Sell Playbook: Value Propositions on Cold Calls

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1. 1:17

   there are three reasons that traditional value proposition sucks. Number one is they use a lot of those traditional buzzwords that categorize you as a telemarketer. Number two is even if you used better benefit language that explains what your product does and why it benefits them, “prospects tend to not understand how to use your product or achieve those benefits in absence of” a problem. So for example, if I was selling titanium cookware, I can explain all the reasons why titanium is a really, really good material for cookware and how it's going to make sure that nothing ever gets stuck to your pans. But unless I tell you why your current pans have the omelet

   In Problem and use-case fit

2. 1:46

   why titanium is a really, really good material for cookware and how it's going to make sure that nothing ever gets stuck to your pans. But unless I tell you why your current pans have the omelet sticking to them or the tomato paste sticking on the edges, or they start to erode after three or “four washes, you don't realize that any of those benefits are any better than your current solution.” And the last reason is people for whatever reason, they tend to just react better to problems or pain over benefits. So for example, I have a bottle of multivitamins on my desk and I take them almost every day, but I usually forget two or three times a week because I don't have to take

   In Competitive differentiation

3. 2:28

   my multivitamins. I want to be healthier, but I don't have to take multivitamins to be healthy. I have never forgotten to take an Advil when I have a headache because a headache is painful and it's in my face and I want to solve that problem right now. So what you're saying, Armand, is somebody is going to have to connect the dots between the value of your product and what it does “with what problem it actually makes go away for your prospect.” let's actually take a look at some value propositions for common consumer products and compare them to the problem proposition for that exact same product. I'll read the value proposition, Armand, and then maybe you can say the problem proposition. So the first one is

   In Value proposition

4. 3:48

   percent success rate on a cold call. But that success rate ripples to 16 percent when you use problem proposition language like we talked about there. That's right. And so, folks, instead of giving a value proposition as your pitch, we're going to give a problem proposition as a pitch. “we're not just going to jump on our cold call and start complaining about problems.” There are three steps to delivering a great problem prop. Step number one is you want to describe a triggering problem, a problem described in such specific detail that it literally triggers your prospect and reminds them of a painful visual memory. Step number two is once you're

   In Cold call opener mistakes

5. 3:57

   giving a value proposition as your pitch, we're going to give a problem proposition as a pitch. Now, we're not just going to jump on our cold call and start complaining about problems. There are three steps to delivering a great problem prop. Step number one is you want to “describe a triggering problem, a problem described in such specific detail that it literally triggers” your prospect and reminds them of a painful visual memory. Step number two is once you're done describing the triggering problem, you want to solve that problem in a one sentence solution. And here's the thing. If you spend 80 percent of your time talking about all the food getting stuck

   In Pain-point messaging

6. 10:11

   people operations or compensation, you're buried in a mountain of spreadsheets because you have a million VLOOKUPs. where you're trying to match every employee to their comp ratio, to their performance rating, to their comp increase. And by painting the problem in their language, I recreate that story for them “in a way that feels familiar to them” as opposed to using other sales language like single source of truth, all in one platform or language that's just not familiar to that persona. Great, so folks, now you know how to pitch your product using problem-based language, not value or buzzword-based language. But even if you nail this, when you're making a cold call, a lot of prospects are still going to resist

   In Pain-point messaging

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