Opening Remarks

Please post your scripts(s) for: "Opening Remarks".
-Jeff Blackwell

Mr. Buyer, I'm Joe Seller with XYZ company. We provide temporary staffing services to help companies like yours work through immediate staffing needs caused by employee absences. Is reducing the impact of employee absences important to you? -BossMan

Mr. / Ms Broker, if there was a way you could get the bottom 50% of your agents to produce 6 to 9 extra transactions in the next 12 months, would there be enough profit in that for you to spend one hour with me? -Jerry Bresser

People and buisnesses know they are going to work with you in the first few minutes. Why not build value by beginning your conversations with building a friend relationship?
Get to know them,get to know thier company,get to know their needs.Then move onto a business relationship.
Some want to get right into the business relationship. Wanting to know who you are what you represent and why you represent.These are the few.
Be prepared to adapt to the client you have and the style that fits them. -rich34232

Jeff;

Are we talking prospecting here or were you getting at how you begin a sales call once the prospecting is done and you are keeping an appointment?

I am a wee bit unsure what you intended in this thread. -Gold Calling

Great question... let's go with BOTH. ;sm -Jeff Blackwell

If I could help you to get your bottom 50% of sales consultants to produce a 20% increase in business wouldn't the profit generated for you and the company make talking to me for an hour a smart thing to do? -Tony Dunne

I like to call the pattern interruption. Suppose you are selling a product or service door-to-door or B2B:

"Hello, I'll bet your wondering why I am holding this football in my hands aren't ya?"

That will get the attention of the potential client. -Jumpman

Sharp JUMPMAN, there are many examples of that type ice breaker, few examples of pros who use them though. I love it!

If it is an opening line in a B2B sales call, clearly, if we prospected them before, as appose to say meeting someone in public, the "if I can do this and this for you then would you be interested" is not on.

Your goal at the beginning of a sales meeting is to make sure the prospect feels comfortable that their time is likely to be well spent, so you can start to uncover needs/hot buttons (pain) ...

We start out by saying - after chit chat - " ... as I suggested on the phone, there are several ways that we can benefit you/your company. Obviously without knowing more about your specifics I cannot guess exactly which are applicable but I will say this; our other clients have sent remarkable improvements in _______ (efficiency/sales etc), which relates to dramatic increases in profitability. I know we can do that for you too - at least the is a very great likelihood of that eventuality. So, please, with your permission, let me ask a few questions to ascertain what areas we can help you improve upon."

Now, telling is not selling. You must ask questions (probe) to understand the needs of each prospect, even if you have worked with a nearly identical client before, we cannot assume what he/she will think is most important. Ask them. And then, if need be, help them understand other "opportunities" ...

PAIN that is felt before you arrive is not the only possibility for benefit. There are often other potential improvements lurking that the prospect is not even aware you could provide.

Without the time to ask, if we are just to TELL then we are going to blow a great deal of potential sales and worse; ruin potential improvements for prospective clients.

Remember, if they don't buy, more often than not, it is your fault.

Best of luck always! -Gold Calling

Gold Calling, thank you!

In addition, I enjoyed your detailed description on the benefits package. What I really like about it, is that you are showing the customer or potential client, that you truly can help them out.

In doing so, you, the salesman, are not the one that is going to suffering, it is the client that is passing up the opportunity to BENEFIT their business or even themselves.

The more you are willing to walk away from a deal, the more the customer will see, "Okay, wait a minute, this is really one heck of a deal. If they do not need my business, than it must be truly that genuine and truly that reputable."

As a salesman, we must believe in what we are selling to the point, you have to feel that you hold the key to another realm. Or, you have the answer to the stock market getting back to form (haha). -Jumpman

well thats interesting in approach... i would find that last question a little condescending myself as a prospect...unless of course you word it more like

"Now surely reducing the impact of missing employees on your business is important to you...isnt it?" -planrecruiter

jumpman is right...the more you take it away the more they want it.... -planrecruiter

I beg to differ on the statement that "telling not selling" now i know alot of people are gonna grumble at that.... but in my experience, I can actually accomplish quite a bit with statements that sell.....curiosity and tension building statements....

for example, if is presuppositional phrase is finnessed just right and can trigger just the types of thoughts you need your client to think.....

an unorthodox but very effective example in many cases for many products...you may actually be wanting to get them to ask you questions instead of the other way around.... dont get me wrong....this dont mean not to ask questions....just make sure they are relevant, not condescending and overly rhetorical....use questions to either get relevant info and to keep prospect engaged... use statements to probe and get the info you cant just ask for....

if youre showing a product or service that is based in a highly anticipated price such as a vacation package or a home appliance...you can make statements such as "this package here is not usually right for most people"

they may ask, why not

you say " well its just not within the budget of many of our advertisers...so i really wouldnt worry too much about that package... its a big bulk rate package and dont get me wrong you get your advertising for a huge discount and its great, but most business arent in position to take advantage of it...."

this will more often that not get any serious prospect to want more info on that package...a bigger package.... i mean what business owner doesnt want to know the cheapest advertising cost per result is.....?

if you take it away...he gets curious..... -planrecruiter

planrecruiter;

Look, the use of any phrase can be taken out of context. Heck there is even a published book from 1954 entitled; HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS (the concepts work just as well today).

