I am going to talk to you today about my favorite prospecting strategy as far as telemarketing and setting appointments. This is a great opening pitch that you can use. I have been sharing this in some of my consulting meetings lately, and I decided to put it up here on the website.
Before I dive into that, though, let me just take one moment to share my content marketing strategy with you. Thank you so much for following CCSalesPro.com, my YouTube channel, and all my different resources. I realize I am not the normal guy that does content, because I’ll go for a month or two without posting anything. There is a specific reason why I do that. I really believe that as people are getting more and more into pushing out content, they feel that they need to post something every day whether they have something of value to say or not. I take a few months off and think about things and work on big projects, then I try to post content when I have value to add. I have some big technology announcements coming up for you in October that you are really going to be excited about. I have taken a lot of time to think about the industry and the direction that we are going. I have been doing a lot of consulting with different processing companies. Now I’m excited to get back in the swing of things, do my daily podcast, videos, and blog articles to share with you the things that I have learned over the last few months. I hope that it will add value to you.
What is this strategy that you can use out in the field? Well, it is fairly simple. Let me explain step by step what you need to do.
#1. Find something that your market or your prospects are upset about. What are people upset about? When it relates to the credit card processing industry, maybe they are upset about these exorbitant leases on standard terminals. $129/month for a 60 month lease on a VX 510. Maybe business owners are upset about how high credit card processing fees are; whatever it is they are upset about, you need to identify that first.
#2. Start a petition. Let me explain how you do this. First you need to know who your local Congressman is for your local district. They usually have an office in your area. Otherwise you need to go to D.C. If you are near D.C. you can go to their office. The idea is that you are going to get a bunch of business owners to sign a petition for something, like petitioning them to make a law that requires a company to disclose the entire cost of the lease on the terminal. Your state legislature or your state Senator can do that. Or maybe you want to petition them to lower the cost of interchange with the banks or the Durbin Amendment, or whatever it is. You can always think of something. The idea is something with credit card processing that they are upset about. You decide you are going to get a petition together. You call people. You do not need to walk in; call them. You can reach a lot of people with phone calls. Take one day and set up your whole week and just call people.
On these phone calls, I would say, “Hi, my name is James Shepherd. The reason I’m calling you today is I’ve got a local business here, and I am starting a petition because I know we are all upset about this. I just wanted to find out if there was a time I could swing by, give you my business card, shake your hand, tell you about this petition and see if you have an interest in joining other local business owners to get this petition. I’m going to personally deliver it to our U.S. Congressman, (give the name), or to our state Senator, (give the name).” That’s the whole pitch.
Now you are going to take a clipboard and you are going to collect their name, phone number, and email address to keep them informed. You are also going to collect their credit card processing volume and how much they are paying in fees because you need that on the petition to show the impact on this issue. That is why I like to do things like petitioning Congress to lower interchange fees like these other countries like Australia, Canada and the UK that are much lower. I like petitions like that because all I need from them to sign the petition is their name, phone number, email address, how much they process in credit cards, and what their total fees are. You go there and you talk to them about that. That is your whole pitch at the beginning.
When they fill that form out, what are you going to do as a sales professional?
You are going to look at that and say, “Oh, wow, you are paying $450 a month on $12,000 in volume?!? I didn’t mention this before, but my business is credit card processing. One of the reasons I am so passionate about this issue is I see business owners like you being taken advantage of all the time. While I am here, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a tool that I can pull that up on my phone since I know your volume and fees, and I can tell you right now what you can save. Do you have another minute I can just run through that and give you a PDF proposal?” (Of course, this tool is instantquotetool.com, for those of you who aren’t familiar with that.) It gives you the perfect inroad to then make sales and to be passionate about this issue and get things rolling and moving forward.
I know that was a lot of information in a hurry, but this will really help you get your foot in the door a lot easier. It is by far and away the best telemarketing pitch I have ever used or heard anybody use. I have been talking about it with consulting and helping people go in that direction. If you are starting to get shot down with your telemarketing and appointment setting, try this pitch. Create something custom. You could do your local state Senator or your local Rep and do something really customized for your community, something you know other local business owners are not happy about.
Thanks for reading this post.
James Shepherd
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