Outbound Communication

If you are planning to focus on out-bound activities, then effective communication plays an important role. While you reach out to your potential customers, you need to ensure that you are making maximum utilisation of the time to make a quick impact on them though your concise pitch. No matter whether you are performing out-bound activities through calls or emails, it is required to maintain adequate level of sanity in your communication to increase the chances of a breakthrough.

These are some of the sample communication templates for you to refer to and curate as per the need.

Target: Head/VP/Dir of Finance

You: Hey Bill, I was browsing your website and I’m kinda lost and I was hoping you could help me out here. Can I steal a second?

OR

You: Hey, Bill. This is Charlie over at ERPNext. Listen, I need some help. I know you and I’ve never spoken before but, can I take 60 seconds to tell you the reason for my call and then you decide whether it makes sense to have a conversation?

OR

You: Bill, this is Charlie from ERPNext. Let me be upfront here. This is a cold call, so either you can hang up right now or allow me 60 seconds to tell you the reason for my call and then you can decide whether it might make sense to have a conversation, is that fair?

Bill: (Any response along the lines of “Sure.” If the prospect ever says that you have called at a bad time, ask when would be a better time to call back.)

You: I was thinking out loud, are you the person in charge of managing/handling finances/accounting?

Prospect: Yes, That’d be me. You: Great, glad that I got better phone luck today.

30 Seconds Commercial/Pitch: VP/head of Finance/Accountant

You: Bill, tell you what, I talk to (CFO/VP/head of Finance) all day long, typically in the manufacturing world. And while They tell me that they have some sort of system, however, a lot of them still struggle with managing complex transactions due to disconnected systems in place, unhappy with the lack of insight into business processes and disappointed by the amount of time it takes to reconcile purchasing, invoicing and inventory. 

Do you think this applies to your business world or you’ve got it figured out?

OR

Do you run into these challenges on a day to day basis? or Am I just rambling?

Bill:  Yeah, Sure. We’re using SAP version 5.0 and it's outdated and we’ve a lot of problems in even generating simple reports. It requires doing coding to get that done and we’re very disappointed with the support as well.

You: Interesting! Bill, I’d like to see your business world through your eyes. With your permission, can I go ahead and ask you a few questions to see if ERPNext could be the solution to your problems. And, If I think we can’t help you out properly, will that be okay if I tell you that upfront. I want to be cognizant about your time.

You: So, Bill, what are you using to manage and track warehouse and inventory? 

Discovery Question 1: So, Bill, how do you ensure you’ve enough raw material on hands without breaking the bank to stock them?

Illusion of choices: Do you have a system that tracks stocks and inventory, Or, is it manually done?

Discovery Question 2: How does inventory/stock data flow into the accounting? (Assuming they have different systems to manage inventory and stocks)

Illusion of choices: Is it manually done by someone? How often?

Discovery Question 3: How do you ensure you’ve full visibility into entire business processes so that you don’t have to worry about any risk and compliance?

Discovery Question 4: How’re you making sure that your team is able to correctly track your Payables/Receivables so that you’re not losing money/owing to vendors for too long.

Tone: 

You: Bill, This might makes sense, you’ve a lot of X, you aren’t able to do X, and you might potentially be missing out on Y

Value Proposition:

ERPNext is an open-source solution designed to solve mundane, repetitive tasks and automate the entire back office operations. So that you can only focus on running your business without worrying about operational breakdown as a result..

Now, ask for the meeting - Assumptive/Let me help you:

You: Bill, can we set up a meeting with one of my senior consultants that specialize in [Industry], So that they can dive a bit deeper into how ERPNext might help you overcome your current challenges we discussed. Do you have 15-20 minutes sometime later today or tomorrow?

30 Seconds Commercial/Pitch:  CTO/CIO/IT Dir/Engineering

You: Bill, tell you what, I talk to (CTO/CIO/head of IT) all day long, typically in the manufacturing world. They tell me that they have various systems in place, however, a lot of them still struggle with information silos due to disconnected systems, worried about the security and compliance risk due to manual entry and lost data. Also, they’re disappointed by the lost time and lack of visibility into the process as a result.   (Note: Repeat the same process)

Shallow objections:

Bill: 1. Send me an email. 2. Not interested 3. I was in a meeting but I picked up the phone thinking you’re someone else. 4. Running into a meeting.  

Note: You can understand and counter these objections by structuring your conversation shown below. 

Pattern Interrupt 

You: Bill, Can I level with you? I’ve been hearing “Send me an email” from a lot of people recently. And, I get the feeling that probably it’s your polite way of saying “Go away you annoying sales representative”. Did I get that right?

Note: Now, you will get one of these two reactions. If Bill is really busy or it’s a real objection, Bill will back this up by saying : Oh no! I was really running into a meeting but I’m interested in hearing you out or something along those lines. 2nd Reaction: Bill might crack up a bit and say “ Yeah, you got me. or, Yeah, I’m just not interested.

Empathy

You: I get it. I say the same thing when I get a cold call out of the blue. Note: Let’s assume Bill level with you and shows curiosity to learn what might offer

Prospect Pact

Bill, I’m not sure if we might be a fit for you, but, can I get 30 seconds to tell you the reason for my call and then you can decide if it makes sense to continue the conversation from there?

Note: If Bill agrees then you’re in the game and pitch your 30 sec commercial and lead the conversation followed by problem based discovery questions.