True cold
calling -- the face-to-face pursuit of unqualified prospects -- has long
carried a whiff of the unseemly.
---
Jay Finega,
“48 Hours with the King of Cold Calls”
Are you a consultant, attorney or
professional services salesman who hates
cold-calling, too? If
so, try the Competency-Centered Client Prospecting system,
described here.
COMPETENCY-CENTERED
CLIENT PROSPECTING
PART ONE--OVERVIEW
The Competency-Centered Client Prospecting (CCCP) system is for those of us who can’t
stand telephone cold-calling. The CCCP system is different. Unlike cold-calling, which is a one-shot system—you
call and try to get an appointment. You either succeed or fail, end of
story--—CCCP is a two-step system which
eliminates the full-court press of conventional cold-call systems. CCCP is
a system that makes the prospect call you. And it is a system that lets you set
the level of activity you want to generate without those hateful cold-calls.
Cold-calling
by telephoning or knocking on doors is a rote numbers game.
You work large numbers and get small results. Small or not, you do get
results. But, for whatever reason,
many of us can’t abide the cold-calling process.
The Competency-Centered Client Prospecting process is an alternate to
cold-calling, to generate appointments to sell consulting services; it is
also an excellent way for some clients to sell their wares to the public.
The CCCP Two-step
prospect generation system automates the slog of making new contacts, and lets
you do what you’re not only good at, but enjoy doing—working the prospects once
they identify themselves as such. Here is the CCCP System:
1. The Two-step aspect of
the VA prospect generator is based on the premise that prospects prefer to
convince themselves that they need your product or services, than be
convinced by you. And, if you are visibly highly-competent, they will want
to give it to you. Like the horse that lets you lead it to water, but will
make up its own mind if it wants to drink, Step One is to get the prospect over
to the trough. Step Two--to get it to drink—is accomplished by a specially
positioned website. We accomplish this two-step process by working each of
these two tasks entirely separately.
Think about it--there
are only two reasons why you don’t make a sale:
- The prospect doesn’t
need your product or service, so no amount of salesmanship can possibly make
him buy it.
- Or, he
might
need it, but he isn’t at all convinced that
you (and your
services) are worth the money.
Remember, business owners consider
themselves jacks of all trades and masters of all trades. That’s how they
got to where they are. They
often resent someone who comes up to them out of the blue and claims to know
more about running their business than they do. No matter how well you get
along with him, no amount of nice-guy small talk is going to overcome the
suspicion that you’re no more competent at his business than he is—and probably
a lot less. After all, he’s running the business while you’re running around
looking for the business.
The CCCP two-step process:
Step One:
- Ingratiate
yourself
- Test
for prospective qualification. (Can he use your services? If not,
move on.)
- Once qualified,
establish your competence .
Step Two:
Send him to your
specially-designed website--and walk away.
2. Under the CCCP
two-step process, when you meet someone socially to give an elevator pitch to,
you specifically don’t try to close him (something that is consider
highly inappropriate in most high-level social situations anyway). Instead,
you ingratiate yourself, you test for potential qualification, you establish your competence—and then
you fob him off! Instead of trying to close him on the spot, which is
always a tension-inducing moment (no matter how “smooth” you are,)
after you
establish competence you gently brush him off-- by referring him
to your website. This completely eliminates the appearance of you as an
aggressive salesman. Most importantly, this tactic makes you look so confident
and self-assured, that you have no need to scrabble after sales. It also makes
obvious that you are a superior, no-pressure type of guy--just the type most
high-level prospects want to deal with.
(Note—this
is NOT the procedure to be used during an appointment, where you are
trying to close. But in no case will you attempt to close until after
you have
established competency.)
3.
Here is an example:
You own a foreign car
repair shop and meet someone at a cocktail party who you discover drives an Alfa
Romeo—a perfect prospect.
Here is the
conventional
one-step sales pitch:
“Oh, you drive an Alfa? [He's
qualified.]
That’s a great car. Fast and lithe.”
“Yeah—and fast to the repair shop, too.”
“Oh. Are you unhappy with the repair shop you have?”
[A press for more qualification.]
“I’m not sure. Why do you ask?
