SELL WITHOUT SELLING

linked.com/in/brentbice | @brentbice | brentb@getifx.com

AGENDA1. Prospecting and research2. Connecting and qualifying3. Asking tough questions4. Scoping projects5. Writing killer proposals6. Don’t forget legal7. Exercise: Creating user stories

Prospect and researchwork smarter, not

harder

[1]

WHAT you’re looking to accomplish

•Determine if the lead is workable• Set your priority (High/Med/Low)• Start to qualify the lead (SPIN + BANT)•Determine their web/marketing sophistication • Find opportunities to develop a connection•Personalization•Rapport building• Trust development

• You work the company not the contact• Initial research should take 5-10 minutes•Next attempt pre-call review…5 minutes•Add your prospect as a Contact in your CRM

(Nimble, Salesforce, Sugar, etc.)• Title your activity: Research• Tag your prospect: Research

THINGS to keep in mind…

Connect and qualifyactivity is key

[2]

[2] Build credibility and trust

[3] Begin the qualifying process

[4] Decide if prospect is a good fit

[1] Establish initial relationship

[5] Set an initial appointment

PURPOSE of Call

LEAD Approach• [Intro] Hello, Prospect. It’s ____ (your name) from

iFX______. (Pause)• [Transition] Sounds like I caught you at a bad time?

(Pause)• [Purpose] I am calling because I noticed that you came to

the website and downloaded our __(offer)_______ on _(date)_.• [Get Them Talking] Does that ring a bell? • What were you looking for help with?

COLD CALL Approach• [Intro] Hello, Prospect. It’s ___ (your name) from _(your company name)______.

(Pause)• [Transition] Sounds like I caught you at a bad time? (Pause)• [Purpose] Prospect, I’m calling because I notice you sell business intelligence software.

Pause)• I also notice that you are trying to drive leads from your site…(Pause)• [Positioning] My company helps business owners who have a website and are trying to

drive more leads but are frustrated because they have spent a lot of effort, maybe on a new site, or SEO, or adwords, but they still aren’t getting the leads and return they had hoped for.

• [Get them talking] I was calling to see if…• this might strike a chord with you [or]• You might want to chat for a few moments about this and then see if there is anything

worth talking about.

CALLING Referral Leads• [Intro] Hello, Prospect. It’s ___ (your name) from iFX. (Pause)• [Transition] Sounds like I caught you at a bad time? (Pause)• [Purpose] Prospect, I’m calling because (Person’s Name) introduced us over email.

(Person’s Name) felt that we should talk. (Pause)• [Positioning] My company helps business owners who have a website and are trying

to drive more leads but are frustrated because they have spent a lot of effort, maybe on a new site, or SEO, or adwords, but they still aren’t getting the leads and return they had hoped for?

• [Get them talking] I was calling to see if…• this might strike a chord with you [or]• You might want to chat for a few moments about this and then see if there is

anything worth talking about.

INBOUND Opportunities• Prospect calls in• [Intro] “Hello, Prospect. (Pause)• Your client, ___(common connection) referred me to you. He said you

did a great job helping him ____ . I’m interested in redesigning my site again. Is this something you could help with?”

• [Transition] Hey Barry. Nice to meet you. Thanks for calling. John was a pleasure to work with. Since you said “again”, I’m guessing you recently did this and it didn’t have the desired result? Tell me a bit more about why you want to redesign your site again.

• With John, his goal was to not just do a redesign, but to figure out how to attract more traffic, capture more leads and convert more leads to customers. Is this something you’re looking to do too?

• [Get Them Talking] Tell me a bit more about what you did in the past with your website and online marketing, and what you plan to do going forward?

Positioning Statements• I help small business owners like you who are frustrated that they have spent a lot of money in

making improvements to their website and they are still not seeing leads come in as they expected. Typically they have either hired a SEO consultant or put some money into Google Adwords to increase their rankings in search engines. Now they either still fail to show up in the results or they are ranking for some keywords but not seeing any increase in leads. Are you experiencing similar challenges?

• I help marketers like you who are frustrated that they’ve spent a lot of time and money working to please the sales team with high quality leads that close faster, but they have yet to see the quality leads they expected from their website and online marketing efforts. Typically they’ve hired an outside agency to do the work, purchased lists or gone to tradeshows in order to achieve their goals and they aren’t seeing the results so upper management and the sales team are concerned. Are you experiencing similar challenges?

• When I talk to marketers like you I typically hear that the two biggest aggravations they face on a day to day basis are bringing in enough leads to satisfy their bosses and the challenge of showcasing the ROI their lead generation efforts produce. Does that ring true for you as well?

LISTEN for cues or pain points. It’s incredibly important to stay in the

moment and not let your mind wonder.

Preliminary Exploration – High Gain Questions

Goals• What are you hoping your website will accomplish?• What metrics do you look at to determine how well you are doing? • Why are these goals important for the business?

Challenges• What’s holding you back? • Why is it important to fix these?• If you fix these, would it really make much of an impact on the business?

Plan•How are you currently generating new business? •What’s the current plan? •Why not just do more of what you are doing?

Timing• It sounds like you are pretty serious about this, why now and not 6 months ago. •What timing is driving your initiatives? •Maybe you should hold off doing something new for now?

