#382 - Why Your Cold Call Value Prop Isn't Working | Sales Playbook

So you open your cold call, you get permission to proceed. And what most sellers do at this point is they've done all this amazing work and they throw it in the trash by delivering a value proposition or a pitch that is littered with buzzwords and sounds like a 60 second Billy Mays infomercial. And so what we are covering instead is the problem proposition number one, why most value propositions and pitches suck. Number two, what is the problem proposition and how do you deliver it? And then number three, we're going to give multiple examples from our own time selling products, but also we will give multiple examples for other people building their own problem propositions so you can build one on your own. Today's show is brought to you by Text Us, which helps you move your deals forward faster. When timing matters, the fastest way to move a field forward is to avoid getting stuck in the inbox. And so my favorite way to get on a text basis is literally when your prospect requests a demo, just send them a confirmation text saying that you're looking forward to the meeting and that opens the text channel for you to call back on it later, folks, we put an entire guide on how to revive ghosted deals, nudge next steps and use texting to keep deals moving forward. With Text Us, check it out. It's free in the show notes.

So most salespeople have been trained to think that the key to being a great seller is to have a really strong pitch or a really compelling value proposition, which might sound something like ping is an all in one platform to help you automate your attorney time tracking or pave is a single source of truth for all of your compensation data and strategy. The problem with traditional value propositions and pitches is number one, they tend to include these vague terms like all in one platform or single source of truth. And the problem with language like that is one, it might mean something to you when you say automated platform, but it is nonsense to your prospect. It doesn't tell them exactly what you're calling about. Furthermore, language like that, those buzzwords are the same thing that every other cold caller is saying. And now you have dropped yourself right back in the telemarketer bucket. The other issue with those value propositions is they typically tend to pitch benefits instead of the problems that your prospect might be experiencing. And one thing that's important to make clear here is the your value. Your benefits of what you sell have no context in the mind of your prospect unless there is a problem attached to it. If I'm selling titanium coated cookware and I Call Armand and say, I've got this amazing titanium coated cookware. He doesn't know what that actually means for him. He doesn't understand the value of titanium coating. But if I call him and say, hey, you remember that omelette you cooked for me last week where the egg got cracked, entrusted to the pan, we can make that go away with titanium coated cookware. So you need to get them to care about your value by leading with the problem you solve first. So if you're still not sold, let's actually give some examples of some products that maybe you've bought in your life and we will share the value proposition and then the corresponding problem proposition that I think is a bit more compelling. So the first one. Easy dog food delivery service.

Never carry kibble to your car again.

Speedy home cleaning.

Let us deal with the scum behind your toilet.

Home laundry service.

Are you going to lose another sock this week?

Ergonomic insoles.

If you're tired of taping. Heel blisters.

Nose tape for clearer breathing.

Who likes breathing through one nostril?

Eucalyptus cooling blankets.

Are you waking up at 3am sweating my phone.

So you can see the problem proposition is far more compelling than your typical value proposition. And frankly the data backs this. Also, when we looked at those 300 million cold calls with Gong, we saw that value based language and buzzwords were the least effective. Social proof was a bit better, but problem language is far above the other ways that you could pitch what you do.

