Observations, Humor, Maybe a Sales Tip
Life's Little Annoyances
Life's Little Annoyances
There are many of life's little annoyances we encounter daily. Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, NJ, surveyed people and asked about 21 common annoyances. Coming in second place was "Not getting a human on the phone."
We all can relate as salespeople.
(Also, if you hear complaints about that from your prospects and customers about your company you might want to have someone who can affect that fix it.)
Oh, the top annoyance? Hidden fees added to bills. Again, do your invoices contain any of those?
Learning Just a Bit From a Cheesy, Hard Sell Sales Rep Speaking of annoyances, the Do-Not-Call List has thankfully almost eliminated what was typically voted the top one: telemarketing calls at home.
However, hard-sell telephone pitchmen are still out there, ignoring laws and trying to squeeze money out of people.
While driving to a college football game last Fall in Oxford, MS to see Ole Miss play, a buddy and I were listening to a sports radio show that predicted the point spreads of football games. It was quite cheesy and was essentially a commercial for various subscription services that promised to pick the point-spread winners of top games. By calling their 800 number you could supposedly hear one of those picks for free.
Curious about their sales techniques, and looking for some entertainment I called the number from my cell. I put the recording on speakerphone as we heard the screaming used-car-salesman-sounding guy pitch his service. We got a good laugh.
Then the next day, my cell rings, showing the call coming from an unidentified 800 number.
I answer, and immediately recognize the voice from the betting service. He jumps into an animated, yelling sales pitch. I am certain it is a recording. That is, until after two minutes or so he goes for the close. I remain silent. Then the voice says, "So what credit card do you want that on buddy?"
I said, "I don?t."
Then, he/the recording pretty much ignored my response, and continued pitching the service. Then he closed again: "Let?s start making you money my friend. Which credit card?"
I continued, and so did he. Now, I'm wondering if it is a recording, or the guy himself, live. To test him, I threw out a nonsense response: "I'll put it on my Costco card."
Without missing a beat he replied, "I know that some people can see humor in losing but we take winning seriously and that?s why we will give you the point spread winners..." Finally, he wore me down and I just hung up, shaking my head that this kind of approach was still going on.
I thought that was the end of things. I was wrong. He called again Monday, same approach. I told the voice--or recording to take me off of his list. He continued pitching as if I had said nothing. I hung up.
He called again the next day. Same thing! I still couldn't tell if it was a recording and a voice recognition program that was trained to give responses to certain replies. I was so annoyed I began using rather colorful language to describe him, his lineage, and something to do with his mother. He replied,
"No need to use profanity my friend. So when you get your picks from us each week..." Unbelievable.
I thought it would never end. Calls came the next two days. Finally, they stopped by the weekend, when I imagine they generated a fresh batch of leads.
So, any useable sales lessons here? Well, I did observe that the recording--or guy--was undaunted by resistance, essentially ignoring it and continuing. Granted, he was over the top with it, but too often legitimate salespeople are too quick to give up when faced with the slightest resistance. Instead, in many cases we can reply with, "I understand," or "That's OK," and continue questioning.
Be Careful About What You Habitually SayWe really need to be careful about the speaking habits we possess and when they might pop up.
In the local Omaha daily paper an article on holiday etiquette shared a humorous phone mishap: a woman was wrapping up a an internal phone conversation with her company?s IT director.
Before hanging up she said, "I love you Larry."
She said she did it out of habit, "You know how you tell your family you love them on the phone..."
He was not family. Doh! She immediately called back and apologized. Luckily, he saw the humor in it?and nothing more.
Observations, Humor, Maybe a Sales Tip
By: Art Sobczak
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