Another Saturday, another common sales objection to deal with.
Last week, I covered ‘Send me an Email’, which, if you implemented the advice, will save you time and help you really find out what the prospect thinks.
This week, it’s that challenging moment when the person you have wanted to speak to for a while, and have finally got through to, says ‘I’m not interested’.
What makes this worse is that you are 1000% sure you can help them. You know it’s highly likely they have the problem that you mentioned in your initial introduction to them. But because they are protecting themselves and doing what humans do, their instinctive reaction is to say ‘I’m not interested’.
They could say this for a number of reasons.
- They could be really busy that day or have their head in another key issue.
- They could be fed up with having lots of people call them that day.
- They could actually have solved the problem you mentioned at the start.
But most people say those 3 words because it’s the natural human reaction to give.
I mean, who would say this to someone they don’t know?
‘Thank you, you are right, I do have that problem and it’s been getting me down for a while. I didn’t know of a solution until you just phoned me, and now I do. How can I go about buying it?’
You get the ‘I’m not interested’ because it’s the initial defence mechanism we put up.
How many times have you told someone who asked how you are doing, ‘I am doing fine, thanks’, when in reality you are feeling awful?
Putting up barriers is what we as humans do, and we do it because we don’t want anyone to take advantage of us.
Telling someone that you aren’t interested means you can stay in control.
That person may, when the phone call ends, then think ‘Who was it again that called me?’ and go to look at your website. They may at that point bookmark you or follow your content, but they may not come back.
Or they may have another competitor reach out to them through digital marketing, and because you forgot to call them back, the potential opportunity is gone.
So, how can you overcome this? What can you say when someone says ‘I’m not interested’?
The term ‘pattern interrupt’ comes from Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the 1970s. It describes a deliberate technique to break an automatic habit, thought or physical behaviour.
The concept is that we operate all too often on autopilot and say things we don’t really mean.
Like ‘I’m not interested’.
So when this happens, we need a pattern interrupt to break the train of thought and actually get beneath the surface.
Which is why saying something like:
‘I knew you would say that. It’s exactly why I called.’
Makes the prospect think, ‘What do you mean?’
You can then carry on with:
‘Most IT Directors (insert the role of the person you’re speaking with) tell me the same thing when I call, and I get that totally.
They have never heard of me or what I do, and so it’s their natural reaction.
Some do end the call there, but the successful ones let me share why this problem is so important, what happens when it’s not fixed, and share one idea which you can take away to think about.
If I can’t do that within the next 1 minute, then I don’t deserve any more of your time.
Does that sound fair?’
You use the pattern interrupt initially to handle the ‘I’m not interested’ and then have a line that, when delivered in a calm but engaging way, gives you a chance of carrying on the call.
You have to then be able to deliver on the promise you made, but that’s an email for another week!
If, however, you know that you are a good fit and they are highly likely to have the problem that you mentioned, then use this as a method to try and stay in the call.
You may find that they truly aren’t interested, and if that’s the case, then there’s not a lot you can do.
But using a pattern interrupt to jolt their thought process is the way to handle things. It comes when you are trained and prepared to deal with a new call in the right way.
What do you think? Have you used this before, or is this something new that you could use?
Try it and let me know how it goes.
If you or your team sell IT and don’t have these skills, then let me know and let’s talk about some training that can help fix that.
Got any questions on sales queries like this? Drop me an email if you have, and I will see if I can help!
Until next Saturday.
Stay positive and remember, Eat or Be Eaten, you have a choice.
James