And so to give you an example, Nick and I actually used to sell vending machines together. We started a protein vending machine company where we would dispense these massive 2 pound tub protein bottles of whey protein and we would sell them inside of gyms. But the problem is we had to get a custom built vending machine because most vending machines are built to vendors. Small cans of Coke and Pepsi versus we were trying to bend these two pound tubs. And so it was a great idea. As you can see in the picture, it was a sick looking machine with two jacked looking co founders and it would have gone great. We never would have started this podcast if that machine could ever vend a goddamn tub of protein. And so every single day we would wake up and we would get a call from the angry gym owner named Olga and she would say your machine is shit. And we would walk into the store and we would see a variety of different mistakes or vending issues associated with our machine. One day a vending mechanism literally collapsed on top of a tub and we Opened up the door, and the entire inside of the machine was caked in powder. Another day, a woman went up and she wanted to order a bottle of Opti Women, which is a multivitamin geared toward women. And instead it vended her. A bottle of Opti Men. A multivitamin geared toward men. I thought it was sort of funny. And so eventually this, like, got to the point where we wanted to expand, but there's no way we could have possibly expanded because this machine could not vend big tubs. And so one day I get a cold call from this competing vending machine manufacturer, and I gave him a really friendly greeting. I said, oh, you want to sell me another piece of shit? And the guy laughs. His name is Brian. And he goes, look, man, he's like, the reason that I'm reaching out is I know you guys have Vendico machines, and typically when I'm talking to Vendico customers, they're sick of the jammed products, the glitchy touchscreens and the support calls, because, frankly, their machines aren't made to vend bigger products. And you guys are vending tubs of products. Protein. And so we literally redesigned every single problematic vending system inside of our machines, from the gears to the way you dispense the big products so you can actually vent something that's bigger than a can of Coke. And so, look, my guess is the last thing you want to do is look at another machine, but would you at least take a look so you know it's out there? And I was like, holy. This guy, like, practically had access to our support logs. And so what did I do? I took him through the logs. I was like, all right, we had a two pound tub of protein jam on the thing like this. How would you fix that? He had an answer for this. I was like, okay, we had a product that was supposed to bend Opti Women, but instead it vended Optiman. How do you deal with it like that when we've had to consolidate multiple shelves? He had an answer for it. But the thing is, I knew almost nothing about what Brian's machine looked like, what it was, his company, who he was. The reason that I trusted him is he spent 80% of his time demonstrating that he understood the problem that we had. And he saw other customers like us who had the exact same machine with that problem. And so I took the meeting. And that's the key takeaway from the story, is if you spend 80% of your time talking about the problem, it creates this sit up moment with your Prospects where they're like, this guy literally sees the spreadsheets, he sees the jammed products, he sees the pain of my day, he's in my business. He's not just a random telemarketer trying to shill a product. And for that reason, once you spend 80% of your time establishing a problem, you really only need one or two sentences to explain how you solve the problem. And that is what the problem proposition is.

So Brian earned your attention, Armand, because he led with what we call a problem proposition, talked about the issues you were facing, which got your attention and earned him the right to get more time with you. And if we actually zoom into what Brian said, there's three key pieces that go into an effective problem proposition. The first, the most important is that triggering problem. The frustrations, the, the worries, the ridiculous things that your prospect is having to deal with that your product makes go away. Then you follow that with a very brief one sentence solution description just to give some credibility to like, hey, there's something behind this. I can make that problem go away. And then it ends with a super light, hey, do you want to learn more or not? You're not jumping into, hey, do you want to meet next Friday? You're certainly not saying, hey, do you want to sign a contract on a cold call? You're just validating. Are you even open to hearing more from me? So let's actually talk about how to build a problem proposition of your own. The biggest issue that I see with most sellers and their problem props is they don't get specific enough. And they'll say things like, we save you a lot of time or we'll help you save or make money. The problem with that is pretty much anything in the world will help you save time or make slash, save money. And that's just not specific enough to get your prospect's attention because frankly, they've been desensitized by those Geico commercials that they see every time they watch a football game saying, we're going to save you money on your car insurance. You've got to get more specific to earn their attention. And so in order to build a triggering problem, you can layer in a number of descriptors to make it just a little bit sharper. So let's actually look at an example from when I sold billing software to law firms. A base problem would be most CFOs tell us that billing takes a lot of time. Probably not compelling enough to earn a meeting. I need to start to layer in more to make it sharper. So If I add in the Persona CFOs of insurance defense law firms, the type of law firm I'm calling gets a little bit better. I can add in the annoyances, those deductions, rejections and appeals make billing take a lot of time. I can layer in the scenery what's happening, time or place, when that problem emerges after winning a big case. And I can make it really powerful by saying the emotion that's felt, it's not that they tell us it takes a lot of time, it's that they think it's ridiculous that they have to deal with those things.