“Well, I run a foreign car repair shop. We do lots of Alfas.”
[A claim of competence.]
“Really? Where is it?”
“Over in Sudbury. Just off Main Street. Come in the next time you have a
problem. [Oh-oh—a pitch, but why should he come
in at all?] We know
Alfas quite well.” [Aha--another CLAIM of competence, but
no evidence.]
“Yeah, well, thanks.”
[Looks around for someone else to
talk to.]
Here is the CCCP Two-Step
System:
“Oh,
you drive an Alfa? [He's qualified.]
That’s a great car. Fast and lithe.”
“Yeah—and fast to the repair shop, too.”
“Have you had trouble yet with synchromesh going into second gear?”
“Why yes I have! I just noticed it. Sort of a scratch or scrape before it
engages.”
“Well you better to see to that right away. It only gets worse. What you want
to do as soon as possible is to change the transmission fluid. Change over to
Shell Dentex—it’s an automatic transmission fluid, but it clears up the synchro
problems in Alfas.” [You have just established mega-
competence--and it cost him nothing.]
“Wow, that’s great advice. How come you know so much about Alfas?”
“Well, I run a foreign car repair shop. We do lots of Alfas.”
“Really? Where is it?”
“It’s in Sudbury—[And now the gentle brush-off.]
But you can go to any Shell station and they’ll be able to change the fluid.”
“I know Sudbury. Where in Sudbury?”
“Off Main Street. Here’s the website (hands him a business card). There’s lots
of information on Alfa maintenance on it that you can look up.”
[Second brush-off.]
“Jeez—thanks. This is interesting. Say, can I ask you, have you ever raced
Alfas….?
Just look at what you’ve
accomplished: You've made friends,
you've established that you know a hell of lot more about Alfas than he does,
you’ve given him a valuable freebie (advice), and you’ve told him where
he can get even more valuable advice—at your website. Having proved
your competence out of the way, you can go back to further ingratiating yourself. Ask yourself
in which of these two examples you are more likely to get a new client. Ask
yourself which is the more pleasant and sociable method of hooking a prospect for both of you.
4. Now, when the
prospect goes to your Foreign Car Repair website, he is
pre-qualified. He goes expecting to find tips on maintaining Alfa Romeos
and, correctly designed, he (and other foreign car owners) won’t be
disappointed. Because the website you send him to is not designed to
ballyhoo the repair shop. (This is what 99% of website designers will give him.)
It is designed to reaffirm your competence in correctly fixing foreign
cars. Once that is established in his mind, you suddenly are worth the
money.
Remember, creating
the pain of business disaster in
order to pressure the prospect into hiring you to relieve it is never enough--no more than creating pain in a drowning man by
pointing out to him if he doesn't get help quickly, he's going to drown.
To give him hope,
he not only has to see you have a life preserver under your arm,
he also has to believe you can throw it to him. Then he'll be very anxious to negotiate!
Thus,
Step Two is to send him to your specially-designed website. This website must work hard not to sell by sprinkling pixie
dust in the eyes of visitors extolling Your Corporate Greatness, but by containing
more hard
information to further establish your superior competence/value. Let him
create his own pain--the specter of the very expensive loss of synchromesh in second gear, loss of
ignition when driving through a deep puddle, etc., etc. All the pain
becomes self-inflicted, all the “selling” occurs in his own mind. When he
becomes convinced you know what you’re doing, HE SELLS HIMSELF.
This
two-step process is as effective in obtaining clients for your own consulting
practice as it may be for your clients to obtain more business for their
companies. Once you learn it for yourself, you can promote it to your clients.
5.
But remember, establishing competency is a bit like declaiming honesty,
innocence or virginity: In today’s cynical world, no one believes you.
Competency cannot be claimed, it can only be
demonstrated.
What
does this mean for your current “buy me, buy me” website? The first thing it
means is that you’ll have to dump all the glorious glittering generalities
so beloved by website do-it-yourselfers.
The single most popular
website nonsense phrase is: “XYZ Corp provides __________ solutions”
(fill in the blank—“total,” “IT,” ”marketing,” “financial,” etc.) This
hackneyed phrase
struggles to cover everything, yet “solutions” is so vapidly all-encompassing,
any suggestion of factuality is lost. How can you possibly establish competency if
the reader of your website has to guess at what you do? “Simply the best” is
another popular and factually vacuous claim.
