I Can't Believe A Salesperson Just Asked Me This

Hi, welcome to Talking Points Live. As always, a quick reminder that you can subscribe to my Fortnightly newsletter on LinkedIn or on my website, Jason sbradshaw.com called Talking Points with Jason, where each week, each fortnight I share with you a topic, a book that I'm reading, and some key learnings from from the Fortnite, as well as details of my latest podcast releases. And you can listen to my podcast on all popular podcast platforms and of course, on YouTube. It's chats with Jason. So you won't believe what I had earlier happened to me earlier this day. I had a phone call and I was a bit hesitant to answer it. I was in the middle of something, but I've been waiting for a call from a few people so I thought I'd pick it up and it was a salesperson trying to sell me something. That's fair enough, right? I've made an inquiry. They're ringing out to make a sales call. So anyway, long story short. Well, actually the call was pretty short because I immediately said to the sales consultant as soon as I knew what they were calling for, I don't have time for this call, can you just email me? The response I got was jaw dropping. Like, this person's job is to make outbound calls every single day, all day long to fresh leads to try and sell the product. I'm sure I'm not the only one that said I don't have time. And I'm probably not the only one to have said, can you just email me? His response, though was as I said, jaw dropping. He literally said to me, what should I email you? So I said to him, how about you email me the questions that you need answers to so that you can give me a quote? And he then, oh, I guess I could do that. Baffles me. You have me on the phone and you have an opportunity to try and engage with me. I've said I want to take it onto email. Surely the next step is to send me an email with how you can help me or what you need to be able to help me. Give me a quote. So anyway, what most of you might not know is that many, many years ago I used to do outbound telemarketing, selling carpet cleaning and pest control services, originally working for someone, and then I started my own business, domestic and commercial carpenter cleaning and pest control service. So I understand outbound sales from a deep personal perspective and I can assure you when you're ringing at 6:00 clock at night to sell someone carpet cleaning you get a few objections. So this is what I would have done if a person had said to me, I'm sorry, can you just send me an email? The very next thing I would have said is, yes, absolutely I can. Can you please confirm with me your email address? I, I just want to make sure that I've got it right now. That's assuming you have the email address. Of course there's a version of not having the email address. And then as soon as they've given me the email address, I would restate. I will send you an email right now with my free this, my, my questions that will help me give you a quote. I'd give some context about what's going through and then I would say to the customer, if you do happen to just have three minutes to squeeze in and I promise you it won't be more than three minutes, I have three quick questions that if you can answer those right now, I can actually email you the quote to get things moving faster for you. And if they replied with no, I really don't have time. Fantastic, no problems, I'll send you an email notice here. I'm doing two things. A, I'm acknowledging the customer's request and agreeing to it because it's quite reasonable. And two, I'm trying to continue the conversation because I've already got them on the phone. I've shown them that it's not all about me. By saying yes to their email request, a number of people will say, okay, if it's only three questions and you can email me stuff later, great, I'll answer those questions. Some won't and that's fine. You just go through the email process. My point here is I shouldn't be training the person trying to sell me. And your sales teams should be trained already to handle objections, especially as something as simple as I don't have time to talk right now. So here are my key takeouts for what every outbound salesperson should be prepared for. And if they are prepared for this, your business will have breakthrough success. So number one, customers don't have time. The customer doesn't have time to talk. The key goal here is to progress the conversation. So either offer to call back at a time more suitable, reinforce how quick this call will be to see if they had a perception that was going to be a half an hour call, but in fact it's only going to be five minutes. Whatever time you say there though, you have to honor it. So if you say it's five minutes, at that five minute mark you need to be wrapped up and offer an alternate channel to continue the conversation. So if the customer's not sure when they're going to be available or they just aren't into the conversation, then say, hey, how about I send you something on email or another platform? Can I send you a text message with a link to book into my calendar, something to try and keep that conversation? Because ultimately the first call is about relationship building. Yes, you want to get a sale, but if you can't get a sale, you better keep building a relationship so you can get a sale. The second thing that your team needs to be prepared for is the customer doesn't want to buy. Now, this could be an indicator of a few things. It could be because the offer wasn't great or it wasn't explained great. It could be that they aren't convinced in the value of your offer. Now, both of those could be a case of the offer itself, the way the sales consultants delivered it. The training communication could be that or it could be that it's not the right time for them to buy. So at very least in this case you should be saying so when would you normally consider purchasing this product? So take carpet cleaning for example. No, I'm not ready to get my carpets cleaned. That's perfectly fine. When would you normally be ready to get them cleaned? And I can schedule a call, say two weeks beforehand so we can make sure we secure the right spot for you. How does that sound? Again, the conversation here, the goal of the conversation here is to continue the relationship, to get the customer to give you permission to to continue the relationship and to schedule that call. And of course, if you've scheduled the call, when you ring back. Hi, Mr. Mrs. John, Mary. However you greet them, it's Jason here ringing you as agreed or as you requested. So you reinforcing that this is no longer a cold call, but rather an invited call. And then the third thing that you need to really consider, and this is perhaps the secret sauce, if your customer's not willing to engage in a conversation or your prospects not willing to engage in a conversation right now, is there a way that you can deliver some value to them in the moment that lets you to continue building, creating a relationship to continue the conversation a later time. So for example, that's perfectly okay. I understand that now is not a right time for you to talk about consider buying. How about I email you, send you whatever works in your industry. My top five tips for removing stains. My top five tips on how to save money or save power. My top tips on whatever, right? Give the customer just some piece of value that continues that conversation because it gives you another opportunity to be more likable, to build more trust and ultimately to have another conversation that could lead to the sale. So every outbound salesperson, every salesperson needs to be able to handle those three key objections. Customer doesn't have time, customer doesn't want to buy. And that third one is actually about giving value to overcome some of those objections for the first one, which is how can you give a customer some value first? So if you really do want business, your business to have breakthrough success, make sure your sales associates are focused on building relationships, one conversation after another. I'm Jason S. Bradshaw. If I can help you and your business achieve breakthrough success, simply reach out to me on any social platforms at Jason S. Bradshaw or of course go to my website Jason sbradshaw.com have a great day.