And so I'm going to give you a test to know if you're doing it right. And that test is probably going to make you puke in your mouth. It's called the hairy lollipop test. And so I want you to imagine that you're licking a dum dum lollipop, you're walking around and you butterfingers, you drop it on the ground and that lollipop lands flush inside of a shag rug, and the bristles get wrapped all around it. And so you roll it around, you give it a nice little dollop, little twirl in the Pixie Stick powder, and then you pull it up. What do you see? You see a whole bunch of hair. And that is the level of imagery and triggering disgust that you need to create when you're describing your triggering problem. If you cannot literally see the deductions, the rejections, the appeals, the hair on the lollipop, it's not specific enough. You literally need to have a problem so dangerously specific that it triggers a memory and a prospect has a picture in their mind. And so there are two ways you can actually do this. So a lot of times people struggle with getting really, really specific because they're like, my solution does this, this and this. It's an ERP software and it literally automates the entire business. So if your solution is a little bit more simple and it solves one massive problem, you can just go deep on that problem. So let's start with an example for a company that solves one big problem. One of my clients, their name is Covey, and they essentially have an AI robot that will screen inbound applications so you don't have to look at every single one. And so a triggering problem might sound like this. Most talent teams find it mind numbing to sift through 2,000 inbound applications just to figure out which five candidates you should even talk to. And so you can already imagine the 2000 applications just to get five candidates. And that problem for a recruiter is naturally triggering. But if we take another example of a company that solves a lot of different problems, we can use one of my other clients called Practice. And so Practice, as a reminder, is a tutoring platform that helps tutoring companies manage everything from the scheduling of the tutoring sessions all the way through the payout to the tutors once those sessions are delivered. And so a three, three part problem can help me track the different parts of the solution that they have. And so a three part problem allows you to hit multiple potential pinpricks when you solve many different problems. And so it might sound like this, most tutoring teams are bogged down in minutia with scheduling all the sessions, tracking how many each student has left, and then making sure the tutors get paid. And so notice a pro tip here is if you're going to give a three part problem, try to have that three part problem be three problems that you solve in chronological order. And so example, scheduling the sessions comes first, tracking the sessions comes next, and then making sure that the tutors get paid is the final step. And you can naturally imagine as a prospect that you're going to cover all the little problems in between those three parts.

So one other common mistake folks will make when they're crafting their problem proposition is they won't adapt their language based on the seniority or the title of the person that they're calling. The way that you talk to someone in the C suite should probably be different than the way you would talk to a manager or director level contact. And so those below the line folks, they're dealing, they're bogged down with the day to day minutiae and frustrations of those deductions, rejections and appeals. And so you can speak directly to the process problem of those folks. But for folks who are above the line, typically VP and C suite folks, they're not dealing with the day to day as much. And so what we need to do is we have to attach a business problem to the process problem. And so here's what the difference might sound like. If I'm calling for pave, if I'm calling a manager of compensation, I can get away with saying, hey, you know, typically during Q1 merit season, most of the compensation teams I talk to are buried under a mountain of spreadsheets with like 17,000 vlookups. They're dealing with that pain. And so that's enough to get their attention and get them to care. But if I'M calling a chro. I need to attach a business problem to that same process problem and so I'm going to chunk up and add more. That's something we learned from Jason Bay. And my problem proposition will sound something like, you know, typically during Q1 merit season, most of the people leaders I talk to freak out when they see that their team is buried under a mountain of spreadsheets because it becomes really, really hard to ensure that their managers are making equitable compensation decisions. The person in the C suite cares about ladder problem and I show them, hey, we're going to make both of those go away when I chunk up.

And so to recap, we have three problem propositions. One for Covey, one for practice and one for pave. And now all we have to do is add a one sentence solution. The easiest way to add a one sentence solution is to say we do this, which allows us to solve the problem where the we do this is the thing that allows you to solve the problem. In other words, what is your key differentiator that allows you to solve the thing that we just spent 15 seconds talking about? In the case of the vending machine example we gave earlier, the thing that allowed Brian to solve the issues with vending those big tubs of protein was the fact that he literally custom designed all of the major vending mechanisms that would have issues with vending anything larger than a can of Coke. And so if we attach the one sentence solution to each of these examples, here's what it sounds like for Covey, it might sound like most talent teams find it mind numbing to sift through 2,000 inbound applications just to figure out which five candidates they should even talk to. And so look, Covey takes your ideal candidate criteria and it uses AI to surface the top applicants so you don't spend all day screening those resumes. So notice two things in play with the one sentence solution. The first part is what allows Covey to solve the problem is the fact that they have an AI robot that ingests your candidate criteria. But then we re anchor to and that allows us to solve the problem that we just talked about.

