Prospecting

Introduction
This works best face to face, but the basic “hook” of how you open up a prospect
is adaptable to email, phone and other methods as well. So I don’t want to hear
any excuses!

Most important to note is the technique involved. We open up the prospect to

something enticing that only costs them a bit of time, but piques their interest.
This secures the appointment, which is where we will then subsequently close
the sale.

The Opener

This is how you start the conversation:

“Hi, I’m [insert your name]. What I do is help local businesses online... Right now
I’m doing audits for business owners who invest in the internet, like social media
and so forth... but don’t want to spend a lot of money on it...”

The important parts of this opener are:

• You introduce yourself with a key benefit statement that isn’t too salesy -
(help local businesses online)

• You dangle a carrot and create a bit of mystic to get the business owner to
want to inquire further into what you do (we use the word ‘audit’ which is
unique to what they’re used to hearing from professionals who prospect with
similar services... and makes the business owner want to ask what exactly is
an ‘audit’ anyway?)

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• You eliminate key objection(s) - in this case we say “but don’t want to spend
a lot of money on it...” right up front. This has the added benefit of implying
we do expect them to spend some money

If you were doing this face to face, the most likely response you would get from
an interested prospect is something along the lines of “tell me more...” - with their
guard still up, of course!

This is where you want to shift the focus on you talking about what you do to
getting the business owner telling you things so you can gather further
intelligence. We call this...

The Transition

If a business owner shows interest, move focus onto getting them to talk further
by saying something along the lines of:

“Let me ask you a question... have you ever tried getting your business online or
do you have a facebook page?”

The purpose of asking a question like this is to gauge how much of a desire the
business owners wants to be able to establish, develop and leverage an online
presence. If they stonewall you, then obviously they’re not a great prospect.

If they have a bit of interest, there might be something there and you can press
further.

However, we really get excited when the business owner responds back with a
lot of interest and/or a major headache related to past experiences they’ve had
with getting their business online. Those problems are perfect opportunities!

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Setting The Appointment

If they’ve expressed any interest in an online presence based on the question

you posed to them, press on with the following...

“If you’re open to it... I’m doing only [x] free audits this month and I’m down to a
handful left... I don’t know if we can help you until I see what’s going on with your
business online. Now, I’m super busy for the next few days... so would you be up
to doing a free audit say next Tuesday at [time] or [alternate time]?”

Here’s the key takeaways from this:

• Scarcity - things have more value if they are scarce, so we put scarcity on
our audits (the implication is it’s usually not free... so they’re getting hooked
up... but only if they act fast!)

• Expectations - we don’t promise anything major, we tell them we don’t even

know if we can help them... this lowers the defenses of the local business
owner because this isn’t how typical sales people talk to them (you’re not a
sales person, you’re a consultant!)

• Asking for the appointment - give them two times they can choose from is
better than just one time (which can be answered yes or no). Once you book
the appointment, you have time to gather further intelligence about the
business as well!