Stop Pitch Slapping! Cold Call Secrets That Actually Work

That's where you want to get and that's the the middle ground between a and a there's two general ways that most people will cold call which is the old pitch slap. The other one is they're trying to do too much discoveryesque selling which is too early in the conversation and so it becomes an interrogation and I don't even know who the [ __ ] you are. So when you merge the two, here's how we're doing things a little bit different. And as a result, it's driving this type of business impact and then you loop it back around. In this edition of Outbound Fluff No Sales, Ryan and I are going to talk about messaging, specifically what makes a great pitch when you get to that part of your cold call. If you enjoy this episode, hit subscribe. Let us know in the comments section below what you think of the show. Love it or hate it. I'm Ronan Pasar. This is Ryan Risert aka Racer and we're going to board vomit all over you right now. >> Yes sir. I >> hope you enjoy it. >> So we are trying to solve a simple equation. Target message channel timing. >> Target message channel timing. >> So the first two components of this and outbound you you control all of this. The first three you control. We're talking about targeting the right people with the right message over the phone so that you can solve for timing over time. But the general structure where a lot of people miss is like what what do we say when we're on the phone? And so I like to think through this concept as a different different view than maybe the chat's stadium pitch concept, which is one way to think about it. So chat says, imagine you get everybody that you'd ever want to sell to into a stadium. And now you're on stage and you're pitching and those people could stand up and walk away at any time as soon as it's not relevant. Uh and that's what drives the buyer pyramid. You will see that 3% going to stick around pretty much the whole time. Blind squirrel gets to know if you're, you know, messaging. Okay. 10% will be there for the majority of the time and then the rest are going to kind of leave at will depending on how you're messaging with education based content. I like to reframe this concept into the modern approach of this. So think of it like you have this magic wand that you can wave and get a line of people that are your ideal next best customers. The right people at the right account just standing in line and you're a rep at a booth for example at a conference. So it's it's relevant to all the right people. They're in the concept of wanting to learn and they're just st stepping up and they're going to come to you as a rep and they're going to ask you the magic words. So what do you do for people like me, right? How do you serve me? Who do you serve? How do you serve? Who do you serve? How do you serve them? But I already know that it's who do they serve because they're in this line. Okay, so they're in the line. They're coming up and you just have bat after bat after bat after bat swinging and swinging swinging to deliver the message, right? That's that's the same thing as having a list of people that you know pick up the phone and you can call and get them online every three to five dials. Okay, so now that we're framed into this visualization of I have the exact people at the exact accounts that I want to be doing business with in line ready to talk to me, what do you say? So, there's like four things that you want to get kind of prompted out to deliver a great message. Number one is what do you say when when people you're in this line, you have this this opportunity to pitch to them. They ask you the magic words, what do you do? Okay, so workshop this and write it out, right? And the what do you do should be framed in the uh kind of framework of I'm not sure if this is for you right now like this new addition but we serve title at companies similar to them who are getting this doing this work the job to be done that your product or service is servicing in this way right now. Okay. Okay. So, the first phase of this is explaining to them how they're doing the work that your product or service serves, right? So, I'm not sure if this is for you right now, but we work with people like this who are working on this thing inside their business, right? And they're doing it like this. So, you're explaining to them how they're getting the job done. I'm showing you that I know you, right? So, a simple example of this would be like for Titan X, formerly phone rate leads, right? I'm not sure if this is for you right now, but we work with sales leaders who have reps that are responsible for generating new business via the phone. And the reps are continuously complaining that no one answers the phone, right? They have to sit and make 10, 20, 30, sometimes 50 dials just to get one person on the phone if they're lucky, right? So, you're explaining this world. And so, what they're doing to try to solve for this is they're doing it in kind of two ways. Number one is they're the connect rate's low. So, they're using a parallel dialer because more dials creates more conversations. But what they quickly find is that um you know they're burning through their list, there's a delay on the connect and they're losing out on the connects that they get, right? The conversion rate goes down and and over time actually the the number of conversations they get goes down as well. Or what they've done is they decided that no one's