The other day I received a prospecting email that caught my attention. That's rare because most emails lose my attention in a few short moments (15 seconds or less).
The sales person's first two paragraphs were,
"We have yet to connect and the reason I am reaching out to you is that my company specializes in finding top performing sales people for sales leaders who are faced with the daunting task of building or rebuilding the sales function within an organization - no small challenge.
"We recognize that you are in the business of helping business and sales leaders get more performance out of their sales teams. We are interested in having a discussion around how we could potentially partner together as we have clients who could use your services just as I am sure you have clients who would benefit from our level of specialization and expertise."
As I read her message, I thought, "Hmmm, I should probably talk to her; I know some people who might benefit from her service."
However, as I continued reading, I changed my mind.
Here's why...
After explaining why she contacted me, she wrote,
"If you can spare 5 to 10 minutes, I'd like to arrange a meeting with my company's CEO (author, speaker and sales management expert, Name was inserted here) who can discuss your goals and how our Program Name (followed by the acronym) helps new VP's achieve accelerated results and sales growth."
I was initially interested in what SHE had to say but I really didn't want to listen to someone else talk incessantly about their company, their history, their successes, etc. and I suspected that the "5 to 10 minute" conversation would be much longer than that.
If your email correspondence, telephone communication or face-to-face meeting focuses on anything besides the problem at hand, you run the risk of the prospect losing interest.
Anything else just wastes their time and yours.
You see, people don't want-or need-to know everything about your company. All they want to know is how you can help them solve them a problem they might be facing.
If she had concluded her email with, "I'd like to schedule a quick chat to outline some of the results our sales training clients have achieved..." I probably would have responded with a positive reply.
Remember, your goal in any type of sale conversation (written or verbal) is to keep your attention focused on your customer or prospect. The more successful you are at this, the more likely it is that they will listen and eventually buy from you.