. Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling, says that in our current business environment, where potential decision makers are crazy busy, being able to deliver powerful value propositions is the way to “pique curiosity and open doors.”6 Jill defines a value proposition as “a clear statement of the tangible results a customer gets from using your products or services. It’s outcome focused and stresses the business value of your offering.”7 Konrath suggests that there are three key parts to a winning VP:
- Focuses on a business objective that is measured: You’ll get their attention when you focus on a metric that impacts their performance.
- Disrupts status quo: The status quo is powerful. People abhor change and will only move from the status quo when they feel they can significantly improve their current situation—increase sales, reduce costs, improve efficiency, reduce stress, and so on.
- Offers proof or evidence: When you can provide information about how much you have helped prospects in similar situations, you gain instant credibility. The higher the risk for your prospect to give up time to meet with you, the more powerful and convincing your value prop must be. For example, if you are asking a C-level executive to give up their time, you have to bring a damn good reason for them to do so because their time is incredibly valuable. You’ll want to craft a well- laid-out case that is specific and germane to your prospect. For example: 138 Fanatical Prospecting
“I’ve helped multiple companies in your market segment reduce time to profitability on new product launches by as much as 50 percent. In fact, Aspen Systems’ IDEK SaaS launch was the fastest ramp to ROI in the history of the company. With our system, they made a 41 percent improvement over their last launch.” On the flip side, if you work for a well-known brand and are meeting with small business owners who regularly use products like yours, asking for a few minutes to “learn more about their business” can work like a charm. Why? Because small business owners like to talk about themselves and the risk of taking a few minutes to meet with you is low. For example: “I’m helping several restaurants in town with significant savings on supplies. I thought we could meet so I can spend time learning about you and your restaurant to see if what we offer might be a fit.” I’m a fan of Mike Weinberg’s Power Statements and sales story development process, detailed in his book New Sales. Simplified. Mike does a masterful job of laying out the process for building compelling stories that get your prospects’ attention. Mike says your Power Statement must answer: ■ The prospect’s issues ■ Your offerings that address these issues ■ Competitive differentiators Weinberg says you need to answer the question, “Why do my customers choose to do business with me?” This is how you define why you are truly different from your competition—not just your company, product, or service, but you. Like Weinberg says, “Differentiation gets the attention of your prospect.” WIIFM—The Power of Because According to Robert Cialdini, author of Influence, “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do Message Matters 139
us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.” I don’t use the term value proposition very much. Honestly, I don’t like the phrase. It sounds complicated. I like simple and straightforward. In prospecting, all you really need to do is give your prospect a good enough reason to meet with you and they’ll say yes. It doesn’t need to be perfect—just good enough to get in the door. I’m also realistic. To be efficient at prospecting, you must pack lots of prospecting touches into a short period of time. In most cases, you will be prospecting to a similar group of prospects who share a common set of issues. Stopping to craft a perfect, unique value proposition for each one of these prospects is inefficient and impractical. Instead, you need a compelling message that works most of the time with most of your prospects. It has to be quick, direct, and persuasive, but it cannot sound like a cheesy script. It’s got to be natural and authentic. Of course, if you are calling a C-level contact or high-potential prospect, it’s critical to craft something specific and relevant that answers their unique WIIFM question. Let’s get real, though. For most salespeople, most of the time, you won’t be in this situation. You need a message that can be delivered in 10 seconds or less and gives your prospect a reason or a “because” that’s good enough to get them to say yes. In a landmark study on human behavior, psychologist Ellen Langer and a team of researchers from Harvard demonstrated the raw power of because. Langer had her team of researchers cut in line in front of people waiting for access to photocopiers. She discovered that when the researcher politely asked to jump in front of the person waiting for the copier without giving a reason— “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the copier?”—the person would say yes about 60 percent of the time. However, when the researcher qualifiedthe request with a validreason—“because I’m in a hurry”—the person said yes, on average, 94 percent of the time. 140 Fanatical Prospecting
