Sales has never been harder despite all the technology that was supposed to make it easier. We compete in an environment where attention is scarce, clutter oppressive and distractions nonstop. The burden is on us to rise above the noise. That is why I invited Aaron Frazin, founder and CEO of Charlie, to join me for today’s Q&A.
Charlie is an app that sifts through 100s of sources and automatically sends you a one‐pager on all the people you plan to meet with, before you see them. It gathers the intel you need to make a killer impression.
I had the pleasure to meet Aaron through Lightbank, our mutual VC investor here in Chicago. What separates Aaron from other founders is the degree of spirit, thoughtfulness and adventure he brings to entrepreneurship. He’ll tell you that just being human is the key to crushing sales:
Jayna: What inspired you to create Charlie?
Aaron: One of my big beliefs is that capturing someone’s attention, or attention in general, is challenging. At the dinner table, people are always on their phones. Inboxes are filled beyond belief and decision makers receive way too many calls. It’s only getting worse. People now have an attention span of 8 seconds. It used to be 12 seconds. Attention is going to be the scarcest commodity there is.
So how do you solve that? You do your research and make the prospect care. One of the best skills to have is the ability to tell a story, capture attention and say things that resonate. We built Charlie to help make that happen. We want to bring the human element back into the business world, and if we can achieve that, we’ve succeeded.
Jayna: In sales, what’s the secret to capturing someone’s attention?
Aaron: Let’s use email as an example. Every point in an email needs to buy attention currency. In the beginning, you’re effectively trash. But you can buy more seconds. Why should the person read on? How have I bought their attention? After enough lines, you buy enough attention to say something boring. You’re competing with the prior email, their phone, the next email, Chicago summer, etc. Make it as easy as possible to read on.
Read the full article here on Forbes.
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