Really good. So another example for practice, which is that tutoring platform is most tutoring teams are bogged down in minutiae with scheduling all the sessions, tracking how much each student has left, and then making sure that the tutors get paid. Practice consolidates the scheduling, session tracking and tutor payouts so that you don't have to juggle 20 systems or let sessions.

Fall through the cracks. And so Your final examples with PAVE. During Q1 merit season, most compensation teams are literally buried under a mountain of spreadsheets with 17,000 VLOOKUPs. And so look, PAVE integrates your HRIs, your equity and your comp data in one place. So you literally never have to run merit cycles and spreadsheets again. And the reason that PAVE is able to solve that problem is because normally your comp data lives in a million different places. So by integrating those things together, you can solve the problem of merit cycles and spreadsheets.

So you triggered them with your problem. You told them the one sentence solution. Now it's time to round out your problem proposition by asking them for the meeting. Most salespeople get this part wrong and they've been trained to say things like, hey, are you free at 10 or 2 Eastern for a 15 minute meeting or would you like to meet with a specialist? Or are you interested in checking out a demo? CTAs like that feel very heavy to your prospect because you're asking them to make multiple decisions at once. Do I care about this problem? This person asks me, Do I believe that this salesperson's company can solve it? Do I want to meet with this person and am I actually free during those times? And a rule of thumb that frankly spans all of sales is that you should only ask your prospect to make one decision or answer one question at a time. The most important thing here is that you validate their interest in learning more before all of those other things. And so instead of handling the logistics of the time or the content, is this a meeting? Is this a demo? Just figure out do they want to learn more. And if you inch forward and get that initial yes of yeah, they want to learn more, then you can handle all of the other meeting logistics and get on the books. And so an interest based call to action might sound something like, look, I know I'm totally cold calling you out of the blue, but are you open to learning more sometime? Or hey, would you be open to taking a peek at this thing? Maybe not. When I'm cold calling you out of the blue. Those are much lighter and easier to get that initial yes, at which point then you can handle logistics.

Notice there are two parts of the interest based call to action. The first is you need to sort of acknowledge that you cold called them out of the blue and you're not literally looking to meet with them right now. And then the second part of that is asking them if they're open to learning more or open to taking a feature. So, putting it all together, here's what your full problem proposition looks like. So, for Covey, it sounds like this. Most talent teams find it absolutely mind numbing to sift through 2,000 inbound applications just to figure out which five candidates they should even talk to. And so look, Covey takes your ideal candidate criteria and it uses AI to surface top applicants so you don't have to spend all day screening resumes anymore. Are you open to learning more about this? Maybe when I'm not cold calling you out of the blue.

So, for practice, here's putting it all together. Most of the time when I talk to tutoring teams, they're pretty bogged down in the minutia of scheduling all the sessions, tracking how many each student has left, and then making sure that the tutors actually get paid. And so practice consolidates the scheduling, session tracking and tutor payouts so that you don't have to juggle 20 systems or let sessions fall through the cracks. Look, I know this was out of the blue, but did any of that even sound moderately interesting?

And then lastly, your example for PAVE is look, during Q1 merit season, most compensation teams are literally buried under a mountain of spreadsheets with 17,000 VLOOKUPs. And so Pave integrates your HRIs, your equity and your comp data in one way so you don't have to run merit cycles and spreadsheets anymore. I know I totally cold called you out of the blue, but would you be open to taking a look sometime? Just so you know what's out there? So folks, the three steps to a great problem proposition is you need to describe a triggering problem with hairy lollipop specificity, and then from there you almost brush over the solution like it's an afterthought. In other words, we do X to solve the problem and then you end in a low friction, interest based call to action. That sounds like open to learning more.

And so we gave you a ton of examples in this section and if you want even more, well, you're in luck. We've got a peek at our new course. There should be a link below to see it right now.