picking up the phone. So, I'm going to use this multi- channelannel approach and I start to sequence my data. I'm making calls, I'm sending emails, I'm doing LinkedIn only to find that they're doing a bunch of clicking and and getting no responses or the only responses they get are like unsubscribe, right? So, I explain the world that they're living in today and I say, "Well, what's missing in this entire program is not that the the the dialing isn't working. It's that that they're spending too much time calling people that will never answer the phone and that's leading to negative business outcome. Reps are burning out, blah blah blah blah blah." Right? Okay. So, I'm framing it. Then you say, "What we do is we take the exact same list of the people that you want to talk to and we uh don't have to change your text stack." And now your reps are actually able to just call people to answer the phone. And the result of that is now they have a conversation every 3 to five dials or said differently for the same $50 they make every day, they're having 8 to 12 conversations, not one or two. Right? So if I could show you it's possible to have one or two conversations or 8 to 12 conversations in one or two, is is would that be worth finding some time in the next week or two? The first thing is frame the situation of what it looks like and how they're getting the job done today. The next phase is what products or services they might be using. So if I was using the same Titan Titan X example, I might say, so they're using a tool like Nooks or Oram or Connect and sell to like do more dials or they're using a sequencer like an outreach or sales off. So I'm seing the fact that I already know how they're solving it and the tools they're using. Okay. What's missing in all these tools is it's not the tools or the data. It's that they're not they're just calling a bunch of the wrong people. So still in the same framework. So I'm explaining the world that they live in today, how they're solving it, and maybe even referencing the people that do the work, the tools that they're using, etc. The next phase of this is to explain how you're doing things or what you're doing to solve that gap, right? To change their world and deliver a better outcome. So what do you do? I explain it and just show you show me you know it and how you're getting the job done. And then explain what's missing, right? or what's the problem? In this case, like your reps are burning out. They're making too many dials. They're just doing clicks and their job is to actually have conversations. So then I deliver the result. What's the result that I'm delivering? More conversations without having to do more work. Then my call to action comes back around. So if I could show you that I'm able to deliver this result uh without you having to change much, is that worth more time? So I have a line of people. I explain the situation, explain the tools or services to solve the problem today. I identify a gap and then I I share a story of the future outcome and then I circle back that around with the call to action that says if I could show you it's possible to get a better outcome without doing a lot of changes is that worth some more >> and look this has been something that when it comes to messaging has been front and center for me as well since day one which is like what are the words that I say and and how do we do it in a way where it becomes impactful. The problem that most early in their career cold callers don't realize is you have basically stages or levels that you have to unlock in the conversation in order to even get to the point where the person's going to listen to what you are calling about the pitch. So if you get through all those beginning gateways or levels uh where you've gotten established two-way dialogue, which is what Ryan calls it, you let them know why you're calling. In our case, we use a pattern interruption at that point. I'm calling because I want to see if it makes sense to set up an introductory conversation another time. And then, of course, they follow up with, "Well, I don't know what this is about. What do you do?" And now we enter that part of the pitch where I'm trying to talk about what we do, but the key is doing it from their perspective. So, where most reps fail is they see that as an opportunity to talk about me. we do this, we I me we do all these things as opposed to saying how do I put it in the perspective of the prospect. So when I put it in their perspective from their world, a classic way to do this is to say when it comes to something in your world, I used to use a framework that was very very similar to this that I I called the probe and provoke. The idea was to have a two-part flow where in the probing question, you're trying to find a costly business problem. You're trying to find something that is really top of mind for the person you're talking to that they deal with every day. Obviously, that problem is going to relate to your solution. That's the probe. I'm I'm probing. I'm looking for something. And either you have it, the problem without a solution or a bad solution to it, or you don't have the problem, in which case maybe there's another layer of understanding as to why you don't have that problem. But once I identify that, then I get into the provoke. This is creating curiosity. Um, and I'm a really big fan of of how Josh Brawn talks about this where you want to illuminate the problem. So, you're trying to create curiosity