6. Now think about your own elevator pitch. How would you break it up into
two components? Naturally, the first thing is always to establish your
good-guy credentials. That never changes because (in the words of the
inimitable Ed Dolan): "Before anyone cares about what you know, they want to know
that you care.” Then, having established rapport, you have only to demonstrate
high competence in the subject of your mutual hot center of consciousness.
If you can do that—and you’d better be able to do that—the clinching is then
turned over to your prospect himself via your website—to which your trenchant
demonstration of competence has driven him.
Having interested him in
your competency, you no longer have to try to wheedle contact info from
the prospect, or—even more embarrassing—try to obtain a meeting on the spot.
(Imagine that—no more forcing a prospect to listen to you beg for some
business!)
Why is driving someone to
your website more effective than trying to close on the
spot? Because it is an affront to try to sell people things in a social
situation. Not doing so—but evincing competency--makes you appear tremendously
confident in your abilities. You know a lot and you didn't try to push anything
on him--even though you easily could have. (Lesser men would have tried.) This
technique creates "negative pressure"--you're not a blowhard; rather, by backing
off, you suck him in. By having his interest aroused, he will volunteer
to let your website give him a sales pitch, but without the pressure-cooker of
you being there to give it. And, of course, a well-thought out website can give
much more information than you ever could face-to-face—charts, graphs, photos,
videos, PROOF of competency! And
he's gone there on his own accord!
7. Now, how to eliminate cold-calls? Well
first-off, you can’t not make any effort to generate prospects.
The CCCP system does not replace cold-calls with doing nothing. With the
CCCP Two-Step System, the initial contact is just done in a different, much less
simplistic/aggressive way. Instead of pushing yourself on your prospects, you only have to
exhibit a competency which drives those of your prospects with problems to your website on their own.
This can only be done by convincing them of your ability to deliver--titillating
them--in a subject that is important to them—their business problems. This
technique takes just as much hard work as cold-calling, but it is a much
different task than cold-calling. And a lot of the work is front-loaded—like
creating a competency-persuasive website before you employ CCCP. Most importantly, little
pitching effort is wasted effort. Before every pitch, you will have qualified the prospect.
When qualified, if he doesn’t bite now, he may bite later, because what
you've said is interesting to him, and you haven't pissed him off with a
high-pressure sales pitch. The 99% of the cold-calls
you made but didn’t get appointments for is time totally wasted. None of
them will ever turn into anything. But planting the seed of high competence can
pay dividends any time in the future.
But, the two-step CCCP
system is not just for face-to-face encounters—that is a very effective but
very slow method. The Two-Step system is also used in a variety of other,
mechanical means to
accomplish the same thing--Prove competency and drive them to the website.
There are many ways to
drive prospects to your website other than the invaluable elevator pitch. One
of the favorite Velocity Associates technique is the direct mail post card. Another is the trade
magazine post card deck. Real estate agents run ads (see one
below) that describe
some technical aspect of buying a house, thus establishing their competence in
the specialties of their field. And, of course, there are all the networking meetings,
conferences and organizations to which you can belong.
There are many other ways too, some of which are discussed below.
8. OK, now you have an
over-view of the secret jungle-juice formula. But there’s an obvious catch to
this powerful and little-known selling technique. (Otherwise, everyone would be
using it!) There is a huge difference between knowing the notes, and being
able to sing the song! It is one thing to learn how best selling novels are
structured—and quite another to be able to write best-selling novels. The former takes an
appreciation of the underlying logic of the novel form; the latter takes
a special talent. The two are not the same.
So there are two critical
parts to the CCCP system: The first is to modify your elevator pitch to exude
competence (and exclude asking for business); the second is to
position your business website
to provide evidence of your business acumen (competence) so the
prospect, who goes there by himself, is now convinced to buy. This latter part
requires significant skills in the verbal arts--skills not one businessman
in a 100 possesses, no matter how well educated.
Part
Two
PROOF
OF COMPETENCY (or, How to do Phase One.)