Seriously, in training if we use a phrase it is to emphasis, not to try and say this string of words is always true or valid in all situations. And, the last I checked, this forum is not a place for understanding the various forms of logic used in debating, nor need it be about semantics.

Here is the very center of it - selling can't happen as effectively, as possible (in the majority of cases) unless you understand what is important to the prospect first.

There is nothing about the statement above that implies that you could not get an order without understanding a single need, it is done everyday, by people we call order takers. The art of selling as a master or even as a competent and experienced professional, requires that you ask questions. To emphasis this in sales training we often say;


Now, come on. we are all smart people here (or we should not be in sales), as such we know that once you understand a need or pain you have to TELL the prospect how you can make that pain go away or answer that need (as well as telling buyers other things too). To sell we must TELL too but we must ASK more than we TELL ... to hit it over sales people's heads so they never forget we use various trainign skills; repetition and/or emphasizing.

Can we all assume we all know that this is what we are doing in discussion here? Must we break everything done this far to achieve a common or average increase in the sales knowledge of this forum's many contributors? -Gold Calling

Both of you (lol):

First of all, I believe you are both correct in your approaches for the different situations and scenarios that you have encountered.

You know for a fact, that there will be some clientele, where the bottom line is price. Now, they may have a lot of money to spend, or not much at all. Either way, it is up to us, the sales force to explain the features and benefits.

Asking questions and probing of course is key, and I think a wonderful way of making the sale. And, even to take it a step further, it is more than making "a sale." WE are really helping them make a smart buying decision.

Personally, I think you both have amazing ideas and I definitely learned from both of you. You and I know that clients are always different, so the conversations will always change as to, "how to gain interest." -Jumpman

I view Opening Remarks from a different slant which I will attempt to explain. First let me state the obvious. Anytime members are asked to provide a "script" which pertains to a facet of their selling process, we get wildly different examples followed with critiques by members whose skill levels and experience vary. Here we are offered "ice-breakers", rhetorical question openers, rapport builders, attention-grabbers, and more.

I sell through a strategic lens and ONLY THEN is technique created Strategy starts with assessing the situation (always). In selling we assess largely from recognizable patterns. As our experience grows, and we use our ability to THINK, the patterns come into focus and we can succeed without much struggle.

Over the years, here is something I learned about the Introductory phase of a sales call regardless of the source (referral, past customer, prospecting, advertising, direct response marketing:

The person you meet with thinks he/she KNOWS:

• Who you are.
• What you do.
• Why you are there.

It does not matter what the level of information they have about you or your company. It doesn't matter if they are a past customer, best friend, complete stranger, or referral. It doesn't matter how the appointment originated--whether you called them--or they called you. THEY THINK THEY KNOW.

But in almost all cases, they DO NOT know what they think they know.

They might think they know WHO you are in relationship to your product, service, stature, or relationship with your chosen field. But they don't. Chances are your own sister doesn't know.

They might think they know WHAT it is you provide, but if they knew that much about your portfolio, they would have to have your training and experience.

They might THINK they know WHY you are there, but they don't know the process you use to serve your clients.

That's the lens. That's the assessment.

That puts a common demoninator on all my sales calls. That means my opening "script"--my "remarks"--my INTRODUCTION is going to be centered on setting that prospect straight on WHO, WHAT, and WHY.

How one develops the script from there is a matter of choice and refinement. The knowledge above is the KIT. It doesn't come ready made. If it did, everybody here could feel comfortable with the same model. -Ace Coldiron

In situations where you are meeting prospects in their home:

"Let me begin by thanking you for inviting me to your home today. I'm always excited by the opportunity to share with people why so many of their friends and neighbors choose my company to (the main benefit of your product or service)."

This statement is polite, respectful and enthusiastic which is helpful in establishing yourself one who will approach the conversation with those characteristics. Further, it employs social proof in that it uses the actions of people who are just like them as evidence of the product or service's likely suitability for them. -thesalesgiant