Ben Marcoux (speaking on a Stefan Georgi upload) explains two primary objectives for sales calls: 1) create emotional attachment/positive experience so prospects like you, and 2) make the financial case by "doing the math" (the "calculator close") to justify price in B2B conversations. He illustrates with an email-copywriter example (estimating incremental revenue, margins, and resulting profit to justify retainer pricing), notes the importance of qualifying prospects and being frank about expectations, and briefly addresses moving from freelance platforms (Upwork) to value-first cold outreach methods.
Chapters
So check that out. That's really great. And then the way I think about it is that sales conversations have two main objectives and that's to create an emotional attachment. Right. And an emotional connection. Providing a positive emotional spirit experience and being the bright spot of that person's day. Because if you do all those things, you're much more likely to have that person gain affinity for you and want to work with you over somebody else. So the first part is that emotional engagement and then the second part is obviously making the math work and the numbers work. Assuming that we're doing a B2B type conversation, if you are selling something that has intangible value, then you need to figure out the things that your prospect values more than the money that they're giving you. So I just bought a really high ticket or invested in a really high ticket dog training program because for me the freedom and experiences I'll have with my dog are worth more than the money that it cost for the program. If you're selling B2B, it's incredibly easy. You just literally do the calculator close and you draw a connection between the results that you're copy is going to get. So if you're an email copywriter and you can confirm that you consistently boost email revenue by XYZ dollars or percent or whatever, and then you say over the course of 30 days, that means, let's say that, that you can increase their revenue $1,000 a day, then that means $30,000 of revenue a month. Say they're operating at like 40% margins and they already paid for those customers because it's email marketing. Then what does that come out to? That comes out to like $18,000 of expenses. So like 12 grand of profit. Right. For that client, I think. I didn't do the calculator. I just did in my head might be wrong, but like 10 to $12,000 of actual profit is in that for that business owner. So if you're gonna sell them a 2 to 1 return, you can easily justify 3 to 5 or $6,000 of a retainer. Right. If that's the situation and you can prove that those are the numbers that work out and maybe much more. Right. So that's how I go about thinking about sales conversations is obviously qualifying the prospect by making sure that they're actually someone who's interested in the service that I'm providing and then connecting with them and then providing a great emotional experience. And then at the end of the conversation or the business part of the conversation just being very frank about what I can and cannot do, what they should expect and then doing the math for them so hopefully that helps us now from bore. How do we know if we are a good enough if we are good enough to go from freelance platforms like Upwork to Value first cold outreach like the three email approach taught by Justin and Stefan so forgive me for one second. Sorry had a bit of a cough oh you're very welcome Ismail. Let me know how that goes and don't I tell this to everyone. Don't wait till just Mondays to come on these calls. This is obviously the best time to get direct feedback and more context around your answer but if you drop posts in the group and you tag the name I just typed in there Ben Marcoux, that's me. I'm not Stefan for those of you who didn't figure that out already I just use a Zoom account then you can. Then you can actually get some answers in between this so anyway.
