The introduction is designed to build a strong foundation for the entire sales presentation. It is not designed to sell your product or service but instead help create a relationship with the person you want to sell to. This is the time where they size you up and for you to establish your believability. Many salespeople are worried about being cut off and not being able to sell so they jump right into the pitch. The more likely a prospect believes a sales professional the less likely they are going to cut them off. There are four objective that a sales professional should accomplish to ensure a productive sale call. This whole process should only take minutes. The four elements to the introduction are:

ICR
Brief product or service overview.
Credibility statement
Validation statement.


The ICR is an acronym for, “ interest creating remark”. The purpose of the iCR is to elicit a positive remark from the prospect or client. This can be as mundane as great weather we are having to something about a mutual acquaintance or current news in the industry. Whatever it is you should have an idea of what your ICR is before you make contact with the prospect. Don’t hesitate to dump your planned ICR, if something presents itself. Keep making ICRs until you get a positive response unless of course you get the sense that prospect is testing you.



Brief product or service overview is not a mini sales pitch but an objective explanation of what product or service you will be talking about. It is not uncommon that a sales professional goes to a sales call to make a presentation that took days to prep for and was planned weeks in advance where the prospect asks, “So what is this meeting about”? Keep the brief product overview to one sentence if possible.



Credibility statement is about you and/or your company. It is meant to position you above others in your field and show that you are worth listening to.



Validation Statement is about the prospect. This can also be called the “butt kissing statement” and the main objective is for you to validate the prospect or the prospects business as something they should be proud of or a statement that show you have confidence in the success of their business. Imagine you are going to your favorite sports team or the head of a major studio to pitch your product or service. Would treat this as an ordinary call or would be more humble and show respect for their company? If this is the way you would treat a company that you really wanted to do business with, why not treat every prospect the same way. It does not really matter who you sell in the end, it is more important to sell as much as you can.



Here is an example of an introduction.



It was great meeting at the tradeshow; it certainly has grown over the last 10 years. “It sure has”, says the prospect. I want to thank you for considering GregMedia to do your outbound calling for your company. I have been this for 30 years and being able to offer potential clients your current risk free offer is going to our job much easier the usual.

Keep the introduction as short as possible and give your prospect what they need to have confidence in buying from you.