The 30-Second Commercial
Whether we’re making cold calls or answering phones; doing walk-ins or networking events, a well-crafted 30-Second Commercial can help us find symptoms to problems that we solve. It allows us to uncover some surface symptoms that move us into a more in-depth conversation which can be a productive avenue to building value and closing business.
Our 30-Second Commercial looks to build out four elements that probe for interest. We want to present who we are, what we do, and then present 2 or 3 scenarios which demonstrate the common pains that individuals have that we solve. We finish off the 30-Second Commercial with a hook question that throws the 3rd party stories into their court in hopes of sparking a conversation that can lead to further business development.
The best part about a process, a system, a 30-Second Commercial is the automated delivery that comes with a practiced and tuned construct. If we take pride and control into its creation then we give ourselves the opportunity to biopsy our presentations and tweak if necessary, or simply become masters of our presentation. The more comfortable someone is talking about their role, the more likely the listener is to believe they have an inherent expertise in their execution. A confident response to what do you do validates how well you do it and demonstrates your expertise.
Who you are and what you do need to be short and built into the pain scenarios we present. As you note, I don’t give my last name, nor do I qualify my position in the company. I want to move past the information that highlights me and into the story that they might connect with. Anytime someone connects, they will be more willing to engage and go into detail about what interests them regarding what you do.
Emotional Trigger Words
Then, the pain scenarios. We build these out of emotional trigger words. In Sandler, we use the acronym FUDWACA to work as a mnemonic device to keep us thinking about the importance of emotional trigger words. What would your FUDWACA stand for?
Frustrated
Uncertain
Disappointed, discouraged
Worried
Angry
Concerned
Afraid
Emotional trigger words help people move the process of conversation from an intellectual space to an emotional process and helping people share with us on an emotional level can be made easier simply by using language that targets emotions. When we ask questions, typically, we are leaving the customer on the intellectual and rationalizing the conversation. By moving the customer from the intellectual to a deeper, emotional conversation we open the door for actual lived experience to speak to what our hopes are in a conversation.
These emotional words are fundamental as we turn our features and benefits into problems or challenges that we can arrange into a question to build out our pursuit of emotionally compelling pain indicators. Follow this process to develop your own pain indicators.
Your Pain Indicator
List two features of one of your top products or services that you offer.
List two benefits of each of those features that you know is helpful to your existing customers, that they might provide praise and feedback for.
Turn those benefits or features into the inverted problem that the feature is solving. If, for example, we solve communication issues, then we want to highlight the consequences of dysfunctional communication
Now, turn that into a question. We know the consequence of communication issues is dysfunctional teamwork. Perhaps some version of, have you ever been frustrated that you’ve built a team of really solid individuals, but they haven’t merged and because of that a lot of issues arise out of a lack of teamwork?
In this example, we’d want to have a much quicker transition from the emotional word to the impact and we’d need to have a most stronger impact. We need to create an immediate link from the emotional scenario to the impact of that scenario which will trigger a deeper reaction that pushes the person we’re engaging into an emotional experience, if triggered, that might bring them back into our conversation.
The Hook Question
But, to bring them back we need to hook them, and a hook question is exactly what we use to do that. Depending on the scenario, wishy-washy words such as could, suppose, maybe, etc. can be a great way to open a broad scenario up to someone. Some different hook questions might be:
I don’t suppose any of those have ever been issues for you?
Have you ever countered any of these issues at your work?
These probably are situations you haven’t experienced, have you?
Are any of these areas particularly painful for you to deal with?
A 30-Second Commercial can be the key you need to fashion in order to take your business development to the next level. Do you have one now? What’s it sound like? Reach out to me and let’s have a conversation about the positive effects of having a pitch ready for everyone in your organization. If we provided an answer that people could have confidence in answering, what do you do, how do you think it would change how your organization overall felt about what they do?
Questions, comments, suggestions? Reach out to me at Jim.Stephens@sandler.com. Have a great week and remember, if you measure it, you will manage it.
President of Crossroads Business Development Inc.