The CRAP Report

Steve Richard, co-founder for sales training organization Vorsight, wrote a guest blog article yesterday for sales strategist Chad Levitt’s New Sales Economy Blog.  The article, entitled “11 Sales Tips for Cold Calling and Prospecting,” offered some good insight into making the most out of each and every attempt to get in touch with your potential buyers.  One of the questions that Steve suggests asking yourself is this:

“Do you revisit your talking points periodically to more effectively tell your story and stand out from the vendor noise and static?”

This is a great question!  It makes me wonder how many times prospects hang up on teleprospectors because they do nothing to make themselves unique in terms of their messaging.  There is some interesting discussion going on over at that post, and I think you should take a look at it and join in the conversation.

*Picture credit:  Linda Cronin via Flickr

If you’re somewhere close to my age (35) you may remember a brand of toy cars called Micro Machines.  Micro Machines were pretty much what you’d expect, they were smaller versions of what was considered a normal toy car in the 1980’s.  Micro Machines were basically mini-Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars and they were pretty popular at the time.  The one thing that I remember most about Micro Machines was their commercial’s spokesman, John Moschitta, Jr.  Now, by name alone you probably don’t know who this guy is, but if I told you he was the speed talking voice-over announcer for stuff in the ‘80s, you’re probably nodding your head saying, “Oh yeah – that guy!”  John Moschitta, Jr., according to his Wikipedia entry, held the Guinness World Record for speed talking at 586 words per minute.  That is crazy!  I think it’s great that Moschitta, Jr. was able to find his niche in life in terms of using his talent to do commercials and voice-overs, but I’ll tell you this – he wouldn’t have made a good teleprospector talking that fast! Read more… »

I bet most of you are probably like me – you’ve made countless numbers of cold calls, warm calls, and “Good-God-please-pick-up-the-phone” calls.  And probably just like me, at some point in your teleprospecting career, you’ve used tips and tricks to get a prospect talking with you.  Some work, some don’t.  Regardless of what was successful for getting your prospect talking, getting them to understand why they should be talking with you is paramount.  How do you go about doing this?  How do you take those few precious seconds after saying, “Hi, this is _____” and actually get a prospect to talk with you?  For me, I think it’s all in having a prospect understand why they need to talk with you. Read more… »

Yesterday, Rebel Brown, Strategist for People Who Know, had a great blog entry in her blog Phoenix Rising.  She makes the point that “Three adjectives and a noun are not a value proposition.”  In other words, “create compelling value propositions.”  I completely agree with her.  I think she’s spot on and I think it speaks to teleprospecting. Read more… »

How lame does that title sound, huh?  Almost as lame as what one client told me, regarding how prospects would feel about their product:  “The streets are going to want to marry you!”  You know what I found during that campaign?  The streets didn’t even understand my language. Read more… »