I will suggest you keep 10 business owners on your checklist this will really help you in comparing whose idea is the best and you can adopt that idea. I have done idea extraction as well and these are what I have experienced. Steps before making a cold call –
1. At least a day or two, send email to cold call group. Usually, I have tried emailing a group before I start calling. I do this, because if the gatekeeper asks why I am calling, I can say it is about an email I sent on such and such day. Before, I had a 1 in 10 chance of getting past the gatekeeper, now, I rarely get stopped by the gatekeeper.
2. Go to person in my call list - make sure I know First name, and last name.
3. Pull up company website - check the quality, know loosely where the company is from, and GUESS rough income based on the website. You can usually tell this within 1-2 minutes, at least well enough to know the basic facts.
4. Take a few deep breaths - say to yourself, OK - what is the worst thing that is going to happen here? They are going to say no. They are going to be annoyed. You will live, and it will not be the first time.
5. Get my Call Record option ready to go in case the call gets good. Grab a calculator and have it ready in case I need to do some price anchoring on the fly –
6. Make call - have script ready and already memorized.
7. Gatekeeper - Hi, may I help you?
You - “Yes, John Smith please, it’s George Wardman (I use the more formal version of my name, it sounds more business-like - Make it sound serious - not friendly - just deep voice, serious, no messing around. When I used to try and chit chat with the gatekeeper I almost always got shut down. Get by this person as fast as you can - IF they ask why - say again - "Tell him it’s about an email I sent to him two days ago” - be vague, 90% of the time, you’ll get put through.
8. Once the person you want answers - and you start talking do NOT stop for any reason. You must say what it is that you want, as fast and as short as you can to get them talking - Forget being friendly in this first part - it’s all about getting them to answer that first question. Have some sort of script ready in your head.
Good questions that you can ask are as follows:
1. Tell me a little about your business?
2. What is the most critical job in your business?
3. Could you walk me through your day?
4. What is the first [second, third, etc] thing you do in the morning?
5. How you create value for your customers?
6. What is your most challenging aspect of generating revenue or creating value?
7. What would help you generate more revenue or create value for your customers?
8. What is the most frustrating part of your business?
9. What software do you wish existed, but you cannot seem to find it?
10. “If you had unlimited resources, what would you develop to make your day more productive?
If you want to know more, you can ask the following questions as well:
1. Think about the last couple of days at work, what have been your biggest struggles lately?
2. What manual tasks in your daily routine would you like to automate?
3. Do you have any ideas on what would make your job easier?
4. Are there any features missing in your current software that you wish existed?
5. What is the most expensive problem in your business? Do you think this could be automated?
6. Are there any areas in your business where duplicate data entry exists?
7. What is something you know your customers want from you, but you have trouble providing?
8. Is there anything you want to do with your mobile phone that you cannot right now?
9. What is a problem you have tried to solve in the past, but it did not work out?
10. How much time do you spend emailing on a given day?
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath