Salespeople who open with generic small talk like weather or sports questions sound fake to prospects, who immediately recognize the ploy and put their guard up. These rehearsed lines backfire because they signal you're reading from a script, not actually interested in them.
When you ask questions like this, "Oh hey, welcome in, how you doing today? How's your day going, John? I'm so happy that you came in here to talk with us today. That weather out there is really bad. Did you see the game last night? The Cowboys, just disheartening. They got beat in the playoffs again." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's how most of your prospects interpret this. I'm just trying to get you to like me so I can sell you my product, my service, my thing. That's how you interpret that because every single salesperson has ever tried to sell them anything is asking them what predictable questions? The same ones you're asking. Their brain associates with who automatically? Salespeople trying to sell me something, and the guard goes up.
