This post continues my efforts to bring you the content that we present in our live "mini sales training" events.

In Part 1 I discussed how a Sales 2.0 sales process puts most of the emphasis on the early parts of the sales process. In Part 2 I described that preparation in the sales process is key and that preparation for prospecting breaks down into "what are you going to say?" and "who are you going to say it to?" In this installment I want to say more about "what are you going to say?"

The first part to figuring out "what are you going to say?" is figuring out "what you do". Sounds easy right? Well not quite. Let's add some constraints:

1. Answer the question "what do you do?" in seven words or less (well maybe you can have ten but not more)
2. Say "what you do" in words your grandmother can understand
3. Focus on your clients. Say what you do for them

I've worked with a lot of technology companies over the years and most of them have sucked at saying what they do. Generally they violated all these rules and had long-winded statements full of technical features that no prospect cared about, had the time to listen to or could understand.

When you first contact someone they are not interested in investing their valuable time in figuring out what your product of service can do for them. The only way you will gain their interest is by telling them what you can do for them, quickly and in words they can instantly understand.

Here's some examples of good answers to the "what do you do?" question from Richard Fouts (who usually gives this portion of our live sales training):

> We help you comfortably retire. (Fidelity)
> We protect companies, lives and reputations. (GE Insurance)
> We help companies do business online. (IBM)

So the first part of figuring out "what you should say" when prospecting is figuring out "what you do"...in a way that a prospect can hear.