Phase One is how to find out where the prospects are and,
once you’ve found them, how to make perfect strangers think you’re just
what the doctor ordered.
WHERE
TO PITCH—AND WHOM
Shown below is a list of
the three general venues in which the opportunity to pitch may arise:
Personal-Informal, Personal-Business and Mechanical, which can also be personal and
impersonal. Each requires a different approach. Note the important qualifier
“may arise.” Only after you’ve established rapport, and qualified the person to
test if he is a prospect, can the subject of your competency arise—and the more
informal the situation, the less hurriedly can you jump to your business aim.
|
1. Personal Pitch |
|
2. Mechanical Pitch |
|
1A. Venue (Informal) |
1B. Venue (Business) |
|
|
Commuting SeatMate |
Reception Waiting
Room |
Direct Mail
|
|
Events Seat/BenchMate |
Networking Party
|
Repetitive Ads |
|
Casual Neighbor |
Business Meeting |
Post Card Decks |
|
Fellow Dog Walker |
Telephone Inquiry |
"Surveys" |
|
Fellow Parent |
Personal Inquiry |
Broadcast Interviews |
|
Cocktail Party
Stranger |
WebSite Inquiry |
Newspaper Interviews |
|
Dinner Party
Stranger |
Letter Inquiry |
General Magazine
Articles |
|
PTA Meetings |
Referral Inquiry |
Trade Magazine
Articles |
|
Social
Associations/Clubs |
Trade Associations |
Very Local Papers |
1A—Personal-Informal.
Here you have to tread the most lightly. Few things will repel casual acquaintances more than an overzealous pitchman hustling his wares in a socially
neutral zone. A simple rule is never to volunteer what you do until asked.
You might yourself ask people in venue 1A what they do after a certain decent
interval. If you find out they are a mortician and you are selling whole
blood, scratch that person off the future pitch list and enjoy the pleasure of
his company for other reasons.
1A Example:
You are a
business attorney walking your dog:
“Hi, Mary, I see that
Bozo has got his summer haircut.”
“Yes, and he looks like he’s lost ten pounds.”
Speaking of losing ten pounds, how’s
your bakery catering business doing?”
“Oh, it’s still moving along at a dead level progression. What’s up with you?”
“I came across an interesting case of food poisoning in which
my client,[ First inkling that you have
clients] a meal caterer, was
sued because the mushrooms he was given by his customer to serve, turned out to be
poisonous.” [Evidence of insider catering knowledge, i.e.,
relevant competency.]
“Really? Good Lord. What happened? Did he win his case?”
“I won’t know yet. I'm
trying it right now.”
“What’s the prosecutor saying your client should’ve done?”
“He claims she should have known that the mushrooms were not edible and refused
to cook them.”
“But the customer supplied them!”
“Yeah, but just like you, my client is supposed to be the food professional.
Shows you
can’t be too careful nowadays…
And that’s it.
You’ve
made no overt business move, yet you’ve planted the seeds, and that’s all
you can do in this situation. Don’t try to force feed it. You’ll be seeing Mary
and Bozo many more times, and you’re still a way off from trying to
establish any competence in the bakery business. Relax, and wait for the next
mini-opportunity to water the seedling some more. In the meantime, look-up
bakery catering to get a better overview of the business.
After a few weeks of
watering, the seedling will grow and before you know it, she’ll become genuinely interested in what you do—not just politely
interested—and she’ll want to
know more. There, your patience paid off.
1B—Personal-Business.
You’re taking a coffee break at a trade exhibit for electronic displays, and you
strike up a conversation to a guy standing next to you. You read his name tag:
“’Werner Kleagle,’ I
knew a Karl Kleagle—any relation?”
“I think there’s a Karl living in Atlanta…”
“No, this guy’s out of Secaucus, New Jersey. Works for Panasonic...
“Well, that’s gotta be him then. I’ve heard of him, but we’re not related as far
as I can tell. What business are you in?”
“I consult companies on the newest wall TV flat panels.
[Dropping the bait to see if the person can be qualified as a prospect.]
What new technology to watch out for; what’s not going to make it, and so on.”
