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There are 2 kinds of questions you can use as an opener.
There are Brain questions and Gut questions. Brain questions are logical and external. Gut questions are emotional and internal.
Gut questions nudge people into their own thoughts and feelings.
I’m not a fan of Brain questions in cold B2B outreach.
Here are some examples:
- Looking for a better way to onboard customers?
- Are you getting maximum value from your CRM?
- Is churn killing your margins?
If you’re the sender these seem great. People will be interested if the question applies to them, or nope out if it doesn’t. And value is established right away.
The flaws with this kind of question are
- easy to dispense with
- easy to say no to
- and easy to ignore.
We’re reaching out to people who didn’t expect to hear from us, so all of these are bad.
The receiver feels this stuff is boring, self-serving, or an unwelcome interruption. And it puts unasked-for work onto the reader.
(plus, what human could possibly know if they’re getting maximum value from a CRM?)
The other kind of question is the Gut question.
It’s job is to stop the reader, scroll-lock them, and push them into a sort of daydream called a reverie.
Like these:
- What’s going through your customer’s mind as they onboard?
- Why can’t a CRM speed up deals?
- Churn is about people, so why are people leaving you?
None of these are yes/no questions.
Their job is to spark a train of thought for a few moments. Then the reader returns. And wants more than what their train of thought gave them.
Lucky for them, you’re right there onscreen, with a chance to get more.
Push past your Brain questions, into your Gut questions.
The readers who didn’t resist them are warmer prospects.
Which is a way to speed up deals, regardless of which CRM you bought 😀