Book Exploratory Call• Of all of the challenges we’ve discussed today, are any of

them important enough to you that you’d want to start fixing them? • Would you like to schedule an exploratory call to determine

whether I can help you?• During this call, we’ll review data about your site and online

marketing success to date, as compared to your competitors. Can you provide me with some information, so I can do some homework?

My 5 Favorite Gives• Page Titles Stink• Service Pages Aren’t Optimized• No Good Tofu Calls to Action• No Good Calls to Action on your Blog• Not responsive (usability & search)

Asking tough questions

empathy & pain

[3]

Questions persuade more powerfully than any other form of verbal

communication.

Not all questions are equal.

Closed vs. Open (Probe)Closed Questions:• Can be answered with a single word,

often “yes” or “no”.• Do you make purchasing decisions?• Is that important to you?• What is your close ratio?

Open Questions:• Require a longer answer which allows

you to gather additional information• How are your purchasing decisions

made?• Why is that important to you?• How would improving your close ratio

impact your business?

COMPANIES SPEND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TEACHING THEIR SALES TEAM TO ASK OPEN QUESTIONS. THEY ARE WASTING MONEY. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER WHEN IT COMES TO THE SUCCESS OF A SALE.

ProblemImplicationNeed / Payoff

Situational

SPIN Selling

SITUATION QuestionsImportant fact-finding questions:• Often used early in the sales cycle.

• What are your sales goals for the year?• Are you on track to reach those goals?• What is your close ratio?• How many leads does your marketing team generate per month?• How are leads generated?

The problem with situation questions:• Who benefits from these types of questions – the seller or the buyer?• Important to us, but often bore the buyer.• Research shows that successful salespeople often use less situational questions.

PROBLEM QuestionsExploring problems and dissatisfaction in areas where your product can help does numerous things: provides you a better understanding of your market, helps you realize the level of value you could potentially bring to them, builds trust with the buyer in demonstrating your knowledge of the problem.

• What challenges are your sales and marketing teams facing?• What actions are you taking to overcome those challenges?• How difficult is it for your marketing team to manage your website content

and users?• How much money are you losing per month on those inefficiencies?

More success in sales process than problem questions. Very effective for smaller sales and are the foundation for big sales.

IMPLICATION QuestionsImplication questions take the problem that you’ve already diagnosed and explores its impact or consequences. It takes critical thinking, tact, and deep industry insight. Large sales are won by asking more implication questions.

• How are the low number of leads impacting your sales team’s efficiency?• How much additional time does your sales team spend creating their own

leads?• How much time does your marketing team waste waiting on a developer to

update critical information on your website?

More success in sales process than problem questions. Very effective for smaller sales and are the foundation for big sales.

NEED-PAYOFF QuestionsResearch has shown that top sales performers ask these types of questions. The need-payoff questions help paint a picture of “what could be” with your solution.

• If we could increase the number of leads you receive by 50% per quarter, how would that impact your sales?

• If you could double your sales, how would that impact your business?• If we created a portal that allowed your partners to login and access sales

sheets and reports, how much would that reduce your support costs?

More success in sales process than problem questions. Very effective for smaller sales and are the foundation for big sales.

Scoping projects[4]

CHAOS Report

39%

43%

18%Average cost overrun: 45%Time overrun: 63%Functionality delivered: 67%

WHY DO PROJECTS Fail?• Inability to communicate• We estimate intangibles• We make the most important decisions

when we know least about the product• Business models/requirements change

often which changes the scope

Waterfall vs. Agile

Requirements Design Implementation Verification

Strategy Requirements

Design

Implementation

Verification

User-centered Design

ITExecutive

Step 1: Identifying Your Audience

5

Business

Owner

MarketingManager

WebsiteDeveloper

Step 2: What Problems Do They Face

As a marketing manager, I find it difficult to determine what type of content provides the most value.

Step 2: What Problems Do They Face

As a small business owner, I struggle to generate high-quality leads for my sales team.

Step 2: What Problems Do They Face

As a web developer, I’m tired of having my code overwritten by other developers working on the same project.

Step 2: What Problems Do They Face

As a potential customer, I find it frustrating that the website does not display well on my phone. I’m forced to zoom in and adjust screed to fit on my phone.

Focus on your customer’s needs and solving their problems.

Prioritize stories by the amount of value they provide to the end-user.

Align stories with business goals.

Step 1: Break story into tasks

As a marketing manager, I find it difficult to determine what type of content provides the most value – traffic, engagement and conversion.

1. Install Intelligence module and configure GA.

2. Install AddThis and Disqus and configure APIs.

3. Configure Intelligence based on business goals.

4. Test to ensure it’s tracking correctly.

Step 2: Estimate tasks

As a marketing manager, I find it difficult to determine what type of content provides the most value – traffic, engagement and conversion.

1. Install Intelligence module and configure GA.

2. Install AddThis and Disqus and configure APIs.

3. Configure Intelligence based on business goals.

4. Test to ensure it’s tracking correctly.

8 hours

GETTING TO THE Total• Estimate each user story – always keep value

in mind.• After estimating all stories, get a total of hours

for all stories.• Add 20-30% of total for project management.• Remember…these are estimates!

Writing Killer Proposals

[4]

Don’t Forget Legal[5]

Exercise: User Stories[6]