The Ultimate Step-by-Step Formula to Getting Prospects’ Attention

We all want to get our prospects’ attention. It’s a competitive world out there.

Just like us, our prospects are savvier, more skeptical and less loyal than before. Probably, they are thinking about…

• Other ways to solve their problems.
• The promotional messages from your direct competitors.
• How can I solve this problem in the least expensive way?

On top of that, they are probably thinking about their life, their upcoming vacations or what to eat for dinner!

That’s a lot of thinking to compete with.

So, how do we get the attention of prospects?

After 15 years in sales, here is my checklist to get the attention of my prospects.

You can use this for your next networking event, next to sales meeting, crafting your sales emails, or even cold calling.

This formula is used specifically at the beginning stage of your sales engagement journey. – Piquing your prospects interests and getting their attention.

Click here for various stages of sales engagement roadmap and use it to craft your prospects’ sales journey.

Step 1: Select one big problem.

When I speak with entrepreneurs, I often hear something like this:

“It is hard to describe what I do.”

This is often the case for many entrepreneurs.

If you are a coach, you solve many problems.

At the same time, your prospects are distracted.

So, instead of trying to communicate different problems you solve, focus on one single problem – ideally the most urgent and important problem that is keeping your prospects awake at night.

Take a business coach. for example.

What is the most urgent pain of your prospects?

Focus on speaking on this most urgent pain.

Step 2: Create a simple and unique solution

Now that you have identified the big pain you want to talk about, how do you help your clients solve this pain?

Remember, your ideal clients are busy and distracted.

So, you will need to find solutions that will most likely solve their urgent pains, fast and easy.

How do you help them solve their urgent problems fast and easy?

At this point, you might wonder. It is not that easy. Their problem is a lot more complex than a simple solution.

I understand your concern.

Making sales is about motivating your prospects to take actions to improve their status quo.

What you are doing right now is to help them believe that success is possible by working with you.

Take Women Making Big Sales as an example.

We noticed that there are many clients struggle with writing sales emails. So, we created “My Ultimate Non-Salesy” B2B Sales Email Templates“.

Your ideal clients are thinking that they can just copy and paste the emails in the template to help them write better emails. Pretty easy, isn’t it?

Here are a few ideas you might want to consider:

• Webinar: Can you host a short webinar to address simple pains your prospects have.
• Strategy session: Offer a strategy session to solve one big problem your prospects have.
• Tools: Is there any tool that can help solve the problems and your prospects might not know?

The idea here is that it needs to be a solution that can be easily understood.

Let’s take another example. Facebook just announced its most recent changes for small businesses.

If your ideal clients use Facebook for their business, this recent change might be on top of their mind.

Marie-Helene Di Benedetto is a digital marketing consultant. Recently, she wrote a blog post about Facebook’s drastic change for businesses that use Facebook for their business.

With this news, Marie-Helene creates a thought-provoking blog title to catch the attention of her readers.

Is it Facebook apocalypse for small businesses?
http://www.nofluffsocialmedia.com/is-it-facebook-apocalypse-for-small-businesses/

This simple blog post answers one small, yet important, question of her ideal clients. In less than 10 minutes, her ideal clients have their questions answered.

Want to put everything together, download the Attention-Getting Sales Message Worksheet to get your prospects’ attention now.

Click here to download.

Step 3: Art of selling without being salesy.

Now, you have a unique solution. How do you deliver this idea without being pushy?

Here are a few tips to engage with your prospects without being salesy.

Tips 1: Start with a question.

During any sales conversation, the focus is to get them engage with us and build relationships.

This is especially important at the beginning stage of your sales relationship – Piquing the interests of your prospects.

Instead of talking about the unique solution you just prepared, try starting with a question.

Try a few scripts like these:

“Hi John, I just heard the news about the merger with Company XYZ. Did you hear about it?”

“ Hey Jessica, Facebook just announced its recent overhaul. What do you think?”

Either you are selling B2B or B2C, your tone should be casual and natural.

Tips 2: Keep it casual

A casual tone can neutralize the tension with your prospects and can also make you sound confident.

You might worry, what if I don’t sound professional enough?

As long as you remain professional, there is no worry about not being professional enough.

Your well-researched topic and understanding of their pains will make you sound professional enough.

Step 4: Always end with a clear call to action

What do you want when you have gotten the attention of your prospective clients?

Depending on where you are in the sales engagement journey, you do not want to scare your prospects by asking questions.

If you are at an early stage of your sales relationship, focus on a simpler call to actions.

Here are some ideas:

“Let’s have coffee together.”
“Let’s connect on LinkedIn.”
“I’ll send you an article that you might find interesting. I would love to hear what you think.”
“I have this great free report. I will send you the link and feel free to download it and let me know what you think.”

Remember my tip earlier about visioning having coffee with a friend? What would you ask this friend after the conversation?

Step 5: Keep experimenting

This is probably the most important aspect of crafting a message that would attract the attention of your prospects… experiment.

It is completely normal if what you say at first does not get the response you want from your prospects, especially if you are new in your business.

Don’t get discouraged if you do not get an enthusiastic response from your prospects.

Keep experimenting.

Plus, you are planting seeds in your prospects minds. You are building trust.

So, keep experimenting different topics to discuss with your prospects.

Eventually, you will find your most powerful message that would get the attention of your prospects.

Once you find your powerful message, it becomes your asset and weapons to sales success.

So, what have you come up with? Got any questions?

Let me know.

To your big sales,

Melinda