Here’s where the research became interesting. When the researcher gave a nonsensical reason like, “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the copier? Because I have to make copies,” the person still said yes 93 percent of the time. It was a truly stunning finding. Saying the word because—giving a reason—was more important and powerful than the reason itself. Now, I want to be absolutely clear that I am not advising you to make up nonsense and use that while prospecting. What I am saying is that focusing on a simple, straightforward because works, and spending hours agonizing over some complex value prop is unlikely to give you anything more effective in prospecting than a simple, direct because. For example, just saying, “I’d like 15 minutes of your time because I want to learn more about you and your company” works surprisingly well with many prospects. What we learn from Langer’s copy machine study8 is when we ask people to do something for us, like give up their time, they are more likely to do so when we give them a reason. Bridging to the Because Bridges connect. Bridging solutions to your prospect’s problems using their language, not yours, is one of the core disciplines of sales. In the context of the sales process, bridging helps you advance deals through the pipe and close the sale. In the context of prospecting, your bridge is the because that gives them a good enough reason to give up their time to spend it with you. There are two types of bridges you’ll use when prospect- ing: targeted and strategic. Targeted bridges are bridges that are common to a large group of similar prospects—decision-maker roles, industry vertical, product or service application, and so on. Targeted bridges are most Message Matters 141
appropriate when you have little information about a specific prospect and the cost/benefit of doing reams of research is not worth it. For example, if you work in business services and have a prospect database of 10,000 SMBs, taking time to research every prospect before calling them would make no sense. It is a better use of your time to make as many calls as possible to engage and qualify as many prospects as possible, in the least amount of time as possible. When you don’t have specifics about their problems, issues, or concerns, you’ll need to infer problems based on economic trends or your knowledge of what other businesses are experiencing in the same industry, geographical area, or market segment, or with a certain competitor’s product. You’ll naturally iterate and refine your message as you engage in more conversations with these prospects. Here is an example: “Hi, Candace, this is Jeb Blount from Sales Gravy. The reason I am calling is to schedule an appointment with you to show you our new sales onboarding automation software. Many of my clients are frustrated because it takes too long to get new salespeople ramped up to full productivity and find that it’s holding their business growth back. Our software typically cuts onboarding time and costs for new sales reps by 50 percent, and makes it super easy to manage new rep onboarding, giving you the peace of mind that your new hires will start selling fast. I have 2:00 PM on Thursday open. How about we get together for a short meeting so I can learn more about you and see whether it makes sense to schedule a demo?” You’ll notice that I implied that Candace is frustrated because it is taking too long to get her new salespeople up to speed and selling. I don’t know for sure that this is her issue, but it is a high-probability educated guess because most executives experience anxiety when new salespeople aren’t selling. Strategic bridges are unique to a single high-value prospect and specific individual (decision-maker role) at that prospect. You will typically craft strategic bridges for enterprise level, conquest 142 Fanatical Prospecting
prospects, and C-level executives. Strategic bridges require research so that your bridge or because is specific and relevant, reduces risk, and gives them a compelling reason to give you their time. Developing bridges specific to a single prospect is time consum- ing and can seriously limit the activity you are able to accomplish in a day—especially if you are doing this during the Golden Hours. However, if your target prospect database is limited or you are trying to engage a large conquest prospect in your territory, developing a specific bridge is risk/reward positive. In some cases, you may only get one shot at a C-level executive and you’ll want to make it count. To develop a bridge specific to your prospect, you will first need to determine the objective of your prospecting touch: ■ Are you attempting to get more information to further qualify the opportunity, decision-maker role, or buying window? ■ Do you want to set up an initial meeting? ■ Are you seeking an introduction to another person? Defining your objective in advance, so you know what you are asking for, will help you develop a bridge that gives your prospect a reason to take that step. Next, research your prospect. Set up Google alerts to have information about the company or individual sent directly to your inbox. Review notes and history in your CRM. Research the company/division/location through online searches, visiting their website, press releases, and company pages on LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. Visit your contact’s social media profile pages. Review posts for jargon, core values, PR, awards, trigger events, initiatives, changes, and problems that you can solve. Research industry trends and read the most recent trade articles. Craft your message to demonstrate that you can relate to their specific situation. Bridge to a specific problem they are facing using their language (gleaned from your research). An example: “Hi, Windsor, this is Jeb Blount from Sales Gravy. The reason I am calling is to set an appointment with you. I read in Fast Company Message Matters 143
