Don't Be a Sales Idiot

My friend Ryan Brooks (Prinicipal at Valley IT Services) posted on Facebook the other day that a sales person called him and when he told them "I am not interested" the person hung up. So lets talk about how many things are fundamentally wrong with this concept.
First: customer or salesperson, hanging up on someone is rude and unprofessional. There are certainly instances when this could be appropriate but very rarely is this the case. The #1 reason people will often hang up is because the other person made a valid point and they cannot articulate an answer for now. When cold calling was a big part of my prospecting I would hear from people all the time "I'm not interested." Many sales people will often respond "what is it you are not interested in?" To which the potential customer says "whatever it is you are selling." So this is a classic example of the customer not wanting to deal with the person on the other end of the phone. A more effective response would be "I don't have time to give you my complete attention right now but if you call me back on THIS DAY at THIS TIME, I will take 5 minutes to listen and understand." There are 3 possible outcomes from this: the smart salesperson agrees and sets up the follow up call. The stupid sales person continues to pitch and the customer hangs up or the soft sales person agrees and never makes that call.
Second: I alluded to this in my first point and will go into greater detail here. If you as the salesperson have someone on the telephone and they seem to be listening but not agreeing, you need to ask intelligent questions. When the customer say's they are not interested, don't just ask why. Ask some pointed questions, here's a short list:
1 " I'm sorry: I was told that you are the correct person to discuss this solution with. If I have the wrong person would you please point me in the right direction."
If they tell you they are the correct person then proceed with:
2. "Is it fair to say that you are happy with your current vendor and that is why you don't want to meet?" If the answer is yes then follow up with:
3. "I appreciate your honesty, If you don't mind me asking who is your current vendor and how long have you been with them?"
This is your opportunity to become an excellent listener and it also becomes key to understand your competition. Do you know this vendor? Is there anything relevant going on with this vendor (merger acquisition, etc) that can have relevance to your opportunity to help them.
After this you should have a real conversation going with the customer. Keep it above board and keep the conversation in the interest of the client. If now is not the time to meet, then ask the client when to follow up and then mark it in your calendar

I want to be real clear, this is not a bullet proof solution. Largely because for every idiot salesperson, there is also at least one idiot potential customer. It is also important to recognize a couple key factors:

First: you may have called this person on a bad day. Try again in a couple weeks and act like you never had the conversation. If they are still a Jerk, you need to do 1 of 2 things, drop them from your prospect list or find another company contact (preferably a referral).

So in summary: if you are a salesperson or a client, being professional is always the proper way to go. Even if the person on the other end is being an idiot.

Thanks for reading today

Mike Shelah

BTW, please check out my fundraising blog www.40milesforautism.blogspot.com