Prospecting with B2B clients often feels like an extended pitch meeting. Many who are reluctant to start prospecting don’t know how to do it – or at least don’t know how to do it well. This can make it challenging to speak with business leaders and decision-makers, who often have considerable industry knowledge and personal confidence.
Industry developments, cash flows, and recent meetings can all affect the way these prospects receive your pitch. You want to meet prospects where they are while also being firm and bold enough to convince them of your value.
Fortunately, there are many ways to increase your skill at prospecting and start getting results in quick, easy-to-implement ways. One of the most effective of these tactics is the “outrageous offer.”
What Is an Outrageous Offer?
Outrageous offers are designed to be extremely enticing. They’re made to encourage prospects to buy or sign up for a product or service.
For example, let’s say you’re in the business of booking guests onto podcasts and setting up media relationships. Your prospects are people who want to grow their thought leadership and expand their following, but they may not be sure that podcasting is for them. They may not even feel they’re ready to invest in a service that helps them book gigs. To make their decision easier, you offer them something outrageous, like two free podcast bookings. Because this offer is more difficult to refuse, you automatically start them on their journey without making them to do any more work.
To give another example, if you run a content marketing service, your outrageous offer might be to organize your prospect’s content calendar for a month, free of charge. It’s outrageous because it delivers all of the value you’re promising, without the pain of a monetary transaction. It makes great business sense because it proves that you can do what you claim you can do.
This leads to an incredibly high close rate. Once you have weeded out prospects who simply aren’t qualified to take advantage of your offering, you’re left with people who can’t help but be blown away. What’s more, your outrageous offer doesn’t have to be a freebie. You can offer a guarantee instead, ensuring that your company will refund a fee or deliver a certain number of new followers.
What Tactics Work Best for B2B Prospecting?
Stop creating roadblocks that keep your agency from obtaining new business. Use these tactics to craft an offer that will lead to productive conversations and more sales:
1. Clear up your language.
Poor communication causes many potential sales and sign-ups to go awry. When team members are nervous or unsure, they’re likely to fudge their words, overexplain, or ramble. You don’t have to use many words to make an impact — they just have to convey how the prospect will benefit from interacting with you. Remember to sell the results, not the product. Prospects aren’t interested in that feature you spent months refining — they’re interested in what they can do with it.
This applies to outrageous offers, too. Is the language you’re using to describe your offer or guarantee clear, or is there room for misunderstanding?
2. Show prospects what they’re signing up for.
Showing is more compelling than telling. Let real examples tell the story for you. Can you describe a case study that immediately proves your service?
“Show not tell” also works great for letting prospects know what to expect in your initial talks with them. How are you going to meet to talk about your service? Can you set up the meeting, organize everything, and communicate so they know exactly what they’re getting when they actually meet with you? The way you meet and message demonstrates to prospects how your business operates.
3. Remove what’s stopping them.
Understand what actually prevents people buying or signing up. It often has nothing to do with your product and everything to do with an expectation your company has developed elsewhere. For example, Amazon has created such a widespread expectation of free shipping that its absence can be a complete roadblock to sales, and the company might not even realize it.
This is part of the discovery process. You need to determine why people say no and identify how you can create a productive conversation.
While prospecting can be challenging, an unorthodox approach is sometimes all that’s needed for success. In reality, B2B teams often only need to better communicate their value to clients. Outrageous offers might be the simplest and most effective way to do that.
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