Attract More Prospects In Thirty Seconds Or Less

“So, what do you do?”
This is one of the subtlest and most difficult questions in business. And it doesn’t matter if you are answering it in person or on your website. We all know that average website visitors take less than 2.9 seconds to decide if they’ll stick around. Guess what? It takes less time in person.

Oh, people don’t actually leave. We’re all too polite. We just judge and label you inside our heads before you even open your mouth. If you say to me, “I’m a mortgage broker,” I immediately think, “I’ve got one (or, I know one.) I don’t need you.” And the rest of the conversation is a polite waste of time.

Intrigue Your Prospects

So what’s the fastest way to turn listeners into prospects, and prospects into clients? It might surprise you to learn that describing what you do is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. There are eleven critical strategies to intriguing potential prospects to the point where they will feel compelled to ask you for more information. Here are three techniques that are critical to attracting more business.

1. Talk Numbers

Show them the monetized, quantified results you have produced for others, in the first or second sentence. Monetizing is key. Only 5% of business people even use the technique, but it’s one of the most powerful business tools there is. (Monetizing means translating your results into money.)
Remember that we are conditioned by our culture and by the media to listen for numbers. They have meaning for us. If you do not use numbers you will not speak in the language your prospects are, subconsciously, waiting to hear. Here are some examples.

“Jim, what do you do?”
BEFORE: “I sell insurance—middle market only. We sell property casualty and employee benefit products.”
AFTER: “I discover between $10,000 and $30,000 my clients didn’t know they had in 60 minutes or less.”
Who would you rather talk to?

Don’t worry if you can’t monetize your results, you can quantify them:
“Susan, what do you do?”
BEFORE: “I help women get fit and healthy.”
AFTER: “I teach women how to lower their body fat by up to 25%, and achieve their ideal weight in 6 months or less.”

2. Leave Them Hungry For More

Always leave them hungry for more. This is actually based on research. The ‘Zeigarnik Effect’ tells us that people remember incomplete information far longer than complete information. Therefore, refrain from giving all the details. When you have satisfied all your prospect’s questions, you have taken them out of curiosity and intrigue, and put them back in control.

They are then free to forget you—even if you have something they need but don’t want to spend money on right now. Leave your listener intrigued and just a little unsatisfied; they are far more likely to come back for more.

3. Raise An Emotion

You know that people buy on emotion. The primitive, emotional brain of your listener (the part that buys) is interested in only one thing: what you can do for them. You’re not selling them yet, but you do want them to buy into you. So in your initial conversation, raise an emotion. Emotional information goes into the limbic system, and stays there far longer than data.

These are just a few techniques to provoke interest, emotion and intrigue. Reframing the conversation will completely alter the initial image of who they thought they were talking to. Your new message will do more than get them curious. It will bring you more respect, status, and most importantly: more business.