that you are adding another hundred sales reps to keep up with growth. I imagine that it has got to be a bit stressful to bring on that many reps and get them producing. “I’ve worked with a number of companies in your industry to reduce ramp-up time for new reps. At Xjam Software, for example, we cut ramp-up time to ROI for their new reps by 50 percent. While I don’t know if our solution would be a fit in your unique situation, I’ve got some ideas and best practices I’ve seen work well for companies like yours and thought you might be interested in learning more about them. How about we get together for a short meeting on Thursday at 2:00 PM?” The Secret to Crafting Powerful Bridges Frustration. Anxiety. Stress. Fear. Peace of mind. What do these words have in common? They describe emo- tions. Emotional words demonstrate empathy and connect with how your prospect is feeling. The real secret to crafting prospecting messages that convert into meetings, information, or sales is staring with a simple but powerful premise: People make decisions based on emotion first and then justify with logic. This is why pitching logic—features—doesn’t work. Trust me. Your prospects abhor a pitch. This, by the way, is why you get so much resistance with those long scripts your marketing department writes for you. Prospects want to feel that you get them and their problems (emotional and logical), or are at least trying to get them, before they’ll agree to give up their time to meet with you. They only give their up time because you offer them: ■ Emotional value: You connect directly with them at the emo- tional level—typically by relating to painful emotions like 144 Fanatical Prospecting
stress, worry, insecurity, distrust, anxiety, fear, frustration, or anger and offering them peace of mind, security, options, lower stress, less worry, or hope. ■ Insight (curiosity) value: You offer information that gives them power or leverage over other people. Most prospects worry about maintaining their competitive edge—either as a com- pany or an individual. They’re anxious that there may be something in the marketplace that they are not privy to. Unknowns are disconcerting—especially if a competitor has a best practice, information, system, or process that they don’t. ■ Tangible (logic) value: Executives and contacts in technical and data-centric roles will value data and case studies. How much, how many, and what results can you deliver, have you delivered, will you deliver—specific to their unique situation? The most effective way to craft the right message is to simply stand in your prospect’s shoes. Look at things through their eyes and use your God-given empathy to sense their emotions and to consider what might be important to them. Consider how you might feel in their situation. Start by answering these questions from your prospect’s perspective: ■ What would cause you stress? When do you feel stress? ■ What makes you worry? When do you worry? Why do you worry? ■ What creates anxiety? When do you feel anxiety? ■ How do you feel when you run out of time for important things? ■ How do you feel when you don’t have enough money to accomplish your goals? When does this happen? ■ How do you feel when you don’t have enough resources to accomplish your goals? When does this happen? ■ How do you feel when you don’t have the knowledge to accomplish your goals? When does this happen? ■ How do you feel when you fail to accomplish your goals? ■ When do you get overwhelmed, and how does it feel? ■ What impacts your peace of mind or sense of security? ■ How would it feel to have limited options? Message Matters 145
■ What is causing you to feel frustrated or stuck? ■ What makes you mad? ■ What causes you to feel distrust? ■ What causes you fear? ■ What causes you anguish? ■ How do you feel when ______ happens? ■ What might you want to know? ■ What unknown would make you worry? ■ What information would you fear getting into your competi- tor’s hands? ■ What might a competitor be doing that would make you want to do it, too? ■ What information would you believe might give you a win- ning edge? ■ What would cause you to be curious? ■ What might be stealing your time, money, or resources? Analyze your product and service delivery strengths and weak- nesses. Review or define your competitive advantages and the value you bring to the marketplace. Look for commonalities among your best customers. Analyze the deals you are closing and gain a deeper understanding of trigger events that open buying windows. Think about how you might be able to relate to your prospect’s unique situation and how you can express this through the words you use, tone and inflection of voice, and body language. And, before moving forward, answer the most important question. The one question that will keep you from getting shut down on prospecting calls: What would cause your prospect to say, “So what?” to your message? Ask For What You Want The most important element of any prospecting touch is the ask— what you are asking the prospect to do or give up. It really doesn’t 146 Fanatical Prospecting
matter what else you say or do. If you fail to directly ask your prospect to take action, everything else is just academic. The primary reason prospecting gets overcomplicated, compa- nies create long moronic scripts, and salespeople beat around the bush with passive “Maybe if it would be okay and if you are not too busy we could kinda maybe get together for a few minutes, what do you think?” statements, is to avoid directly asking, which carries with it the potential for rejection. Fear is why so many people seek the easy way out and look for shortcuts and silver bullets rather than just biting the bullet and asking for what they want. It’s the reason I get so many questions from salespeople that begin with “What’s the trick,” or “Can you tell me the secret?” It is also why so many salespeople are duped into buying into seminars and products that promise to deliver the secret to prospecting only to find that there really is no secret. Here is the brutal truth: There is only one technique that really works for getting what you want on a prospecting touch. Ask. That’s it. Just ask. Ask for the appointment, ask for information, ask for the decision maker, ask for the next step, ask for the sale. Ask for what you want. Ask. The fact is, if you are having a hard time getting appointments, getting to decision makers, getting information, or closing the deal, 9 out of 10 times it is because you are not asking. Why? Because 9 out of 10 times you are afraid to hear “no.” Starting with prospecting and all the way through the close, you must constantly be asking for what you want. Otherwise your deals tend to stall and die or you never get into the door in the first place. There are three steps to asking:
- Ask with confidence and assume you will get what you want.
