2. A conversation starter:
You: This is John Doe from Acme. Is this a good time to talk?
Prospect: Yes [or No]
You: Okay, I'll be brief. I'm calling because retail firms hire us to increase walk-in customers with curbside advertising. How are you currently enticing customers into your store?
With the sales pitch, you're lucky if you get to the end of the pitch before the prospect hangs up. More importantly, you have no idea whether what you said (your pitch) made any sense to the prospect. A prospect who really DOES need your offering may hang up, or say "not interested" simply because they didn't "get" what you were talking about.
By contrast, the conversation starter simply states in brief how you help your customers (from customer's viewpoint) and then invites a dialog. Because you're not overflowing the prospect with information, you can now discover the prospect's needs and whether your offering is a good match.
The same thing is true with sales emails. There are two ways to write them: