Whenever I conduct a workshop or teleclass, invariably
someone asks the question: “What should I say when the
prospect says, ‘I’m not interested?’”
My response invariably is: “It’s probably too late.”
Certainly you can try to recover from that “I’m not
interested” response. You can ask, “Why do you say that?”
(Say this gently, as though you are confused and really,
really want the answer.) You can repeat back: “Not
interested?” (Again, say this gently, as though you are
confused.) This sometimes gets people to start talking and
explain themselves. Bottom line, however, if everyone that
you speak with says, “I’m not interested,” you’re not
saying anything interesting.
If you have a compelling script with stellar delivery, you
will hardly ever hear the words, “I’m not interested.”
That’s because you will actually be saying something
interesting!
On the telephone, you have approximately 10-20 seconds to
grab your prospect’s attention – and if you do not do that,
your call is probably over. 10-20 seconds is not a lot of
time. You are not going to convey a lot of information in
10-20 seconds. Instead, what you’ll convey is your energy,
your confidence and your excitement. Your words must reach
out and immediately grab and hook your prospect’s attention.
From the moment your prospect says, “Hello,” your goal is
to gain your prospect’s attention so that she is hungry to
hear more. If you don’t hook your prospects in the
beginning of your conversation, they will not want to speak
with you. They will say, “I’m not interested,” and worse
case, they may hang up on you.
In order to hook your prospect, ask yourself: Whom are you
calling? Why should they be interested? You’re looking for
hot buttons, those issues that are so important to your
prospect that when they come up, your prospect stops in her
tracks to listen. The big point here is that when you are
trying to hook someone, you have to have some sense of
what’s important to them.
Ask yourself: What is the value that I (the
company/product/service) bring to customers. How do they
benefit? How do I (the company/product/service) make
customer’s lives easy, stress-free, happy, profitable etc?
You may have to do some market research and/or
brainstorming here. Once you’ve determined that value,
however, lead with it.
Here’s an example:
Last year when I conducted the “Cold Calling College”
teleclass, I received an e-mail from a participant. He said
he was calling owners of mid-size companies and not having
much success. His e-mail read:
“…I say my name and company and then say ‘we specialize
in business performance management solutions for budgeting,
reporting and analysis…. I hear ‘not interested’ then
they hang up before I can say anything else.
Another thing I have tried is, ‘…the reason I am calling
is to introduce [company name]‘s budgeting reporting
analysis solutions and to invite you to an Excel
seminar…’ But after this I hear, ‘not interested,’ then
they hang up before I can say anything else.”
It’s hardly surprising that these introductions didn’t
work. They weren’t interesting. There was nothing in those
first sentences to grab and hook a business owner’s
attention.
Later on, after going through the “Cold Calling College”
system, the person who wrote this e-mail was able to pare
his introduction down. His introduction ended up being
something like: “We help companies keep the money they
make.” Short, sweet, to the point and focused on the value
to business owners. Prospects stopped hanging up on him.
Instead, he was able to start scheduling meetings with
those business owners.
Lesson learned: Do your homework. Do what ever is necessary
to truly understand your prospects. Before you ever pick up
the phone, have the answer to the question: “Why should
this prospect be interested?” If you have that answer, you
will never again hear: “I’m not interested.”
—————————————————-
Wendy Weiss, “The Queen of Cold Calling,” is a sales
trainer, author and sales coach who helps you to gain
confidence, reach more prospects, close more sales and make
more money! For free prospecting sales tips go to
http://www.wendyweiss.com
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