Hey, guys, this is Steli Efti with Close.io.
How come when you send emails to new sign-ups, new prospects, new leads and offer them a
time to give them a demo, many of them don’t respond to that email?
I’m being asked this question so I thought I’d record a quick video and share my thoughts
on this topic.
A lot of times I’ll see salespeople send emails to offer a time to talk, giving you
a dedicated demo, or anything else that’s kind of pretty vague and generic and then
they’re surprised that people don’t really respond to that and don’t take them up on
that offer.
They ask me, “Steli, why are only 4% of all our sign-ups taking me up on my offer
to give them a demo?”
The question is, you’ve not sold them on it.
How about selling people on the value of the demo?
It’s not just a demo call, it’s anything.
Like, I’ve seen customer success managers sending out emails to schedule a time to check
in.
Who the fuck wants to be checked in on?
That’s not valuable in itself and if you read those emails, they’re communicating
selfishness in every single sentence.
They sound something like this: “Hey, Steli, you’ve been with us for a few months and
I wanted to schedule a time next week to check in, get feedback from you, learn how we can
improve, I have some curiosities and some questions for you.
When can I call you to take up all of your time…”
Up to this point, this is a real email, now I’m adding sub-text.
“When can I call you to take up all of your time to selfishly learn from you and fulfill
my own needs and wants and desires and accomplish my goals, what would be a good time for that?”
That’s not an appealing pitch, right?
Whenever you communicate and whenever you want people to respond, you have to sell.
You have to understand that you need to pitch them and sell them on the value of what you’re
trying to accomplish with them.
So when I send out an email to give somebody a demo, how about pitching them on the value
of a demo?
How about telling them that, “Hey, we’ve found out that people that are interested
in our solution are 35% more likely to succeed and get real ROI with our solution when they
take 30 minutes up front to do a one-on-one demo.
I want to give you the opportunity to take those 30 minutes, for me to answer all your
questions, to show you all the tricks and the hidden kind of black belt ways to utilize
our application to get the maximum return for you.”
Now, this might be a pitch that will work or it might not work, but at least I’m selling
you on the value of the demo.
I’m not just saying, “Hey, I want to give you a demo,” not what’s in it for you.
“You should get a demo because a demo will make you more successful and I want to provide
that for you.”
Or when you want to schedule a quick call, “Hey, I saw that you signed up for a solution,
what will be a good time to talk?”
How about saying, “Hey, I saw you signed up for a solution.
I’m more than happy to jump on a 10-minute call to make sure that you’ll get the most
out of our trial, to make sure that I answer all your questions and that I point you in
the right direction.
We found out that people that take that call are 10 times more likely to succeed and be
with us 5 years from now, so we want to make that commitment to you, we want to start that
relationship on the right foot.”
That’s selling you authentically on why it even makes sense to jump on a call.
Or if you are a customer success manager, if you want to call your existing customers
to either upsell them, to fix their issues, to learn about their product needs, to ask
for references and referrals, whatever it is that you need, instead of just saying,
“Hey, I want to check in on you,” that doesn’t sound that appealing.
How about telling them, “Hey, I want to have a success call with you and I want to
give you as much time as you need from me, but at the least, 10 minutes should be enough
for us to see is there anything that we’re currently not doing for you that would make
you more successful?
Is there anything currently that you’re disappointed, unhappy with, or that you’re
desiring that we’re not providing you and to uncover more ways for you to get more value
out of our application.
The experience shows that when we do these calls three months, six months into the relationship
that there’s a huge bump in ROI and value that we’re able to create.
I want to do that for you right now.
When’s a good time?”
No matter what you’re asking people to do, whenever you ask them to jump on a call, a
demo, whatever it is, don’t forget to sell them on the value to their lives.
Answer the question: What’s in it for them?
Not just what’s in it for you.
You’ll see once you make that change, your open rates, your conversion rates, your click-through
rates will go up, people will respond because they will realize what’s in it for them
and they’ll want to take it.