Are you selling something worth buying?
Let’s start there. Because if you’re not selling crap, this will work for you.
Here’s the thing. Most people make selling too freaking difficult.
It’s not that hard. Yes, there are better and worse ways to sell any given product. But the process of selling is often overcomplicated. And when that happens, people fail to take action, and sales results are decreased.
But if you’ve got something worth buying… If you have a solution to an urgent problem faced by prospects who are ready, willing, and able to pay for a solution…
Selling is easy!
I’ve actually heard this in quite a few different contexts recently — and it plays well here, so I’ll include it…
If you want the result, you have to BE the person who gets the result.
What?!
Okay I’ll admit that sounds a little obtuse.
But stick with me.
If you want prospects to buy from you, you have to be the person who has something worth buying.
Is that more practical?
If you want anything in life, the first thing you have to do is look in the freaking mirror. Are you doing what you need to do to be the kind of person who gets that thing you want?
Want wealth? Are you doing the things that a wealthy person does, to generate wealth?
Want health? Are you behaving like a healthy person behaves?
Want love? Are you doing the things that make you lovable and attractive to the person you want to love you?
You have to BE before you GET.
And this applies as much to selling as it does to anything else.
So let’s say you’re selling copywriting or some other high-level creative services. Are you actually able to fulfill on those copywriting or creative services? Is your work product up to snuff? Are you creating the kind of work that clients are happy to pay for?
If so, then you are what you need to be for selling to come easy.
Then it will just come down to negotiating details. What’s the price? The deliverables? The start date? And so on…
On the other hand, if you’re a WANNABE who has never and will never actually deliver the goods, it doesn’t matter what dang sales technique I teach you. If the prospect doesn’t see right through you, selling better will only accelerate your path to failure. Because even if you close the deal, the crap you’re selling will be made clear soon, and that will catch up to you.
You’ve gotta work on yourself first. You have to become desirable. You have to have the product or service that is the prize you’re happy to bestow on your prospects in exchange for their moolah. When you do that, you are like 98% of the way to closing the deal, even if you haven’t reached out to the prospect yet.
Get the point yet?
Okay, so assuming you have something worth buying, here’s how to easily book calls with prospects…
Offer them!
I strongly recommend a tool like Book Like A Boss for this purpose (it’s what I use).
Basically you reach out and say, “I have something I think you would find valuable. Here’s what I know about you that leads me to think you’ll find it valuable. I’d like to explain a little bit about it. Let’s schedule a call. Here’s a link to my calendar.”
Of course I just wrote incredibly generic words meant to convey the meaning of what you say, not what you’d actually say. If you copy me verbatim, I think you need to go back to the intro to this article, and take a look in that mirror again.
Assuming you’re going to actually come up with your own words here, let’s break that down.
I have something I think you would find valuable.
I’m a HUGE proponent of value-first selling. Works in marketing and one-to-one sales. You have to convey some value in your pitch to get your prospects to raise their hand. And you’ll get the best response from the best prospects by offering something they find valuable out of the gate.
What you offer is highly-dependent on your product or service.
I once offered training consultations for managers of multi-person IT staffs. I sold training solutions from $5,000 to $30,000 by offering a consultation up front to determine what would be a good fit for their department.
As a copywriter with a pretty good reputation at this point, it’s actually easier for me to just say, “I think we should work together,” and that’s a promise of value.
If I were selling something else, I’d probably find a way to offer a free consultation or assessment related to the offer I have, that would be valuable and appeal to the prospects I want to work with.
It changes based on the context.
Find a promise of something that has at least enough perceived value to justify a short phone call, and lead with that.
Here’s what I know about you that leads me to think you’ll find it valuable.
The hours you put into preparing to sell are far more efficient and valuable than the hours you spend cold-calling with no information.
I say this because I know that you’d rather put in zero research to learn about your leads before you pitch them. We are, by nature, lazy bums.
But if you do the research ahead of time and you can say based on evidence that, “I’ve looked at your business and I can tell you’re a good fit for this because of X, Y, and Z,” you’re ridiculously more likely to actually get engagement from the prospect, versus trying to sell them cold with zero personalization.
I delete countless cold pitches every day, from salespeople that clearly don’t know me or my business. I usually at least scan them. But the moment it’s clear they don’t know what they’re talking about, I delete them. If they’ve done their homework, I will at least dignify their pitch with a response. Assume your prospects do the same thing.
(Alternately, automate this process with a prospecting system and application process that gives you the information you need to evaluate prospects — but ONLY if you’re getting your leads from cold traffic sources and they’re coming to you.)
I’d like to explain a little bit about it. Let’s schedule a call.
Now we’ve moved into the Call-to-Action.
You can probably get away with using this and the following line pretty much verbatim.
As a good salesperson and marketer, you know people won’t take an action until and unless they’re directed to it. And so you have to direct them to do what you want them to do.
Here you’re being specific. You want to schedule a call. You want to talk to them. You have something of value to present and the best way to present it is by having a chat.
“But wait — scheduling is inconvenient, and I’d rather not…”
Here’s a link to my calendar.
“Oh, wait. You have an online calendar I can easily look at to see where your availability and mine overlap? Excellent! Maybe scheduling a call is easier than I thought.”
This is why I recommend Book Like A Boss.
It takes all the headache and back-and-forth out of trying to plan these conversations.
You simply send a link, and they’re plugged right into your calendar. They can book a time for whatever length you set (I recommend 30 minutes or less for these initial meetings, with an automatic buffer of another 30 minutes to let the call run over). And when they book, the time is immediately and automatically blocked off in your calendar. Complete with a private Zoom link, if you use Zoom for video calls.
You can even setup email reminders in advance of the call, to help ensure they will show up.
From that point, it’s simply a matter of having the conversation.
Here’s why this works…
If you have something valuable to sell, and can lead with value, it’s really just a matter of starting the conversations.
Most people throw up a lot of friction when it comes to starting conversations of any type.
If you can take as much friction out of the process as possible, you will find it so much easier to start the conversations.
And if you’re starting conversations about your good offer, with good prospects for that offer, selling becomes easy.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
