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How To Catch the Interest of a Prospect

Once you have the attention of a business prospect, at some point in the conversation, the prospect will ask you, "So what do you do?". In most cases, you will only have 60 seconds, to catch the interest of the prospect. Therefore, your response to this questions needs to be specific enough to tell what you do, but interesting enough for the prospect to ask for more information.

Here is where "bullets" about your business come in handy. Bullets are short statements about your firm that highlight a specific product, service or attribute about what you do. If these bullets highlight something unique to your firm, they are even more effective as attention-getters.

Let's say you work in the field of Insurance. An intro may be, "By careful planning, I protect people's assets". This intro says what you do (careful planning) and what the prospect gets because of it (asset protection). This got the attention of the prospect by telling them "what's in it for them" and highlights a specific service that you offer.

Another example would be an Accountant. An Accountant, once asked- "what do you do?", might respond with " I help keep more of your hard-earned money in your pocket, instead of in the IRS's pocket". That would prompt the next question- "How do you do that?"

It is not suggested that the intro response be so long and detailed that the prospect tries to get out of the conversation from sheer boredom. You know more about what you do than your prospect needs to know at this first presentation. When an intro is effective, it will lead a prospect into asking more questions. When a prospect asks a question, you will usually have their attention long enough to hear the answer. That answer, properly worded will lead to more questions.

It is strongly suggested that you have several of these short, 60 second intros available, since the same intro will not work for every circumstance where you may be asked what you do. An intro at a business function may be different than an intro spoken on the golf course.

Nancy Roebke
Execdirector@Profnet.Org http://www.profnet.org