“Oh, yeah, the ‘big screens.’ Are they really worth the money, or am I still
better off using much cheaper regular TV sets? [A
nibble. Prospect has qualified himself. Plus he used the plural “sets.”]
“That depends on the application. Are you thinking of getting them to watch sports?”
[You are now lightly attempting to qualify the
prospect. Is there any possible business here?
But it is not yet a sales pitch; you are
demonstrating competency by demonstrating that it is necessary to know more exactly what his
application is.]
“Yeah. Football and basketball.”
“Well, right now you should only buy
the plasmas.
If I were you, I wouldn’t even consider buying an LCD until next year’s models come
out in the spring.” [Exhibiting inside knowledge, i.e.,
competency and seeming to be pushing prospect away—which forces him to
qualify himself further.]
“Really? How come”
“All the LCDs still have problems showing motion—you slowly get a headache.
Of course the plasmas tend to wash out in bright light…”
“..which I've got in my living
room."
“The best thing then is to wait until the 2007 LCD models come out
next spring. Some of those will have the new motion-blur reduction
circuitry—mostly special backlights, and they work beautifully showing
crisp motion and in fairly bright light. But don’t fall
for any close-out specials. They’ll all be the older models.”
[Powerful proof of competency.]
“Great to know. Appreciate your comments. You must really be in the business?”
[A stronger nibble. This is a good sign that the prospect
is a live one.]
“Up to my eyeballs, so don’t quote me in writing on not buying now.”
(Pushing him away, not pulling him.)
“Ha-ha. Do you have a card? Besides me personally, I’m also here to try to get
an idea of which big screens to buy for my motel chain. We’ve got six locations
and each has a small bar.” [This is the moment that
separates the men from the boys. The boys would now go for the jugular; the real
CCCP salesmen would appear to back-off gracefully—deftly pulling in the hook on the way.]
“Oh that. You have to be doubly sure your clients don’t get head-aches from
LCD motion-blur or they’ll try to blame it on the booze you’re serving. Sure,
here’s my card and website. There’s a white paper in it I wrote for
Information Display magazine describing the motion-blur problem and how it’s
being solved. That should help you make up your mind.”
[Again establishes his bona fides—this time by 3rd party endorsement,
and gives the quarry breathing room by backing off rather than trying to
engage in a full-court press.]
“Gee, that’s great. Do you have any personal opinions…?”
[Prospect now not nibbling, but snatching at the hook. ”Do me,” he’s crying
out, so go ahead.]
“Plenty, it’s what I do. But I’d want to know a lot more about exactly what your
situation is. Room size, lay-out, audience size and most important--ambient
light. The website describes
the different options. What kind of lighting do you have in there? Is it
controlled or does daylight break in?
“Jeepers, you really are on top of this subject.
Say, would you have some time to take a look and
maybe give me a recommendation?”
MECHANICAL PITCH
Enough
on face-to-face pitches. No matter how much networking you do, you can only make
so many personal pitches a month. What if, as with most of us, those aren’t
enough to fill your dance card?
The Mechanical Pitch
is the use of media to advance your cause instead of cold-calling. Here is that list again:
|
Mechanical Pitch |
|
Direct Mail
|
|
Repetitive Ads |
|
Post Card Decks |
|
"Surveys" |
|
Broadcast Interviews |
|
Newspaper Interviews |
|
General Magazine
Articles |
|
Trade Magazine
Articles |
|
Very Local Papers |
|
Bill Boards |
PHASE
TWO—THE CCCP-STYLE WEBSITE
Velocity could fill a
book on the horrors of poor website design. Here is a short list:
1.
The homepage fails to state concretely what the company does. More than half of all websites fail to make clear
on the homepage what the company does.
2.
The homepage coyly hints at what the
company does—it provides “marketing” solutions. Or “IT Solutions.” Or “financial
solution”--in hopes of enticing the prospect into a game of 20 questions. But
how long do you think an impatient prospect is going to play your drawn-out
game?
3.
Cecile B. DeMille designed the
introductory flash video. It goes on and on. Actors prance in fields of
flowers, abstract images swirl about suggestively—suggesting that something
concrete is sure to happen real soon—if the prospect has hung around to find out.
