Summary: So what is your first contact with a new prospect? Another good question to ask yourself is how does that first contact happen? And is it proactive on my part? <br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your first contact with a new prospect. Welcome back, Jay.<br> <br> <br> <br> Jay: Hey, it's good to be with you again. David. When you say first contact, I always think about Star Trek with their first contact with the aliens, and I feel like you're kind of sitting there going, okay, are these going to be nice?<br> <br> Are they going to try and destroy the human race. You know, there's a lot of trepidation with first contact and sometimes that first contact, how it goes, determines the whole rest of the relationship.<br> <br> David: That's exactly where I stole the term from Jay. That is exactly where I stole the term from. And the way that came about is that I was talking to somebody about cold calling. This was years and years and years ago.<br> <br> Well, actually we were talking about prospecting and one of the things that this person mentioned to me was something related to cold calling. And I said, "okay, well, cold calling is one way that you can reach out to people." I said, "think of it like it's your first contact."<br> <br> And literally it was because I had seen that movie about first contact and I thought it's such a great concept. The idea of whatever, meeting an alien species for the first time is one thing. But for salespeople, you're exactly right. It's the same thing. We're walking into an unknown situation.<br> <br> We have absolutely no idea how the person is going to react and that. Doesn't matter whether it's on the phone as a cold call, whether it's meeting someone at a networking event, whether it's through social media.<br> <br> We have no idea what's on the other end until we engage. Therefore, the whole idea, the whole concept of first contact, I think is really highly appropriate. It is the very first contact that we have with a prospect.<br> <br> If you understand that conceptually, it can really sort of open up your mind to the possibilities and to the opportunities. Because there are a lot of people who view whatever it is they do as first contact, as first contact.<br> <br> What I mean is if all they've ever done is make cold calls, they view that as first contact. If all they ever have done to generate customers is through social media, that's what they view as first contact.<br> <br> When you recognize, that's just a method, that's just one particular method of first contact, and you realize that there's a whole other universe. To continue the space analogy here, there's a whole other universe of options. It really allows you to test different things to figure out what's going to work best for you.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah. And I love the idea that first contact, when I first thought of this, I was thinking that's the first time that I meet them voice-to-voice or face-to-face. And in today's world, that's probably not going to be the first contact.<br> <br> In my business, the first contact is our website. That's the first time that they're going to see us. Now, in my business, I'm very fortunate that our three main competitors, their websites are awful, David, they are terrible.<br> <br> They are designed terribly. They're hard to read. And all the time I get people saying, literally saying to me, "I chose you because I liked your website." We're somebody that offers this high level of expertise and you chose us just because we have a really good web designer.<br> <br> But that was the difference. Their first contact with us is positive, because we've spent the time to get that right.<br> <br> David: Yeah, it's a lot more than the web designer too, because you could have a beautiful design,