- Shut up.
- Bepreparedtodealwithreflexresponses,brush-offs,andobjections. Message Matters 147
Assume You’ll Get What You Want We’ve tracked thousands of calls across a diverse set of industries. When salespeople demonstrate confidence and ask assertively for what they want, prospects say yes about 70 percent of the time. Nonassertive requests have about a 30 percent success rate. When you pair an assertive request with a because, the probability of getting a yes goes up even higher. Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the Little Red Book of Selling, says that “the assumptive position is the strongest selling strategy in the world.”9 Assuming you’ll get what you want begins with your belief system and self-talk. When you tell yourself you are going to win and keep telling yourself so, it bolsters your internal belief system. Assuming you will get what you want is a mindset of positive expectation that manifests itself in your outward body language, voice inflection and tone, and the words you use. Because an assumptive ask has a higher success rate, you’ll get more wins, and with more wins your confidence grows to greater heights. Whether on the phone, in person, or communicating via e-mail or social, the words you use and how you structure those words send the message loud and clear that you assume you will get a yes or assume you’ll get a no. Nonassumptive, Passive, and Weak Assumptive and Confident “Is this a good time?” “The reason I’m calling is . . .” “I was wondering if . . .?” “Tell me who—how—when— where—what . . .” “I have the whole day open.” “I’m super busy bringing on new clients, but I do have a slot available at 11:00 AM.” “What do you think?” “Why don’t we go ahead and get that set up?” 148 Fanatical Prospecting
“What’s the best time for you?” “I’ll be visiting a client not far from your office on Monday. I can pick you up for lunch.” “I kinda, sorta, was wondering if maybe you have time to answer a few questions, if that would be okay?” “A lot of my customers are telling me that they’re having problems with XYZ. What do you feel is your biggest challenge?” “Would this be a good time for you?” “How about we meet at 2:00 PM?” With e-mail, social messaging, and text messages, direct, assumptive words and sentence structure are the body language of the written word. When you choose weak, passive words, it sends the message that you lack confidence. On the phone and in person your words and how you deliver those words must match. Your prospect is subconsciously assessing whether your words, voice tone, and body language are congruent. If they are not, your prospect will not trust you and will put up resistance. Most importantly, you must directly, quickly, and concisely get to the point. Asking directly for what you want makes it easy for your prospect to say yes. Voice Tone and Inflection and Body Language When you are facing the potential of rejection, the fear you feel is real. It is a physiological response that is driven, in part, by an almond shaped structure in your brain called the amygdala, which triggers the fight-or-flight mechanism. This part of your brain is designed to keep you alive, but unfortunately, it doesn’t distinguish between threats—rattlesnake coiled and hissing at you or a prospect about to tell you no. Message Matters 149
To the amygdala it all looks the same. So it prepares your body and mind to fight or run, begins shutting down nonessential parts of your body to conserve energy, and directs that energy to your muscles. Essentially, it is preparing you for peak performance so you stay alive. This is why you feel physically anxious before you ask. Your mind reels, palms sweat, stomach tightens, and muscles become tense as you subconsciously prepare for “no.” This is the root cause of your feeling of fear. Getting past the fear of “no” isn’t easy. I’ve been selling my entire life and have been incredibly successful at it, yet today I still have to remind myself that “no” won’t kill me. That, by the way, is the key. You have to teach your rational brain to tell your amygdala, or “reptilian” brain, that the threat isn’t real. Start by learning to anticipate the anxiety that comes right before asking for what you want. Then practice managing your internal self- talk and outward physical reactionto thatfear. Courage, bythe way, is just like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. This awareness helps you manage your body language, voice inflection and tone, and words despite the volcano of emotions that may be erupting below the surface. Like a duck on the water, you appear calm and cool and project a relaxed, confident demeanor on the outside even though you’re paddling frantically just below the surface. Demonstrates Lack of Confidence, Insecurity, and Fear Demonstrates a Relaxed, Confident Demeanor Speaking with a high pitch of voice. Speaking with normal inflection and a deeper pitch. Speaking really fast. When you speak too fast you sound untrustworthy. Speaking at a relaxed pace with appropriate pauses. Tense or defensive tone of voice. Friendly tone—smile in your voice. Speaking really loud or soft. Appropriate voice modulation with appropriate emotional 150 Fanatical Prospecting
