“What are you working on?”
True story. That simple question helped Claudette, a new BDR 4-weeks into her role, to turn a “no” into a $200k opportunity.
Here is how the conversation went:
Claudette: “Hi, good morning, I was following up on my email about safety reliability testing. We are seeing many manufacturers upgrading their safety systems. Did you get my email?”
Buyer: “Yes, I did, but we’re all set with our safety reliability testing. We just finished one.”
Claudette: “I see, well, what are you working on currently?”
Buyer: “Well that safety reliability test was part of a 12-month plan for overhauling our planned and preventative maintenance procedures for all of our systems and processes.”
Claudette: “Interesting, tell me more about that? How did that initiative come about?”
Claudette (spent the next five minutes listening to the buyer talk through his planned maintenance initiative and then said): “I think we can help several aspects of your initiative. Would you be interested in speaking with one of our systems engineers?”
Buyer: “Yes. Actually I would be interested in speaking with one of your systems engineers.”
It’s that simple. Make it a conversation.
Claudette never pitched her product. She let her buyer talk. She guided with a few simple questions on his “why” that morning, which helped her support a deeper conversation.
If you don’t dig deeper than surface discovery, you’ll never get to the bigger problem the buyer really cares about. And, your product is just going to be noise to the buyer.