4.
The Fog Index of the home page
requires a PhD in English literature to follow. (A Fog Index of 28 in one case when it should
be no higher than 12.) Sentences contain 150 words
(longer than most paragraphs), and still you don’t really know what they do.
5.
(Take a look at:
http://www.velocityassociates.net/notes_to_report_card.shtml to see an
example of one website’s transgressions.)
Here, again from the
Velocity Associates website, are some of the content basics you must follow:
- Describe the
first-order issues as simply as possible. What does your Company sell or
do? Are you embarrassed to say because you think it's not
interesting enough--or will scare some people off? Make it interesting by making it concise,
concrete and informative.
- Follow-up with the
most interesting (to the prospect) benefits. Why is this
product/service of interest to me?
- Then branch-off to
allow a prospect (who now is interested, and realizes he may be in the right
spot) to find the particular areas of his greatest concern. Yes, but do
they have what I want?
- Make him realize
that Company is such an excellent choice he can stop looking. Wow!
Competence in spades! This really might solve my problem.
- Give him the impetus
and a painless way to contact the right high-level person at Company
for further information. "Click here" to have a salesman call, or—the best
bet by far—have the name and telephone number of the Sales Manager of VP of Sales
(even if the call automatically goes to his secretary or a salesman).
Underlying the Velocity concept of
competence-proving websites is the supposition that The Power of
Clear Expression has a strong, conscious and subconscious effect on a
prospect. Concise, lucid writing, clean, simple graphics, all give the impression
that the company is straightforward, has its head set on right, and is pleasant to deal with. Plus, it
answers the prospect's questions in the time he is willing to allot to the
task—usually between 5 to 15 seconds to set the hook!
Some aspects of clear
writing is to state in a few words the most important facts about a company in
rank order, that is, describe items 1-5 above. How to do that in a gracious and
pleasing manner is what takes great positioning and copywriting skill. Many
business leaders hear the call of providing such eloquence; few are chosen.
The biggest problem by far
is that no business head can look at his own business from the point of view of
the customer. Thus, what he says will always be company-centric and not
customer-centric. This is always a turn-off. There is no cure for this,
any more than there is a cure for a mother seeing her plain daughter as anything
less than beautiful.
But the principle
difference between a conventional website, and a CCCP-style website should be
clear enough. Old-style websites spend a lot of time extolling generalized
concepts of the company’s goodness and success; CCCP-style websites prove the
competence of the company and its staff, and how they will benefit the customer.
**************************************************************************************************************************************
SOME EXAMPLES
Here is the ad copy of a
real estate salesman taken from a local free newspaper. (Ad size is 4 X
5-inches.)
*******************************************************************************************
When you need or want to sell your home, who will understand
exactly what your going through? I as your local real estate agent know
all the positives and negatives that can be associated with selling your
home.
Perhaps you’re under the pressure of selling because of an
unpleasant circumstance like divorce, or job transfer. Being overwhelmed by
issues that are forcing you to sell can sometimes cloud your judgment when
it comes to making decisions about the real estate transaction. Place
yourself in my capable hands as a a qualified real estate professional who
will coordinate the smoothest transaction possible.
Maybe you have other concerns about selling, or about looking
ahead to your up-coming home-buying experience. You want a particular
neighborhood, or maybe you want privacy and seclusion. You wan the most
house you can get for the money, but maybe you’re not sure what you can
afford. You made several improvements to your current home, but maybe you
worry about pricing yourself out of the market.
I welcome you to fully explain all of your anxieties and your
desires. I am trained and have the experience to handle the ups and downs,
and genuinely care about helping you through a sometimes complicated and
confusing process.
Even if you’re not sure
what you want or need, I can offer solid information and guidance. You
desire nothing less!
Please do not hesitate to
Call Today for any of your Real Estate needs, or for a Strategic Pricing
Assessment of your property and current neighborhood price trends of course,
at no obligation.(261 words)
***************************************************************************************
Before
you read further, think about the impression this ad made on you. What does
it tell you about the author? What do you think he's like? Do you feel he
could solve your real estate problems? Why? Then read the CCCP
break-down (or "parsing") of this ad to learn what this real estate agent is
really saying: (Red Ps are pain points;
Green Cs are relief points, which we count.)