about the way that you do it differently to get to a much better outcome, like a 10x better outcome. So, back in the day, I actually had a script that I no longer put out there, but I'll just show it for this piece because it it does a really good job breaking these two parts down. in the probing question. This is the first part of the pitch where I'm trying to get to the uh the setup. So the formula here is like I'm trying to name the issue and then describe some sort of painful symptom and define the cost. So the actual way I would plug this in back in the day was yeah, that's actually why I called. So the leadup right before this might have been them saying, well, I don't even know who you are. Like can you tell me what this is about? And let's say I've already confirmed I'm talking to the right person. Yeah, that's that's actually why I called. I don't know if this is for you right now, but when it comes to a certain process in your business or a goal that you have, do you already have a way to now I'm going to describe the outcome. So, back in the day, I was uh one of the founders at a company called Stylo. We were doing AI before it was cool in 2022 21 and uh doing like data analysis to find really really angry customers in a pile of daily tickets that reps would receive to then prioritize those. So the the probe we came up for that really landed was out of curiosity when it comes to here's going to be the process seeing your most frustrated customer. Do you already have a way to spot them from the thousands of cases you get every month before they turn into a fire drill and churn? >> So so this is an amazing breakup in the process I was just explaining. So, if you added a show me, you know me section and then added this as the question before you go into what we do differently. >> That's actually supposed to be That's actually funny you said that. So, the transition was meant to have a show me you know me where it's like actually before I dive in, is it safe to assume you already have >> uh maybe like a Zenesk for your ticketing today? >> Yeah. So, so instead of asking the question, we want to be a little bit more assumptive. So, I'm not sure if this is for you right now, but we're working with titles. this case it' be customer service leaders um that are using tools like Zenesk to resolve tickets right that would be like an easy show me you know me right I'm working with success leaders that are using a Zenesk and so when it comes to and then you go into this so I had a question but that's actually really good so before I dive in you know as the VP of support is it safe to assume you might care about you know uh customers that are churning that you could have easily fixed there's some sort of pain point here >> and we're going into interrogation mode at that point which we'll lose. We're going to lose some folks. And so if you if you combined if you combined the show me if you add the show me you know meia upfront by the way they're going to correct you that's not me. Oh now take a step back. Oh I had you as the success. So in your role you're not dealing with these things. Okay then who right now you can get into a referral. >> But if I if I make the assumption, hey I'm not not sure if this for you right now but we're working with these folks who are doing this and they're having this problem. Then I love this probing. We should add this to the thing. Let's talk to Andrew about this afterwards around. So, when it comes to, you know, we can go back to the the Titan X example right now. So, I'm not sure if it's you right now, but we're working with sales leaders who have reps that are responsible for generating new business over the phone. And those reps are constantly complaining that no one answers the phone. They have to make, you know, 20, $30, $50 a day, and they maybe talk to one or two if they're lucky. When it when it comes to your your cold caller's ability to have conversations every day, do you already have a way for them to be in a conversation about every 3 to five dials? >> Hard stop right there. And I'm looking for a close-ended yes or no. Correct. >> Because the point is that's not my that's not my conversation opener. That's the lead question. So when they say, uh, well, I don't know about every three three to five dials, but they have like 15 conversations a day because they're doing 500 dials on ORM. >> Right. Right. Totally get it. So, you guys are using a parallel dialer. You know what? That's actually why I reached out. I don't know if this is going to be for you or not. And now I'm going right back in. Now, I'm going to try to provoke them into thinking about or as Josh calls it, I'm going to try to illuminate a different problem or way of thinking about it. Have you ever considered a different kind of solution to get this benefit that your product would give them? Um, and you can either I used to play with an analogy here, you don't have to. and then an open-ended question, anything like that on your radar. So, again, going back to the stylo example here. You know what? Actually, Ryan, that's why I was reaching out. Have you ever considered a channel validation tool like Titan X that would identify all the people who answer and the people who don't before your reps ever make a dial, you know? That way, they're actually calling people who pick up the phone. Any technology I've got on your radar? >> Yeah, I think there's some things to workshop here. I I like I like how some of this