Many People Hang Up on You and Rightly So

"My name is....."

"Hi Mr. Smith, my name is........"

Most every sales call or appointment-setting call in America starts this way--the WRONG way. Sales people and business owners think it's so important to tell the caller their name. But the caller does not give a hoot about your name. Because you've been taught to do it this way, you will be astonished what I tell you here.

Your name is unimportant. Your company's name is unimportant. The sales prospect does not care. The sales prospect has interest in only one thing. In fact, the sales prospect has continuous interest in this one thing, 24 hours a day, every day. The prospect wants to know "what's in it for me?" If you have your entire sales call focused on 'what's in it for the prospect," you will get rich in sales.

The answer to this question, "what's in it for me," must be the FIRST thing out of your mouth when you make a sales call--not your name, not your company name.

Of course, at this point some readers are thinking "it's unprofessional not to introduce your self" or "it's only proper business protocol to start off stating your name and company."  Good–you keep using your proper protocol and stay poor.  When I get a call and the caller states their name and company and they are unfamiliar to me, I am 70% ready to hang up because I know it's a cold call AND the caller has given me ZERO incentive to stay on the call.

Here's what it sounds like when done correctly:

Mr. Smith? I understand you have an interest in lowering your advertising costs so that you have more profit. Is that still the case?

You now have your prospect's interest, your prospect's engagement and someone who is likely to listen to you for the next 2 minutes. Your prospect is engaged because you have succinctly asked a question in which he has interest--lower costs, more profit.

Please don't make another call by introducing yourself. If you call me and tell me your name and your company's name, I will hang up on you.  Or even worse, tip me off that you are only a telemarketing-level prospector by asking, "how are you today?"

Now that you have your prospect's attention, disarm him immediately.  If your second sentence starts to sound like a pitch and return to your natural "about me and my company" orientation, you will blow it.  Your natural inclination at this point is to say something like "Well good, because my company can……."  This causes the prospect to get ready for a pitch and his defenses go up. Rather, continue to engage and disarm.

"I have no idea if the following approach will work for your company but there are 24 other firms in your industry using it in other parts of the country."  Now your prospect is interested and disarmed because there is NO seller who ever says "I have no idea if this will work."  Every sales call the prospect has ever received is from a person telling him that the seller's solution is the best thing since sliced bread and always works. But you don’t say this and you avoid having to cut through his defensive armor.

At this point, because you are ridiculously anxious to tell him your name, you can say "by the way, my name is Bob.  Do you prefer Mr Henderson or David?"