Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling (Jeb Blount)

by Jeb Blount

Personal Branding

Does my presence online support my efforts to build my reputation as a sales professional who solves problems and can be trusted? Does it help people become familiar with my name and brand in a positive way?

We have a comprehensive guide to building winning social media profile pages at FanaticalProspecting.com that provides detailed instructions and tips for each of the major social media networks.

A best practice that I highly recommend is posting the same headshot on all of your social media profiles.

Summary/Bio/About You

“an effective LinkedIn summary makes people want to know more about you and, ultimately, connect with you one-on-one.”

It should be well written, compelling, and truthful. Write in the first person and make it conversational.

Be aware that you are always onstage. Everything, from your profile picture to the things you post, like, share, and comment on, is being watched by potential customers, so it's critical that you manage your message.

strategic prospecting campaign (SPC). Strategic prospecting is a long-term, comprehensive effort that spans multiple prospecting channels.

The core objectives of strategic prospecting are: Decision-maker and influencer mapping Warming up and nurturing the right contacts Identifying and developing relationships with potential coaches Creating personal and brand familiarity Generating goodwill and tapping into the Law of Reciprocity by offering value first Getting invited in by the prospect when the buying window opens or reducing friction when you make contact to set the initial appointment(s)

The Five Cs of Social Selling

Connecting

Content Creation

Content Curation

Trust me on this: Salespeople who lead with self-promotional company, brand, product, or service plugs on social media get banned, blocked, reported as spam, and ignored. Don't do it!

In the social channel, the primary way you provide value is through content that educates, builds credibility, anchors familiarity, and positions you as an expert who can solve relevant problems.

Conversion

The social channel leveraged the right way can and should generate inbound leads.

Consistency

Social Prospecting + Outbound Prospecting = A Powerful Combination

14 Message Matters

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.

Prospects meet with you for their reasons, not yours. You must articulate the value of spending time with you in the context of what is most important to them.

Be careful not to overcomplicate things. Your prospecting message is designed for one purpose: to quickly persuade your prospect to give you their time.

A relaxed, confident, enthusiastic demeanor and tone will open doors when nothing else will.

Enthusiasm and Confidence

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.

What You Say

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.

You lower the risk for your prospect by answering WIIFM—the most important question on their mind: What's in it for me?

In his book Smart Calling, Art Sobczak calls these assumptions about WIIFMs “Possible Value Propositions.”

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.

Mike says your Power Statement must answer: The prospect's issues Your offerings that address these issues Competitive differentiators

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.

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.

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.

Bridging to the Because

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.

“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?”

Strategic bridges are unique to a single high-value prospect and specific individual (decision-maker role) at that prospect.

The Secret to Crafting Powerful Bridges

Frustration. Anxiety. Stress. Fear. Peace of mind.

People make decisions based on emotion first and then justify with logic.

They only give their up time because you offer them:

Emotional value:

Insight (curiosity) value:

Tangible (logic) value:

The most effective way to craft the right message is to simply stand in your prospect's shoes.

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? 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 competitor'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 winning edge? What would cause you to be curious? What might be stealing your time, money, or resources?

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.