No one is listening to me!

I work with lots and lots of salespeople from many different companies and product types, many of whom are looking to grow their sales via "cold calling". From this one of the most common questions I get asked is along the lines of:

"How can you grab someone's attention on a first call - if they are sure they do not need my product ?"

My guess is that the people they are calling get lots of people calling them trying to sell them something & they will all use roughly the same script - along the lines of:

"Hello Mr Buyer my name is Blah & I represent the Blah company - We sell Blahs & today I have a special offer for you..."

Unfortunately that is about as far as most people get as the buyer has switched off & given their standard reply of "No thank you, not today" as they put the phone down!

To overcome this there are 2 techniques you can use:

The first is something borrowed from the world of hypnosis & it is called "A Pattern Interrupt" - This is where you interrupt the normal pattern of events with something that is totally unexpected, thus jarring the prospect into listening.

I have recently done some work with a retailer along these lines - Now if you think about it the standard pattern when you walk into a shop is that the assistant comes up to you & says:

"Can I help you?" & you reply "No I am just looking. Thank You." - The assistant then slopes off to talk to their mates - Not a great selling opportunity!

So I have taught them to use various pattern interrupts - The most popular are:

Assistant: "Can I help you?"

Customer: "No I am just looking. Thank You."

Assistant: "Yes I know this display is so good that I sometimes just stand and look myself!"

Assistant "Can I help you?"

Customer "No I am just looking. Thank You?"

Assistant "Oh that is good as we are not charging for looking today!"

Both of these usually have the customer burst out laughing, breaking the ice & building rapport.

So my question to you is - What can you use as a pattern interrupt on your calls?

Once you have a few, test them out to see what works best.

The second is similar to the first & comes from a book on Google Adwords written by Perry Marshal:

"You capture the attention of your customer when you enter the conversation already taking place inside her head."

So what are the conversations that are already taking place in your prospects heads? I would hazard a guess that it is not "Oh I must buy some advertising today"

What is keeping them awake at night?
What do they dream about?
What do they crave?

If you can come up with an opening line that firmly enters the conversation already taking place inside their heads then they will listen to you & in itself this is a pattern interrupt!

Recently, I received a "cold call" that went like this:

"Hello my name is Paul & I represent ABC Company"

Unfortunately that was as far as Paul got as I went into the standard "No thank you" and put the phone down - mean I know but I am a busy man!

I then started to think about what Paul could have done to grab my attention and so I went to his company's web site & found that they are a domain name service that are offering the following:

ABC ltd is pleased to announce its latest FREE service. If you are a new start up business or if you are an existing business based in the UK then you can obtain a FREE DOMAIN NAME today for your business

So given that domain names can vary wildly in price, if I was Paul I would have started with something like:

"Hello Mr Robinson, my name is Paul & I want to give you £25!"

Now that would have got my attention!

Bill Robinson