The CRAP Report

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. Rebel talks about using words that matter to customers, keeping the message simple, and applying value.  I couldn’t agree more.  Relating it to teleprospecting, if you’ve got an inside lead generation team, or maybe you’ve outsourced your sales prospecting, you’ve got to make sure that your BDR’s are speaking to prospects on their level.  Our BDR’s have such precious little time when a prospect actually picks up their phone, that we can’t waste that time with (pardon the pun) crap. 

On top of that, the message that BDR’s bring to the market have got to be simple.  Those of us that are writing scripts and creating messaging that BDR’s use on the phones have got to make sure that we’re keeping them simple – to a point.  Simple enough to be understood by the BDR saying it, and simple enough that the prospect on the other end understands and, better yet, knows that we understand that message so well that we’ve simplified it.  This can be tough when talking tech.  Tech can only be simplified so much, but we’ve got to try. 

Lastly, and I think this one is the most important, we’ve got to apply our value.  If our BDR’s are not leading with value, we’re sunk before a telephone receiver is even picked up.  Having a value forward message, one that delivers an impact to an audience that desperately needs to be impacted, is a must.  Rebel makes the point to say, “Asking our audiences to extract the value from generic, buzz-ridden claims is risky at best.”  Need I say more?  Yours, mine, OUR prospects cannot be expected to “get” our value on their own.  It’s our job to make sure they get it, and the only way to do that is lead with value.  What sets you apart from everybody else?  What pains do you solve?  What problems do you fix?  How can you accelerate “blank”?  For me, I owe it to my clients to make sure that their messages are value forward.  For you, whether you do it in-house or outsource, make sure your teleprospecting teams are doing it the same way.