When you need or want to sell
your home, who will understand exactly what your going through?[P1] I as
your local real estate agent
know all the
positives and negatives that can be associated with selling your home. [C1]
Perhaps you’re under the pressure
of selling because of an unpleasant circumstance
like divorce, or job transfer.[P2] Being overwhelmed
by issues that are forcing you to sell can
sometimes cloud your judgment when it comes
to making decisions about the real estate transaction.[P3] Place yourself in
my capable hands as a
qualified real estate professional who will
coordinate the smoothest transaction
possible.[C2,C3]
Maybe you have other concerns
about selling, or about looking ahead to your up-coming home-buying
experience.[P4] You want a particular neighborhood, or maybe you want
privacy and seclusion. You wan the most house you can get for the money, but
maybe you’re not sure what you can
afford.[P5] You made several improvements to your current home, but maybe
you worry about pricing yourself out of the
market.[P6]
I welcome you to fully explain all of your
anxieties and your desires.[P7]
I am trained and
have the experience to handle the ups and downs, and
genuinely care about helping you through a
sometimes complicated and confusing
process.[P8,C4-6]
Even if
you’re not sure what you want or need, I can
offer solid information and
guidance.
[P9,C7-8] You deserve
nothing less!
Please do not hesitate
to Call Today
for any of your Real
Estate needs, or for a Strategic Pricing Assessment of your
property and current neighborhood price trends of course, at
no obligation.[C9]
First,
this ad is a classic example of inflicting pain [P] followed by
offers of resolution [C]. Nine pain points, nine relief points. But, all
the relief points are mere claims--no evidence of competency is offered,
even when it would be easy to do so.
Second,
the English-usage is not that great, an indication of middle-class
schooling. Correct English usage is one of the best subliminal projections
of competency--it proves you have mastered something, and gives an
aura of higher intelligence. Of course, by itself, good grammar is not
enough. Long, turgid Germanic sentences can be grammatically correct, but
they are a real barrier to prospects. Thus, eloquence (style)
is required, which
is achieved only by those skilled in the art..
Velocity Associates
believes the agent is making the fundamental mistake of inflicting pain
without looking at what that infliction does from the prospect’s point of
view—who might be asking: “Why are you torturing me like this?”
The agent is
correctly asking for the business, but offers not a single benefit
that distinguishes him from any other registered real estate agent.
When he brings up his “experience” claim, he doesn’t even offer as evidence
the major selling point of how much experience he has.
Here
is a CCCP revamping of his advert.
*************************************************************************************
When you sell your home, who will understand the difficulties
you face? As your local real estate agent, I have guided hundreds of
anxious home-owners through the complex maze of selling real estate. I can do
the same for you.
Perhaps you’re under external pressure to sell—perhaps a
divorce, retirement or a job loss. As a qualified real estate professional
for over 35 years, I have smoothed the bumpy road for hundreds of anxious
home-sellers.
Maybe you have other concerns about selling, or about your
up-coming home purchase. You want the most house you can get for the money,
but you’re just not sure what you can afford in your new circumstances. You
made improvements to your current home, but worry your estimation of their
added value may be causing you to price yourself out of the market. Having
sold homes before and after extensive improvements, I know just how much
value each type of improvement can add—or take away—from the value of your
home.
Let’s sit down and discuss all of your
desires and anxieties . With my 35 years of experience, I can handle the selling
process ups and downs. More importantly, your former neighbors know from
their experience that I
genuinely care about helping you through the complicated and confusing
process of selling your home.
Even if you’re uncertain
about moving, I have the financial and historical resources to give you
up-to-the-minute information and guidance. All at no obligation whatever.
You deserve nothing less!
Please call me today for a
Strategic Pricing Assessment of your property and your current neighborhood
price trends.
(265 words)
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Here is a Before &
After shot of a revised website homepage:
The first image was the homepage
of www.P3ProSwing.com , a website selling a golf swing analyzer. It’s not bad, but it is
very crowded and takes a shotgun position on the product benefits. There’s
something there for everyone.
