I am a solo founder that just finished writing code for my project (MVP) and am ready to find clients.
- for the sake of the question, my clients will be small physical businesses. Think, Family Doctor's Office, Local Cafe, Small barber, etc.
I will be developing a blog for SEO purposes and doing other things to promote my business online. However, I believe the key to success here will be "Cold Sales". I have never done that before. So, if you could recommend a book, a blog post, other online resources, or you just have a random advice that I could learn from, I would be very thankful.
Suffice it to say I will be starting out ASAP, even though I don't know anything. I believe practice is the best teacher. However, if there are any resources that could help me get up and running quicker that would be awesome. Thanks a ton in advance.
“Huge clarity if you structure your sales call like this:
> Uncover where they are now (A)
> Uncover where they want to go (B)
> Uncover what's stopping them (C)
Then pitch your offer as the solution to C”
If you haven't got C, either build the missing parts (assuming that the customer is the right one) [0], or find another customer [1].
If you realise they don't really need B that much, then no amount of sales is going to help you [2]. Time to pivot based on A or find a new B?
[0] Chasm crossing - A Pennarun, https://archive.is/cHeKx
[1] Users you don't want - M Seibel, https://archive.is/tCCLa
[2] Making something people want - T Blomfield, https://archive.is/8IDcl
(D) Uncover how amazing their future would be, if they could resolve what's stopping them
You want them to be articulating the implications of a solution — i.e., the benefits — so that they really feel the need. Then you don't even have to pitch that hard; you just gently offer your solution to resolve the need they're actively feeling. (As a bonus, you also get to hear the benefits in their words. That lets you use those words to refine your sales pitch for the next prospect.)
Anyway, these 4 steps are really just a Twitter-ified version of SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham [1] — a book which, despite its age and its title, is a very good sales book.
(The reason its so good is because it's one of the only ones that uses actual data. They studied many actually successful salespeople, identified the patterns and formed hypotheses about what works, then taught that to new/struggling salespeople to validate their hypotheses. The SPIN acronym is the mnemonic for what they found.)
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/00705111...