EP135: The Architecture of a First Conversation

Whether you’re new to sales or a seasoned cold caller, you no doubt have a go-to way of starting a phone conversation with a prospect. Excellent! But how’s that working for you? Ed Porter, the fractional Chief Revenue Officer of Blue Chip CRO is our Market Dominance Guys' guest. He talks today about scripts, pattern-interrupts, and the art of conversation with our hosts, Chris Beall and Corey Frank. As Chris points out, that first conversation is an ambush call, and nobody likes to be ambushed, especially by an invisible stranger. Ed totally agrees and adds that “Fear prevents us from picking up the phone” — which is true whether you’re the salesperson or the prospect. So, what can generally get both the caller and the prospect past that fear? A well-constructed cold-calling script, but not necessarily one that a salesperson makes up on their own. Ed says it’s got to be architected from a sound plan that includes expertise and advice from both the marketing and customer success teams, which is why we’ve titled today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “The Architecture of a First Conversation.”

Listen to his previous episode: EP134 - Is sales the real problem?

 

About Our Guest

Ed Porter is a fractional Chief Revenue Officer for Blue Chip CRO, providing coaching and strategy planning services for executives and startups, and helping them rethink and refocus revenue strategies to accelerate growth. He assists his clients in aligning their revenue teams — marketing, sales, enablement, and customer success — to build accountability at every step of their organization, leading to accelerated and sustainable growth. Ed is also an investor and advisor to startups in the Columbus area.

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Full episode transcript below:

 

Announcer (00:22):

Whether you're new to sales or a seasoned cold caller, you no doubt have a go-to way of starting a phone conversation with a prospect. Excellent. But how's that working for you? Ed Porter, The Fractional Chief Revenue Officer of Blue Chip CRO, and Our Market Dominance Guy's guest, talks today about scripts, pattern interrupts, and the art of conversation with our hosts, Chris Beall and Corey Frank. As Chris points out, that first conversation is an ambush call, and nobody likes to be ambushed, especially by an invisible stranger. Ed totally agrees, and adds that, fear prevents us from picking up the phone, which is true, whether you're the salesperson or the prospect. So what can generally get both the caller and the prospect past that fear? A well constructed cold calling script, but not necessarily one that a salesperson makes up on their own. Ed says, "It's got to be architect from a sound plan that includes expertise and advice from both the marketing and customer success teams, which is why we've titled today's Market Dominance Guys episode, The Architecture of a First Conversation."

Corey Frank (01:36):

So Ed, this is the Market Dominance Guys, and we talk about all things sales and marketing and how to dominate your marketing. We believe, certainly both of our organizations Branch49 and ConnectAndSell. And certainly think you believe the same thing, that conversation first strategy has to be at the core of what you're doing to dominate your market. So when you coach your clients and talk to your groups, your teams that you invest in about go to market, what are some of your thoughts on conversation first, and how you do it well and how they're doing it today? And I'm sure you've seen your share of poorly designed scripts in the world. And you've probably heard your share of cringe-worthy cold calls that they're still hanging on from, you can't pry from their cold dead fingers because, every once in a while it does work, but just overall your thoughts on cool calling today.

Ed Porter (02:31):

Again, something I love talking about and something that I think one of the reasons why Chris and I always have familiar ground to speak from, is that architecting a first conversation is in practice, very simple, but conceptually very difficult. You don't have a whole lot of time on a first conversation. I think in most of the markets that we're in, and I do want to talk a little bit about PLG because I think there's a big overlap that is being missed right now with PLG. PLG doesn't mean if you build it, they will come again. We kind of use that same thing. There's still an intervention of a human being in a conversation that needs to happen to move the needle along. So I will always firmly believe in, and I'll say in most B2B, I think there are some very highly transactional products that can very well, if you architect the messaging and the cadence properly, it can work, but purely transactional lower value.

Ed Porter (03:30):

But beyond that, taking all of those butts aside is, architecting th