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Sales objection handling: responding to 'I'm not interested'
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What I find with this, it’s a great way to say, typically when I speak to you, you’re appealing to their their peers, the job title, typically when I speak to marketing directors like yourself, they’re not interested until we learned how we help them solve a problem. So you want to drop a typical problem or a challenge that they’re having. So again, something negative because our brains are wired to negative bias. So we’re more likely to listen until they learn that they could stop getting fines or until they learn they could stop losing something. It’s that sort of loss aversion. Again, we’re more afraid of losing something than we are of gaining something. Right. And just having someone empathize with a pain point that I feel might make me pause and say, Oh, let me chat with this person, because they have identified a pain point that, for lack of a better term, keeps me up at night.. So that’s great. It’s a pain point that peaks your interest. Something really powerful that’s going to peak your interest rather than saying, here’s our solution. You know, we help Val save hours of podcast recording by doing X, Y, Z, you’re not really going to be interested in that right? Doesn’t appeal to you. The salesperson hasn’t really thought about the problem that their solution solves for. So yeah. Right. You could have someone feel seen, heard and understood just in one sentence. I think you’re going to have a good odds of continuing that conversation. Great tip. Yeah. All right. We’re shifting gears to more of a bold response, which, you know, be cautious. They say, I’m not interested. And you say, well, Jim, I’m not asking you to make a decision right now. Tell me how this one goes over. So, well, Jim, you’re using the person’s first name there, and that tends to get a much better response. Their ears are going to prick up.. They’re going to listen. You’ve used their first name and then you say, I’m not asking you to make a decision right now. “You’re getting them to do the talking rather than coming out with a statement.” So they might say something like, who is this? Where are you calling from? And then you’ve got your opportunity to go into your, Hey, this is Charlotte from Investment. Monitor typically when I speak to leaders like yourself and you drop your priority or challenge there, but I like this because it it pushes that back onto the prospect. And as we said on one of our previous responses, when you’re not interested, when you’re doing that mirroring, most salespeople, avoid that question in the first few seconds because again, they’re too keen to get the pitch out there, the too keen to get the meeting. So they often talk too much rather than letting the prospect talk, you put the ball in the prospect’s court, get the prospect to respond to you in that first instance. And I think this takes a lot of practice. You know, when you do cold calling, you need to feel very comfortable perhaps when you’re using this questioning technique at the very beginning of the call. Yeah, absolutely. I think letting them talk themselves into a follow up call with you is probably the best case scenario. Yeah. All right. Number seven, this is perhaps my favorite because I feel like with this one, we’re offering some future value. So they say, I’m not interested. And you say, I’m not trying to sell you anything today. I’d like to give you a resource so that in the future when you consider this, you’ll have some insight and options. I really do love this one. Yeah. No, it’s a great one, isn’t it? Because you’re saying I’m not selling you anything today, so you could be selling me something tomorrow or in the future, but you’re actually not selling anything on a cold call. The only thing that you want to be said before is to get to the next meeting or get some level of interest. This is, again, a bit of a pattern interrupt because most prospects are not expecting to be given something.
It’s a little bit maybe arrogant compared to some of the other responses that we went through. But it’s actually, you’re not asking that person to make a decision, giving an opportunity to revisit the topic in the future. And also, you want to avoid creating a sense of pressure or discomfort for the prospect when you say that. A cold call, is pressure right? There’s a certain amount of pressure because the person, they want to guard their time, don’t necessarily want to be on a cold call. Most prospects we call up, we are, as we said before, interrupting their day.. They picked up the phone. You need to sort of offer a bit of sensitivity towards their day. Give them some flexibility and not ask them to make a decision right now.. It’s also a little bit funny as well, so it’s injecting that humor. It’s the same as saying, I’m not I’m not selling anything I’m not selling anything or I’m not selling anything yet. I want to have a conversation with you. So, you know, you’re being direct. You’re being upfront. All right.. We’re going to go to number six now. They say, I’m not interested. And you ask, may I ask, what specifically about this opportunity is not of interest to you? And I think that negative, what’s not of interest, is super interesting. Can you talk us through this one? Yeah. What’s not of interest to you? So again, answering an objection with a question. Most salespeople have been taught to respond to objections by trying to handle them or overcome them. And this is sort of the wrong way to go about it. The psychology around objection handling has to change. You know, they say I’m not interested. May ask specifically, what about this opportunity is not of interest to you? You’re getting them to do the talking rather than coming out with a statement. You just saying, look, tell me what’s not interesting. And, if you’re just starting a cold call this way, it’s going to sort of put them in the headlights in a way they’re not expecting this kind of response. “And I think this takes a lot of practice.” So you might want to, you’ve got some specific analysis or report or data that’s relevant to their industry, if they’re marketing director,. CMO or a VP of Sales might put together something that they’re really going to like. And this has a good way to build trust so and also your credibility as well as a salesperson because, you know, cold calling still has a bad name. And a lot of today’s sellers think that with email that they can avoid it. So reframing this interaction in a way that’s sort of helpful, it makes it all about the prospect is focusing on building that relationship in the moment and that future relationship to be able to then create a future opportunity. I feel like today’s executives, regardless of industry, we all feel like innovation is coming at us so quickly that it’s impossible to keep up with every small thing. So I really feel like that could be an effective approach just to let people know, hey, this might be on the horizon and you might not even realize it yet. And then you’re kind of looking out for their interests which puts you in a position as a seller to have a lot of trust. So I think I think number seven is my favorite, but we still have one more. So number eight, I feel like this one is more like a bandwagon appeal where you’re showing them, hey, your peers are experiencing the same issue. So they say, I’m not interested and you say, well I didn’t expect you to be interested because you don’t know a lot about this yet, but other executives in your industry are and then maybe trying to avoid and insert a negative outcome or a problem that you’ve observed in the industry as a seller. Yeah. So again, when are you getting I’m not interested. It’s resistance isn’t it. So we didn’t mention this in the beginning, but you’re getting that resistance. Prospect doesn’t want to be on the phone with you.