The First Line is The Deepest
I asked 27 sales people from different verticals - during a sales cycle, on the first sales call, what are you trying to achieve? 21 of them (!!!!) said in one form or another that they are trying to get the sale. Not close the sale as this is very unlikely on the first call but in their mind yes, get the signed check. Only when I asked specifically a second and third time I got them to pause. Still, their reactions and thoughts were around closing the deal. This past couple of weeks we’ve been busy in launching a new email campaign. Cold calling via email and stumbled upon the first sentence of the email. Not the subject line, which is an entire separate post in itself, but rather the opening line of that intro email. We took a minute to think, just like with my question to the sales reps, what is the purpose of that opening line. Looked around the room and got responses such as: to get their attention, to draw interest, and one even said to make them laugh (my best student of Emotional Relevance classes...😊).
