The following is a true story about the power of a perfectly formatted VITO card. Before you pick up that £3000 phone to make a sales call to any member of the ‘C’ suite, including the CEO, please read and remember this story.

Recently, one of my salespeople had some car trouble, so I offered to drive him to work. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to do a little one-on-one role-playing, I suggested we brush up on some appointment-scheduling phone skills. A well-proven statistic that you have only eight seconds to grab an executive’s attention. Daniel, I was a little skeptical about the eight second rule. He looked at me and said, “Boss, eight seconds is too short a period of time! It’s barely enough time to take a deep breath, let alone make a meaningful opening statement!”

At the next red light, when it turned green, I kept my foot on the brake and started counting: ‘One thousand one, one thousand two…’ People started honking. By the time I got to “one thousand and four,” Daniel was begging me to move. By the time we got to six seconds, the guy behind us was starting to get out of his car and Daniel was looking for a place under the seat to hide. When I finally got to eight, the intersection was a symphony of honking, ‘finger pointing’ and screaming mouths. I stepped on the accelerator.

Now, if you’ve read any of my books, attended my live events, webinars, or read any of my articles, you’ll understand what motivates ‘C’ Suite members to buy; you know the real benefits of your product, service or solution; and you have a good idea about the VITO tactics at your disposal. When you find yourself getting ready to pick up that 3,000 pound phone to call any ‘C’ level executive, including the CEO, what do you say?

Let’s also assume you’re calling a new lead:

You have decided to use the phone to do this, either as a follow-up call to a written communication (see my article on Corresponding to VITO), or as your first contact without sending a correspondence.

Your goal is to get an appointment or create the next step with VITO, who is the person who can actually buy whatever it is you are selling and the person who has the ultimate veto power.

Three big goals:

1. Make it sound conversational.

2. Deliver it with confidence.

3. Get a favorable interruption as soon as possible…one that clearly keeps VITO in control.

The Five Key Ingredients of Your Phone Opening Statement

For now, assume VITO will pick up his own phone and not his personal assistant… (for my epic tactics on working with VITO’s private assistant, check out my article titled ‘Guardians’). By the way, VITO will take its own phone about 25% of the time.

Key Ingredient 1: The Introduction

Usually, when VITO takes his own line, they say his name: “This is VITO” or “VITO Importanta speaking”. Your first step will be to repeat the name of VITO. Keep things formal for now, use Mr. or Mrs., then VITO’s last name.

Prospect: This is VITO.

You: Mrs. important?

Prospect: Yes.

This first step will earn you all the attention of Mrs. Big. Whatever she was doing before you said her name, she has now stopped doing it. She’s paying attention to You and that’s a good thing!

What most salespeople do now, despite ample and endlessly repeated evidence that they shouldn’t, is say something totally silly like this: “Hello, Mrs. Jones. I’m Will Perish, from ABC Insurance Company.” .

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Unless your name is, say, James Bond, or your company affiliation is, say, the Publishers Clearing House Prize Disbursement Division, or the IRS, I can tell you what happens next in the vast majority of such cases. calls. The prospect will respond to this counterproductive “verbal handshake” by disconnecting, asking you to send written information, pretending the building just caught fire, or disengaging from the call. In other words, you’ll only have been on the line for about a second and a half, and you’ll be done.

Key Ingredient 2: Pleasure

Here’s an alternate plan (one that works). What I am about to tell you will contradict what you have been taught. Do it anyway.

You are going to say something positive and enthusiastic, something that does not directly identify you, your company or the product or service you want to talk about. It’s too early in the call for that… Instead, you’re going to use a courtesy, something like this:

• “It’s an honor to finally talk to you!”

• “Thanks for answering the phone!”

•”Thank you for taking my call!”

•”What a surprise to put you live!”

Get the idea? Each and every one of these jokes will do a better job for you than your name and company affiliation at the beginning of the conversation. Or say something totally silly like, “How are you today?” or, “Do you have a minute?”

Key Ingredient 3: The Hook

Immediately after his prank, he will hook the intentional area of ​​VITO’s brain using a hook that is directly connected to something that is likely to be of interest to this VITO.

“We’ve helped (three of the top five device corporations) further increase shareholder value (increasing revenue by up to 4% per year) while holding the line (core item expenses).”

Now, there is a tangible benefit if there ever was one! Keep your hook focused and one or two sentences long, and you won’t go wrong.

the interruption

Most of the time, this is where you’ll get your favorable interrupt if your hook is doing its job. VITO is likely to jump in and say something like:

“Interesting tell me everything.”

Prayed:

“How did you do that in this economy?”

Prayed:

“I have absolutely no interest.”

Don’t worry. You’ll learn how to deal with any not-so-favorable disruption to another one of my high-value items.

As I said, you will almost certainly be interrupted at this point. However, for the sake of completeness, you should complete the development of your opening statement, so that you know what to say in those cases where you are not interrupted at this point.

Key Ingredient 4: Naming Names

Once you have shared your hook, VITO knows the reason for your call. The cat is out of the bag. This is the perfect time to identify yourself and, if he wishes, his organization. If you choose to identify your employer, give them a short “business.” What you say fits in one sentence. It should sound like this:

“This is Will, Will Prosper, with ABC Insurance Company, the busiest company in the insurance industry today.”

Key Ingredient 5: Your Final Question

If you are not interrupted at this point, you will conclude your opening statement with a closing question that incorporates some element of time.

“Mrs. Big, does this address issues that concern you this (month/year/quarter)?”

Prayed,

“Mr. Benefito, do you want to achieve something like this by the end of this (quarter/year)?”

Prayed,

“Mrs. Important, what is the best way to explore this further?”

Prayed,

“Mr. Benefito, who on your team would you like to continue this conversation with between now and the end of this business (day, week)?”

Putting it all together:

Here is an example of an opening statement for VITO that works. Yours shouldn’t sound exactly like this, but it should be about this long and should, like what follows, hit all the bases you’ve been reading about.

Prospect: This is VITO.

You: “Mrs. Important?”

Prospect: Yeah…

You: “(Pleasantly) It was a pleasure to read that your company has successfully expanded into the European market. By the way… (Hook) After studying another client’s operation, we suggested an idea that provided revenue gains of more than of $25,000 per year. The real surprise is that we did this without taking an ounce of your hard-earned capital. (Your name) This is Will Prosper at Zenith. (Final question) similar or greater results can be hard to duplicate. But, Would you be open to take the next step between now and the end of this business week?”

Again, you shouldn’t try to just insert your company details into the message you see above. You should use all the ideas in this article and most importantly make sure you read all my articles and use what you read!