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2500+ Proven Cold Call Hook, How to Handle Ghost Prospects, and Jumping from SME to Enterprise

Framework Breakdown, Shared Insights, and Ready-to-Use Templates

Author

Sean Grealy
July 31, 2024

Hey founders, sellers, and the sales curious!

Here’s what’s new as we close out July! ⬇️

  • A three-value cold calling framework to hook prospects 🎣

  • Founder insights from the Startup Palette Show Live 🎤

  • Jumping from SME to Enterprise Sales 🚀

  • And our first Founder Asks segment, with tips on what to do when prospects go silent 🤫 

COLD CALL RESOURCE

Reel in Prospects with a Three-Value Hook 🎣 

The ultimate aim of every cold call is to start a conversation, pique interest, and qualify the prospect for a meeting.

The three-value hook process frames your solution’s benefits in prospect-specific industry language, making them feel valued and understood, boosting your authority, and getting them to bite.

Find the 6-minute video breakdown and templated full process🪝HERE🪝 

SOCIALS

Startup Palette Show Live: Kim Randle Founder Chat

Sean saw Kim Randle, CEO of Fair Supply, speak on managing family, fundraising, and leadership as a founder. Organised and run by Preethi Mohan, Founder of NiceTo, the event was a balanced blend of banter, life lessons, and the realities of building a global company.

Lessons That Resonated

1. Recognise that being a founder is like having ten full-time jobs. It's an intensive process that demands putting 200% into the business

2. No egos are welcome. This keeps us on the critical path and honest with ourselves at each decision made for best outcomes

3. You must lead yourself well to lead others well. In essence, if you don’t take care of yourself, how can you expect your business to thrive?

EVENT UPDATE

Shifting from SME to Enterprise Sales

Roy and Sean, alongside Bryan from Hockey Stick, led a workshop on transitioning from SME to Enterprise Sales for the SVG APAC Cohort II.

Workshop Takeaways ⬇️

1. Ensure your core business cash flow can sustain the reality of long sales cycles, where a deal may not move ahead even after 12-14 months of work

2. Be certain your product is enterprise ready and your team is equipped with the right training and tools to manage it

3. Does your buyers journey meet the expected experience of an enterprise business? Consider SLAs, security information, industry certs, and internal resources

4. Get familiar with champion sales and spend time creating account maps of decision-makers and building relationships with internal champions. This will help avoid time-wasting and missed opportunities

5. Take a phased approach: Start conversations → Focus on smaller, manageable wins → Use initial successes to build credibility → Gradually increase deal size and complexity

FOUNDER ASKS

What to Do When a Prospect Goes Ghost? 👻 

In this new segment, we tackle a question we got from a founder and share our tips directly with you.

Founder Ask: What to do when you get ‘crickets’ from a prospect after a great meeting and sending your proposal?

Our Advice ⤵️

First, consider the following:

Is the person you are speaking to the decision-maker and do they have a real need for your solution?

  • Does this person deserve a proposal?

  • Have they shown all the signs that justify your commitment to preparing this information for them?

Was there a real critical event or pain in the business?

  • Can you align your solution to a key project, metric, data point, or outcome that is driving the need for your solution/services?

  • For example, they have 35% staff retention due to poor employee onboarding or a low 25 NPS score due to a bad product experience

  • If you don't have the pain or the critical event, you don't have something to drive the deal forward

Who is in control?

  • If your calls to the prospect end with, "No worries, this all sounds great. Get a proposal across, and we will review it internally", say goodbye to your deal momentum 👋

Instead, control the next steps:

Don't agree to a proposal until you have visibility on:

  1. What happens next once they have the proposal?

  2. How do they typically bring in new services or products?

  3. Who is in the process of the proposal review, and what would benefit them?

  4. What do people in the proposal review need to know to make a decision?

What does this sound like in a meeting, though?

“Thanks for all the information. We won’t be present at your next review meeting, and there is some amazing context we have in this call that I can’t include in the proposal. How would you recommend we best share [specific points]? I'd also recommend we do a review as a group on [date and time] to answer any questions and provide greater visibility to the wider team. While you have your calendar open, can we lock that in?”

The key is to clarify what you’ve learnt, create understanding, and then move to controlled steps.

😮‍💨 If this feels like a lot…

We often hear this feels like too much, and that's typically a seller's personal bias creeping in. However, I can assure you that the above steps are battle-tested and will be respected by those who value your time and want to make the best decision.

🔥 Here’s why it works:

Although this approach creates pressure, it also brings the right considerations forward. If they won't create the internal meeting or commit, they may not be serious or actually have the influence to make a decision.

If you do all of the above and you still get the silent treatment, check out Sean’s post and try our 💔 BREAK-UP EMAIL TEMPLATES 💔 

COMING UP

Catch Us IRL in August ⤵️

  • If you’re in Sydney on August 12th, check out NiceTo’s next live show on Digital Health Tech

  • Forever Projects x The Nudge Group x Cake x The CC's Birthday Party on August 21st (tickets here)