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. Her recently released program, Cold
Calling College, and/or her book, Cold Calling for Women, can be
ordered by visiting http://www.wendyweiss.com. Contact her at
wendy@wendyweiss.com. Get Wendy’s free e-zine at
http://www.wendyweiss.com.

Last 5 posts by Wendy Weiss

• Finding Leads (for Free) for Your Cold Calling Campaign - July 8th, 2008
• I Just Called to See How Things are Going - April 17th, 2008
• Would you like to have customers return again and again to buy? - February 11th, 2008
• Repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results - December 5th, 2007
• Cold Calling: A Prep Pep Talk - October 22nd, 2007