Power Statement Prospecting 💪

Quickly capture your prospect’s attention (and keep it!)

If you want to sell more, it’s critical you can describe what your business does in a concise and memorable way. 

Sounds simple, right? 

Yet, I’ve worked with thousands of business owners and this seems to be something most struggle with. 

There’s no objectively correct way to do it. But I use something called a power statement to get my prospect's attention. 

Here’s how to create yours 👇

---

What is a power statement in sales? 

They make prospects listen. A brief statement that quickly identifies who you are and why the prospect should be interested. 

When you keep it short and to the point, it’s the most effective way for you to start a conversation with a prospect. 

Case Study:

When we started our e-learning company we had a shit name (Accredited Skills) and our pitch was too long. 

We didn’t stand out from other e-learning providers. Most businesses struggle with this. 

So, we decided that we needed a power statement. 

‘Saving the world from boring e-learning’ was born and the company was renamed Learning Heroes. 

It needed to be memorable, so we included the phrase ‘boring e-learning’ as nobody in the industry wanted to admit that most e-learning was rubbish. 

And it needed to evoke emotion. Hence the capes and the ‘saving the world’ tagline. 

Instead of selling e-learning, our employees were now on a mission, and our customers had a story they could emotionally relate to. 

Here’s how I typically used our power statement in conversation:

It worked for us, and it can work for you. 

Before too long, we were almost exclusively referred to as the “Saving the world guys” by prospects. 

People wanted to join the good guys. 

During cold calls, I’d say “tell them it’s the saving the world from boring e-learning guys” and it was a great conversation starter, giving me a chance to close. 

Does your power statement capture your prospect's attention, or does it waffle on?

Most get this wrong. Imagine we’d used this description fo what we do instead: 

Learning Heroes - the best learning resources for your learning management system, with animation, quizzes and offline resources. Award-winning and rated number 1 by trusted peers in the e-learning community… blah blah blah. 

Get to the point.  

You might have the best product or service in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you push the prospect away with a dull opening. 

---

The components of a power statement

IAM Productions is an acronym for Ian and Mike. It was never meant to be customer-facing. 

On its own, it doesn’t really make any sense. Not a lot of business names do. So, we paired it with our new power statement:

When people tag us on LinkedIn, the power statement quickly helps prospects identify why they should use us.

Is yours as effective at conveying what you do? 

Here are the component parts we use, so you can create your own: 

The hook - introduce who you are with a memorable statement. 

“It’s Mike from IAM Productions - we’re the experts at explainer videos” 

Reason for speaking. 

“I noticed you’ve not got an explainer video on your website” 

Identify the pain points your ideal client is likely experiencing. 

“It’s hard to get people to read lots of text on your website, and convert them to leads” 

How does your solution fix that better than anyone else? 

“We create explainers people will watch. They sit on your website, your LinkedIn profile, Facebook, and YouTube. Basically, anywhere your customers might try and find you.”

Results 

“Our customers convert more sales with video.” 

Call to action 

“Do you want to book a call with our production team so they can explain how yours will be made?”

Simple as that. 

If you haven’t already got one, use this template to create your own power statement. 

When you can describe what your business does in a concise and memorable way, sales will quickly follow.  

---

This topic ties in nicely with a question asked in the community last month. 

Question: I see people following the "I help x" formula on LinkedIn. Everywhere I look I see the same thing repeated. I’ve even tried to do it in my headline. What’s a better way to get across what you do? 

This question was from Thomas. 

Here’s his current LinkedIn headline. 

In this week's VAMO podcast, Dan and I recommend he shortens it a bit. 

But here’s the truth. It doesn’t really matter what your headline says. 

The only people who have convinced you that it’s important usually make their living from telling you how to optimise your LinkedIn profile. 

The next time you see a ‘why your headline is important’ post, ask yourself what have they ever actually sold? What business have they started? 

It’s usually coaching or courses solely on LinkedIn. 

Here’s an actual line from a recent gurus post: 

“your "tagline" is often a make-or-break moment”

Get to fuck. 

How often have you checked someone's headline before buying something? 

You’d be far better spending time working on your actual content, filling up your pipeline, and looking after customers. 

And this is from the guy who convinced everyone they needed a banner! 

• Professional looking banner 

• Decent headshot 

• Short memorable headline 

That’s all you need. 

Don’t agonise over the perfect formula. It doesn’t exist. Whilst you're doing that. Your competitors are out-selling you. 

---

Homework 📚

Having a power statement makes selling easier. 

If you haven’t got one, use my template and create your own: 

• Introduce who you are with a memorable statement.

• Why would they be interested?  

• Identify the pain points you suspect they have.

• How does your solution fix that better than anyone else? 

• How will life be better?  

• What should they do next? 

• Most importantly - keep it short.  

If you’re struggling, drop me a DM, or share your ideas in the Slack group.

---

That’s it for this week. I hope you found it useful. 

If this edition has prompted any questions, drop it in the slack group and I’ll get back to you. 

See you next week for more advice on how to sell more, market better, and grow your following. 

Cheers,

Mike