executives don't want to talk to sales people they want to talk to experts and you can provoke them into having a conversation with you once you've proven that you know what you're talking about the best way to do that is to build a provocative message based on the research that you've done one example we've talked about in a previous video is going on and seeing their public documents like a 10k report if they're a public company what are the initiatives what are they planning to spend money on this year but you can also find this
out through blog articles announcements that they might make once a year or quarterly these types of things can research online but you can also build triggers for them using something like Google Alerts or going to websites like owl er which will collect a lot of these pieces of information and send you over when a trigger event happens new round of funding opening up a new region a new office some new product that they're planning to launch all of these can be great ways to start off your communication now the provocative statement starts off in something
that would be relatively straightforward define the reason why you're reaching out to them based on the situation and pain that you've gathered try and reference somebody that you've already spoken to within the company to validate what you're describing this does not have to be another executive it could be someone else that you've spoken to to get a bit of the lay of the land of course it's better to ask for a reference so if somebody can introduce you to the right stakeholder early on that will help your provocative message resonate much more but the crux
of the message happens in the second part once you've set the stage you focus on the value prop that you have but you put it in your customers context not in your own context don't put off something that sounds like just marketing speak but mention one thing that you think will have the biggest impact based on your research and then highlight that back against the impact you expect it to have and the critical event based on what you think other companies like them might be struggling with if they have a new fiscal year that is
closing a new budget cycle or there's an event that coming up that's a really big deal to their business types of things you highlight to drive more urgency and at the end of this provocative message you've realized that you've demonstrated value but you've not really pitched them you're showing that you were an expert by showing you care about them you've done the research and getting them to want to speak with you because now you can map back to what they care about based on what you've helped others like them deliver so work this in as
you're starting to develop your deeper relationships
