A Change of State

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As FileMaker consultants, most of us do not rely on cold calls to prospective companies as our main source of projects. Most of us are found through word of mouth, the FileMaker website, or perhaps our own websites. That being said, the principles behind cold calling can still teach us quite a bit about marketing our solutions, our services and ourselves.

It is said that fear is “not understanding”, it is facing the unknown. One of my favorite acronyms of fear is, False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear or a sense of the unknown is exactly what happens when you place a cold call, or walk into an office for the first time. You are literally trying to sell a service or a product to a company when you have no idea as to their wants or needs, not a great position to be in. The more you know, the more power you have.

The first step in approaching a new business is being prepared. As I discussed in a previous newsletter, most individuals wont make it past the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is the person that answers the phone, your first contact when trying to get to your prospect. Before your first meeting you need to know your prospects market, and know the needs of their customers. You must have enough reasons to justify them buying your product or service or at the least meeting you.

Can you name all of the advantages and benefits that your product offers in 30 seconds? Can you tell me what it is exactly that your company does or offers in 30 seconds? If you take longer than that, your prospect probably isn’t going to listen. Know your products benefits, you need to be able to align these with your prospects wants and needs. Everyone creates a perceived value of a product almost immediately. A slick time saving FileMaker solution may at the onset appear to have little value, but once your prospect understand that he will save 10 hours a week by using your product and that adds up to 520 hours a year at the cost of $100 an hour, your prospect can quickly do the math and realize that your product will save his company $52,000.00 a year.

Your prospect may already be using XYZ software, why would he want to switch to your software? Your prospect may say “No” I am very satisfied with my current provider.” Remember, “No” is an objection…and objection is a good thing, it means you are about to learn what your client really needs. First, you never want to knock the competition. The competition may be someone that he has been working with for years. The competition may be his son-in-law or an old college buddy. You need to make sure you know the competition inside and out in your market. Once again, perceived value can be a nasty lesson to learn. Your perceived value of the prospects current solution and current competitor may be very low. You may think there is no way their product or services could ever match your own. Do not let this lead you to your demise. Respect his current solution, and respect your competition. If you proceed with dignity and respectful perseverance, you can still make the sale. How can I make the sale if he is already very satisfied with his current solution and current solution provider? Simple, first, I must remind you that you need to know your competitor’s products and services inside and out…and if your product is actually better and you truly believe your service is better…then you can develop this into a sale.

Here’s how. Your prospect tells you that they already have a solution in place and that they feel comfortable with their sales rep. You tell them that you know of their solution and you feel it is a great product. You align with them. You then ask them what is that they like about the product. You then ask them to tell you what are some things that the product doesn’t do that they really wish it would do. Or, what is a service that your competitor could provide that they don’t provide. The important thing is, when they tell you these things, you don’t start saying, “well our product does that, or one of our main services is that”, you need to listen. Your prospect is divulging all of the things that are not going right with their business. You, then instead of jumping into your product and services ask him; How is this affecting your customers? How is this affecting your sales and your day-to-day operations? Your prospect needs to tie enough pain to his current product and to his current situation to want to change, to need to change. You then ask, what do you think your customers are going to do? What do you think is going to happen to your company long term if you keep going down this path? This is where you need to empower your prospect. Ask him what he thinks needs to be done, what does he need to change to make things better? What does he need to do to make things right for his company and for his employees? People always move away from pain to get pleasure. This is now your opportunity. Take this chance and show your prospect how your product will take care of all of his problems. Show him how your service will help him and empower him to regain trust of customers. Show him how increased productivity adds value to his company not only short term but long term.

Practice makes perfect. The demonstration of your solution must be well rehearsed. Constant practice, though boring makes for an effective presentation. Remember to make a mental note of your prospects needs. As you go through your demonstration, highlight those points but not so much so that they ruin the flow of your presentation.

Remember; know the benefits and the advantages of your product. I encourage you to write these down and memorize them. What are some of the advantages that you have over your stiffest competition? How in conversation with a potential client can you tactfully explore the disadvantages of using your competition? Remember, people do not like to be fooled; they do not like to be “sold”. If your product, or solution is not truly better than your competitors, don’t try to force the sale. How do you make the sale? You make your product better than your competitor. This reminds me of a great story.

My friend James loves to play tennis and is extremely competitive. Recently while playing in a tournament he was thoroughly being beaten by his competition. I watched as James began trying silly tricks and cheap shots as he began to feel more and more humiliated on the court. His competition easily picked-off his cheap shots and squashed his trick shots. James was simply outmatched. After the game, James threw his racquet against the cooler and stormed inside the clubhouse. His coach walked in with him shaking his head. After a few minutes James had calmed down and I saw James’ coach pull out a legal pad and began drawing. I thought that perhaps he was giving James some advice and perhaps maybe exploiting some weakness of his competition.

James’ coach drew a line on the notepad, and then turned to James and said.

“How do I make this line shorter”?
James still somewhat irritated said, “cut it in half”.
His coach said, “One more try.”
James said, “Erase the ends.”

His coach simply drew another longer line beside that line on the pad and said…”Now, the other line is shorter. You attempted to resolve to trickery and cheap shots, and you were thoroughly beaten by the other player’s sound technique. Learn from your match, practice those things you learn! Make your line longer by trying to improve, rather than trying to make your competitor’s shorter.”

We can apply this simple story to our marketing, our products and our srvices. We don’t want to get ahead by cheap shots, by trickery. If your competition has a product that is better than yours, make a better product!

This article was written by Stephen K Knight. You may use this article on your website, or email copies to friends as long as you reference the author and the article remains in its completed form.

This article is copyright © 2006 FMWebschool, Inc.