Trust is built on Competence and Caring
Internal company sponsors championing your cause can use these types of sales materials to recommend you as a trusted advisor to key business decision makers. Business leaders are magnetically attracted to change experts that can help them solve problems impeding achievement of their company objectives. However, most have no time or patience for sales promotions about the amazing capabilities of your products/services – even though they may be one and the same. Relevant information about customer concerns and industry trends can cut through the clutter, pique their interest and earn you the right to speak directly with them. In your initial 30-second introduction, you need to grab their attention and provoke their curiosity. Success stories of similar companies wrestling with many of the same problems that they face are very powerful door openers (or alternatively, reasons to answer the telephone). Real customers with concrete business results demonstrate your value and credibility. Client testimonials can be included in the business case to serve as social proof of the improvements that you deliver. Their claims will be accepted without question; whereas, you stating these same points strikes decision makers as rude boasting. By concisely summarizing their story in the second 3-minutes of the call, you can then smoothly segue to recommend a 30-minute face to face meeting to investigate the opportunity to deliver similar results for the prospect’s business.