Ryan Dohrn says every sales outreach needs to deliver clear value to the prospect. Before sending an email or LinkedIn request, ask what benefit they get. Offering marketing research or competitive analysis instead of just pitching increases reply rates and moves deals forward.
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here, your friendly neighborhood sales coach. And this week we're really focused in on stopping and figuring out the value you're going to bring to this equation. Stopping and figuring out the value. Now you might have noticed in a lot of my recent podcasts and video updates— and oh, by the way, down below, however you listen or watch the podcast or these videos, make sure you subscribe down below. That'll help us make sure we keep you alerted to everything. There's value in that subscription. There's value in every interaction, or is there? If you think about not getting replies to emails, not getting your connection requests on LinkedIn accepted, not hearing back from somebody about proposals that you send, what did you do? Stop and ask yourself, what value am I giving to the person on the other end that would cause them to reply? Now, there's a reason that hundreds of you in any given week will watch these videos and listen to the podcast, thousands of you in some cases, because I believe that I'm putting out content of value for you. If there wasn't value in the content, you wouldn't subscribe to the e-newsletter, you wouldn't watch the videos because I'm not that funny. I try to be a little bit funny, but I'm not that funny. So you really got to be asking yourself, stop and ask yourself why, what value is in this email that would cause someone to reply? So let's talk about an initial meeting request. So you want to book a meeting with a customer. You reach out to them and say, you know, hey Bob, love to talk with you about your 2024 marketing plans. I'd love to discuss planning and creative and those type of things. Email me back. Now, if Bob knows you, great, that might potentially work. But if Bob doesn't know you, there's really no value in him replying to your meeting request. So instead, what you want to do is figure out— stop and ask yourself what value will the person I'm sending this communication to receive by replying to it? So rather, I might say, hey Bob, I've got some marketing research and a competitive analysis that will really help you in planning your marketing for 2024. Love to chat about that. See, from my perspective, that goes, wait a minute, now what? Now you've got marketing research, you've got competitive analysis. Heck yeah, reply. I want to see that information. Now you've got to always be— stop, ask yourself, okay, what value will come from this LinkedIn connection request? Stop, ask yourself, what value will come if I meet somebody at a trade show? What value will they receive in connecting with me after that trade show? See, remember, friends, all of us in the sales business, I think we think that we bring value to the equation just by showing up. Okay, you've got to ask yourself— stop, Ask yourself, what value will they receive from this interaction? Let's talk about your customer needs assessments, your good old CNAs. Okay, what value will they, the customer, receive from answering questions through a customer needs assessment? If a customer needs assessment is designed for you and for your value, why would someone want to walk through it? A customer needs assessment should be valuable And guiding your client towards what they need to do, not what they want to do. There needs to be value in sitting through that. There needs to be value in sitting through a meeting. There needs to be value in them calling you back. There needs to be value in the email that you're sending. Stop. Ask yourself, what value will that client receive when they call me back? Stop. Ask yourself, what value will they receive by replying to an email, replying to a phone call, replying to a meeting request. And once you wrap your head around this, you'll recognize that there's value, or there should be value, in every sales connection. See, the problem is a lot of you are looking to work smarter and not harder, and what you really need to do is flip that. You need to work really, really hard and be ridiculously smart about it. Because friends, never forget, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it. Stop. Ask yourself the value they're gonna receive from from engaging in that conversation with you. And guess what, friends? You'll always, always, always go further, faster. Love to connect with you. Love to connect with you on LinkedIn. Love to have you follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Love to come train your sales teams or motivate you to sales success. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. All right, friends, more value-based sales advice coming up.
