Stage 3 Of The World's Best Cold Calling Framework - The Pain Exploration

We’re onto the third stage of the world’s best cold calling framework.

https://youtu.be/g7nH0MikV7w?si=hvMsT-3-EcPW2bdB

Here is where we dig into the prospect’s current situation. We want to ask questions that allow us to do two things:

1. Understand their baseline position
2. Open up the conversation for a natural back and forth dialogue

This section of the framework is harder to script in its entirety because at this stage of the conversation you, as a rep, want to be wearing your curiosity hat.

Slight tangent for you on the concept of the curiosity hat…

There are two possible hats a rep can wear when they're making cold calls.

Their sales hat, or their curiosity hat.

A sales hat is typically worn by reps when their mindset is focused on achieving THEIR goal.

Booking a meeting with everyone they speak to.

It typically results in common, non-effective sales behaviors such as:

• Happy ears
• Listening with the intent to respond, as opposed to the intent to understand
• Cutting the prospect off mid-flight
• Responding with a pitch instead of responding with questions

When a rep is wearing their curiosity hat, their intent is different. It’s simply to try and understand whether or not the prospect has a problem that their company can solve.

That’s it.

This results in effective sales behaviors such as:

• Listening with the intent to understand
• Asking questions as opposed to pitching
• Digging for reasons why the prospect might not be a good fit
• etc

So wearing the curiosity hat in this situation will allow the rep to get a better understanding of the prospects current situation and the path they’ve taken to get here.

If it turns out that in this situation they have a problem you can help them to solve - book the meeting. If not- no worries onto the next one.

Here are some examples of pain exploration questions you could ask. (these flow over from the problem statements in stage 2 of the framework - check out that blog here)

Okay, interesting - what is your dial to connect rate at the moment are you around industry average of 4% or….

And have you tried putting anything in place to lift these recently?

How did that work out?

What worked well in that situation?

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Okay interesting - and how are you tracking brand impact at the moment are you working with the likes of Neilsen and Kantar to get these insights or do you have some form of always on tracking…

Have you tested any other approaches to these insights such as always on or social voice?

Were you happy with the outcomes?

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Okay interesting - how are you managing that communication process at the moment, regular site visits and written reports or do you have some technology that helps to streamline this?

Have you ever looked at remote camera solutions or drone technology to help with this?

Why did you decide not to roll that out?

The best reps will get into deep conversations with prospects at this point. Just remember to wear your curiosity hat, be genuinely interested in the prospects current situation and ask questions to uncover deeper context.

That’s it for today.

Check in tomorrow and I’ll drop part 4 of the framework - The Close.

Catch up on part 1 and 2 at these links.

And if you want the full guide we wrote on this topic you can access that here

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