stuff's coming in together. my my concept around show me you know me I'm explaining the world and maybe they're solving it this way now you could probe with your probing question I think that's what you called it right probe how like is it this way or that way when I showed you that you're doing it with maybe over dialing or sequencing right u maybe a question there then you want to go back around well what we do differently is this and as a result as a result it's delivering this outcome >> and so the the four the four sections that you want to like get these sections locked in is a quick statement around what do you do. So when someone says what do you do you want to explain the work that they're doing today? How is the job getting so the the questions you want to answer how is the job getting done today? >> Who's involved with it? How are they doing it? What tools? So what is the actual job? What tools or services or people are involved in that job? So how's it getting done? And then what's the what's the business risk, the missed opportunity or the the the the value creation that you're creating, right? So, is it causing risk? Is it costing money? Is it, you know, they're losing potential to make more money? Something of that nature. And then the final piece is like what are the results that you're driving for people just like them? Because if you can get those answers, then you can put it all into these frameworks. >> Right. >> Totally. So I can explain the world in terms of the job that's getting done. And that allows me to confirm targeting. Do I have the right person who's working on this? And I'm doing it in an assumptive way so that they're going to nod along if you're right or they're going to correct you if you're wrong. And then you can take a step back and be like, "Oh, I I I had you as this and so you're not doing in this kind of work." The reason I'm asking was because we do we still want to go into the you do this. So do you happen to know who would be the person who's responsible for this? But if I show you, you know me, I'm either going to get them to nod along. Yep, you understand me. And then I'm going to continue the dialogue by the probe question and then I can get into my how we how we deliver a result and the actual result. Okay? And then we circle back around with and if I could show you this possible to get this result, you know, like we're doing for others like you, would that be worth some time to continue the conversation? So I think there's a lot I think there's a lot >> point here is if we if we zoom out and wrap it with this like there are some really clear overlapping patterns with if you talk to anyone who's been in cold calling for a long time and has worked on the craft you'll find these patterns. The patterns are that in order to get to the core message it's layered with things that you have to get through first. First I have to establish that I can have a conversation with you and I have your attention. After I have your attention, then I want to actually confirm that I have the right person or you're still a relevant person and from there transition into the actual pitch. It could be called a pitch, but it's not really that. I'm not I'm not pitch slapping. It's really more of a inquiry. I'm like trying to I'm trying to see is this something that is relevant or not? And in order to set that up, this is the exact pattern you'll almost always see. There's a one two punch to it. There's like an A and a B. In part A, it's describing the current situation and in part B, it's describing the potential future. And I'm trying to identify what is the size of the gap in between if any. Kenan calls that gap selling, which is a whole discovery framework. But it's a good framework to be able to think about like this is the core piece of the messaging. If that gap is big enough for this person I've reached, there's usually going to be some level of interest from that person to say, I would love to figure out how to actually go bridge that gap. How to go from what you're describing to what is true today, assuming that I have the final piece of the equation on my side, timing. So, like Ryan opened this show with by saying, there's a four-party equation here. You've got message, channel, what's the third one? >> Target, message, channel, timing, >> target, and timing. Right? So when you get message locked in, it's relevant for the prospect in the right channel. They're receptive, reachable, and even hear your message. You've got three of the four pieces. The only one you don't ever control is going to be timing. That's one that you have to discover and then do the follow-up. If the timing is not now, but it is a fit. And if you happen to identify those like 3 to 10% of people in your market who are ready now, they tend to show you that interest. Those are the patterns. I actually had once mapped it out into like a six-part uh timeline and I got this idea from Jordan Balffor because he talks about the straight line and there is a straight line. Uh this was kind of the idea back when I was using this script. It's not exactly the same as our framework today for our clients but it was these six points where I start with that opener where I'm essentially just trying to uh get your attention and then immediately get into what the purpose of the call is. In our case, this is often where we're going to already do a title check. And then it's a matter of uh is this the right person? Can I now transition