How to Engage with Prospects on the Fly

Sales trainers often teach their prospects how to develop an elevator pitch. However, unless you sell cell phones or something that every person uses, you don’t need an elevator pitch. Rather, you need a key question or two that helps you to determine whether a person fits your client profile. You work that question into the small talk in which people tend to engage in elevators, shopping lines, airport lounges and similar places.

For example, if you’re attending a legal conference in your capacity as a sales trainer for the legal industry, you might ask an attendee where they work and what kind of business development training is offered in their workplace. Another line of inquiry might be to ask why they are attending the conference: to network, to satisfy their continuing education requirements, to decompress from the office grind?

Their response will inform your next step. Someone attending a conference to network is likely interested in business development and, therefore, may be a potential client. In that case, your next step is to tell them what you do and what your value proposition is.

By contrast, someone attending the conference to blow off steam is less likely to be a potential client, although it won’t hurt to probe a bit more before you rule them out. You might ask how many years of experience they have. If they’re very green, they probably don’t yet have business development responsibility at their firm. In that case, your next step is to exchange cards (should they need you once they are more seasoned) and to change the subject to other small talk such as “how ’bout them Cowboys” or “strange weather we’re having.”

The point is, the conversation did not begin with a canned elevator pitch. It began with a standard question that you work into conversations. With this approach, your prospect doesn’t even sense that you’re working. You come off as someone genuinely interested in other people, which will make it much easier for you to build rapport with them.