Opening Zoom calls with "How are you?" signals you're running a script and tanks your credibility. Try a self-deprecating joke instead: "I'm just the boring guy over here. What's going on in your neck of the woods?" It makes them laugh, triggers dopamine, and flips the power dynamic.
Here's how you never want to start a sales call unless you want to lose a ton of deals. Hey Sally, how are you doing today? Oh yeah, great. And where do you live? Oh, we live in Atlanta. I love Atlanta. Atlanta is so cool. How's the weather over there? Most salespeople have been taught to build rapport like this, but what you're not understanding is that these are predictable questions that every salesperson has tried to sell them anything always starts the conversation with. What that does is it lowers your status in their mind where they just view you as a salesperson trying to sell tell them something. So let's say the prospect talks first when you get on Zoom and they say, hey, how you doing today? Instead of you saying, I'm doing good, which doesn't really do anything for you, you want to make them laugh. So I don't want to be the class clown, but I might say, oh, you know, just being the boring guy over here. What about you? What's going on in your neck of the woods? Now notice I said that with a playful tone. It releases dopamine in your prospect's brain, which triggers the prospect to laugh. This is how you disarm the prospect. It's just a disarming technique.
