“You should add value” – Jason Bay in today’s Tip 339
How do you find out what will be valuable to the prospect before reaching out?
Join the conversation below and go check Jason’s LinkedIn post!
Blissful Prospecting
Jason Bay on LinkedIn
Jason’s LinkedIn post
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. It’s Tuesday, which means that Jason Bay from is back with another great prospecting tip. Here here is:
Jason Bay: You should add value. This is what I hear a lot right now in terms of sales advice, and I’m always kind of puzzled with what people mean by value. And again, I asked this question a lot too. You know, Hey, I know I’m supposed to be providing value when I’m prospecting, but how exactly do I find out what it will be valuable to that person before sending them some content or something that would be valuable. So first let’s think about this from the prospect’s perspective and use a little empathy here. To find the prospect, you’re catching me in the middle of something that is likely with 99% certainty more important than taking your cold call or responding to your cold email. You’re also not the only salesperson reaching out to me asking for my time and if you send a 40-page white paper, my head is going to explode because everyone’s sending all these really big eBooks and white papers and expecting me to do the work of digging through it.
So instead of doing what most salespeople do, you can do a couple of these things that I recommend on how to find out what’s valuable to them first prior to sending them that white paper or that case study or whatever it is that you’re going to send them that would be valuable and you can pick out a specific page may be on that white paper that would be valuable to them.
So number one is build an ongoing list of every frustration or problem prospects share with you during discovery. If you’ve been doing sales for a while, you probably have recognized there’s a pattern of like two or three big frustrations or problems that prospects tend to have when you talk with them. Make sure to write those down because then you can start finding content and value to share that is going to address one of those frustrations or challenges.
Number two is the same sort of thing except for you can interview current customers or past customers about their challenges prior to using your product or service. Again, add this to that list. You’re going to get a big list and you’re going to find a lot of patterns and you can find your GoTo content for your sequences or your emails or what to mention in your cold calls so you know what’s going to be valuable to them.
Number three is you can gather best practices from your customers to share with similar prospects. So one thing I always like to lead with is, you know, “Hey, we work with a lot of companies your size with several dozen reps and we see two or three strategies that work really well for them through and setting appointments from their cold outreach. I’d love to share those strategies on a quick call with you.” So sharing best practices from other customers that have a similar challenge, work in a similar industry, that kind of thing.
Number four is follow your prospects on Sales Navigator to see what they’re posting about and engaging with. So if you follow each of the accounts you’re going after and then the contacts that those accounts that you want to connect with, you’ll get alerted when they start posting things and you can follow them. And you can also look at their profiles and their activities to see what kind of stuff they’re liking and commenting on. And that is usually an indicator of what they care about.
Number five you can look for sales triggers on Google news. So set up those Google alerts. You can put in the person’s name or their company, look for announcements on their website. You can look for social media updates from that company, but find out what they’re posting about, insuring news about in look for those sales triggers and you can make your outreach in the content and the value that you share a little more applicable. All right.
Number six is see where your prospect’s competitors have been featured on publications or podcasts and take note of what they share. So one thing that is pretty interesting is you could say, “Hey, I heard one of your competitors on a podcast and they were saying this…” or, and you could share that thing. Or they’re saying they’re very concerned about this. And you could share that with them too. And again, don’t just share the whole podcast, say, “Hey minute 11:50 I think you’d find this valuable for this reason.”
Number seven is you can find third party resources conducting studies or surveys on their industry. That’s a pretty straight forward one that gets used a lot. So I like that one. But again, you got to do the dirty work to find out exactly what page of that study you think would be useful for them and why.
And then lastly, number eight, just look at their LinkedIn profile. Like, look at what they instead of looking just at the job experience and their job description. Also, look at the recommendations. So look at what people tend to comment on them about whether that’d be their work ethic, their ability to get stuff done or whatever it maybe you can find a lot of little interesting things there too.
So I wrote this post on LinkedIn. It’s linked up in the show notes. Go check it out. And what I want to know from you is how do you find out what will be valuable to the prospect before reaching out? Take a look at the LinkedIn posts, comment, and let me know.
Scott Ingram: For the link to that LinkedIn post, and for more ways to connect with Jason and Blissful Prospecting, just click over to DailySales.Tips/339 and you’ll find it all there.
Thanks as always for listening, and come back tomorrow… or after the holiday whenever you’re ready, for another great sales tip!