emphasis on the right words and phrases. Frail or nervous tone of voice with too many filler words, “ums,” “uhs,” and awkward pauses. Direct, properly paced tone and speech that gets right to the point. Lack of eye contact—looking away. Nothing says “I can’t be trusted” and “I’m not confident” like poor eye contact. Direct, appropriate eye contact. Hands in your pockets. Hands by your side or out in front of you as you speak. Note: This feels uncomfortable but makes you look powerful and confident. Wild gesticulations or hand motions. Using hand gestures in a calm and controlled manner. Touching your face or putting your fingers in your mouth— clear sign that you are nervous or insecure. Your hands in a power position—by your side or out in front of you in a controlled, nonthreatening manner. Hunched over, head down, arms crossed. Straight posture, chin up, shoulders straight and back. This posture will actually make you feel more confident. Shifting back and forth on your feet or rocking your body. Standing still in a natural power pose. Stiff posture, body tense. Relaxed, natural posture. Jaw clenched, tense look on face. Relaxed smile. The smile is a universal language that says “I’m friendly and can be trusted.” Weak, limp, sweaty palm handshake. (Yuck!) Firm, confident handshake delivered while making direct eye contact. Message Matters 151
Shut Up The hardest part of asking is learning to ask and shut up. When you’ve asked for what you want, you’ve put it all out there and left yourself vulnerable to rejection. And what happens when you feel vulnerable? You try to protect yourself. In that awkward moment after you ask, your head starts spinning, rejection flashes before your eyes. The split second of silence is unbearable. It feels like an eternity. When you fail to manage the disruptive emotions that are triggered by silence, your call turns into a train wreck. Your mouth starts moving. You attempt to overcome objections that have not even surfaced, overexplain yourself, offer your prospect a way out, and start blabbing on and on about your product’s features and benefits, your company, your dog, and where you went to school. Until the prospect who was ready to say yes gets talked into saying no by you. This is why, despite all of the alarm bells going off in your adrenaline-soaked mind, you must shut up and give your prospect room to answer. Here’s why: The faster you get to an answer, the faster you’ll be able to move on to the next prospecting touch or deal with a no or maybe. It’s governed by a simple rule of thirds. ■ Get to yes fast. About one-third of the time they’re going to say yes just because you asked. Your goal is to get these yesses on the table and avoid talking yourself out of them. This makes you super-efficient. They say yes to your request. You get what you want. Both of you quickly move on to the next thing on your list. ■ Get to no fast. About one-third of the time the prospect will say no and mean no. Sometimes this is a phone hung up on you, a door slammed in your face, or a deleted e-mail. Sometimes it is a string of expletives. Most times it is the prospect giving you a very direct and uncertain no! Although it sucks to hear no, it is 152 Fanatical Prospecting
also a blessing. It allows you to quickly move on to the next call—again, making you more efficient. ■ Get to maybe fast. About one-third of the time the prospect will hesitate, say maybe, negotiate, or give you a false objection just to get you off of the phone. This is where the rubber meets the road in prospecting—it’s where you have a chance to turn a maybe into a yes with effective RBO tunrarounds. When you are prepared, you know exactly how to handle reflex responses, brush-offs, and objections (RBOs), and you gain the confidence to shut up and manage silence. We’re going to dive headfirst into techniques for turning around RBOs in Chapter 16. Message Matters 153