into uh either doing some sort of um social proof point of here's some customers we work with? Can I talk about tools that show them I know them? And then I get into my main pitch and then I close and move on from there. And sometimes the close is not going to be to book a meeting. A lot of the times it won't be. Sometimes the close is simply, "All right, I'll try you back in a few months. See how it's going then." >> Or activating them to your site, right? Uh, that sounds interesting because you send me some information. Well, you in front of your computer right now. Pop on over to this doc, you know, your website. Oh, yeah. I'm there right now. Oh, okay. Yeah, cool. Fantastic. Sounds like you made it over there. Loop back around. Now that you see it, would it be would you be opposed to finding some time next week? Ah, no. Let me let me on this. No problem. Now, I just got them into my digital funnel and you could follow up. It's not a big deal. That'll save you a lot of time. But I think the general concept here that I I it's coming to like the the forefront at the moment is there's there's two general ways that most people will cold call, which is the old pitch slap. They call him pitch slap without a lot of dialogue, without a lot of >> Yeah. >> confirmation of do I have the right person? They're just they're just wording >> jinx. The other one is they're they're they're trying to do too much discoveryesque selling which is too early in the conversation and so it becomes an interrogation and I don't even know who the [ __ ] you are. So when you merge the two which is like I'm making assumptions around showing you that I know you or I believe that you look like people that I work with today and here let me show you. I know the market. I'm talking to a lot of people just like you who are involved in trying to do this business function and they're doing it in a couple different ways and I'm showing you that I know the market. I know I also kind of know like Eminem and 8 mile all the things you're going to say back to me. Yeah, we're already doing it in this way. Well, I just told you that, right? So then I can now probe or provoke or ask the question that sets up the follow on. Okay, great. So then you're just like everyone else I talk to. here's how we're doing things a little bit different and as a result it's driving this type of business impact saving money, extra revenue, time, whatever. And then you loop it back around. So if I can show you it's possible like these other people to deliver this result. Is it worth continuing the conversation? That's where you want to get. And that's that's the the middle ground between a pitch slap and an interrogation. And I feel like every other messaging framework that's out there right now is too much pitch slappy or too much interrogation. And it's really challenging for newer reps to be able to manage a lot of those open-ended questions that you had in your old messaging framework, which is causes like you can get someone to start answering questions and then all of a sudden you're like you're overbaking the potato. Yeah, that's actually what happened with this with this approach is it got to interrogatives and it the reason it worked for me specifically is because I had tonal control and I was able to deliver it without interrogating because I would deliver it with a tone of like curiosity instead of what 90% of reps who tried to reuse it would deliver it as like an interrogation. And so I wouldn't re necessarily recommend this format if you struggle with uh having the situational awareness when you're on the call to know how you sound. And I had to, you know, kiss a lot of toads as they say to get to that point. It took me a while to eventually get better control of my tone. But the framework we use at OP on operators is a little more friendly for folks who might struggle with the tone because it it actually does a really good job of removing the tone from being something that it matters as much. It's still very important, but not as much. and instead it becomes a little bit more easy to follow the framework. And we'll we'll link that one to the show notes here. If you check out the description, you want to see the actual framework that we use. But the bottom line is this. If you're in the business of making calls, it is important that you're able to get to a consistent pitch. And ultimately, whatever is the outcome of that pitch is not in your control. And when you get to the pitch, you want to show them you know them. You want to speak to them in their language, insider lingo, in a simple and clear way. And one other thing that's really important is don't try to do too much in a pitch. One pitch, one message. It's okay to move to a second message if that is a dead end and you still can, but in that moment, just focus on one thing at a time. One thing that drives me crazy is reps who might layer three, four things all at once >> and they're pitch vomiting all over their prospect. It's like you just got this opportunity to have their attention on one thing. Instead, you threw four at them and want them to pick it. It's It doesn't work because it's confusing. It's unclear. You still have to remember this is a cold call. It's an interruption to their day. Their attention is very shaky. And so to keep them focused on the call, listening to what you're saying, and responding in a way that's meaningful, keep it clear, focused, and simple. >> That's a wrap. And that's a wrap.