Cold Calling Objection – Bring It Up First to Get Your Foot in the Door

In my walk-in cold calling days at McCaw Communications, I developed a successful “pick-up line” that worked almost every time; it’s what I call “interruption” sentences.

“I was talking with your neighbors next door about our cell phones and pagers, and I’m sure that you’re not in the market for any at this time.  But have you heard any of your neighbors talking about them?”

The purpose of the line is to start a relationship with a stranger.  Yet in many of my articles I talk about the importance of building relationships with customers.  One of my readers got confused and commented that he didn’t see how building relationships with prospects is related to starting relationships. 

“Your cold calling posts talk about interruption sentences.  Yet your newsletter talks about building relationships when calling.  I don’t see how the two are related.  How does ‘I know you are not in the market…’ help begin a relationship?”

Starting relationships and building relationships are not exclusive.  One doesn’t exist without the other.  The cold call, any type of contact you initiate with a stranger – even if it’s to say “Hi” – is the starting point.  But starting a cold call isn’t enough.  Now the work begins: building enough trust to grow and keep that relationship.

When cold calling, anticipate objections.  The first objection you’ll hear is, “I’m not interested.”  Steal their thunder.

If I used the opening line on my walk-in call, “We sell pagers and…,” I’d be cut off before I could finish.  “Not interested,” is an objection. 

To handle any objection, bring it up first and disarm them.  Because I stole their knee-jerk reaction, they can’t think fast enough to throw out a second objection, and I get to finish my statement.

Here’s the way it plays out in my internal dialogue as I create the pick-up line.  (The prospect’s thoughts are in parenthesis.)

I’m an unknown walking into their office unannounced.

(Great…who’s this bothering me?  Never seen him before.)

“I was talking with your neighbors next door….”

(He knows Jill?  She must trust him.)

“…about our cell phones and pagers (and without pausing) but I’m sure you’re not in the market for any at this time.”

(Took the words out of my mouth.  What can I say?)

“But have you heard of any your neighbors asking about them?”

(Hmm.  He’s not trying to sell me anything.  Not trying to bulldoze his way in here.  Maybe I’ll be nice.)

I picked up so much business with this line that McCaw sent every salesperson into the field with me to learn the technique.  Often I would get sales on the first cold call.  Many times I would get appointments.  Mostly I was told, “No”.  (Because I was doing 45-70 walk-in calls a day, I heard that a lot.)  But I led the nation every year in sales from cold calling.

Once the prospect’s guard was down long enough to let me finish, I’d get responses like these.

“You know, our service manager was talking about it last week.  Wait a minute.  I’ll call him up here.”  (I sold fifteen pagers to the manager of a refrigeration company on this cold call while doing a stand-up demo.  Time from cold call to signed-contract: 20 minutes.)

“We’re not, but you know my husband’s company was looking into getting some.  Here, let me write his phone number on the back of our business card.”

“We have been unhappy with our provider.  Can you leave me some information and call back?”

“What makes you better than the company we’re using now?”

“How much?”

“Didn’t you see the sign on the door?  ‘No Solicitors’.”  (No I didn’t because I’m never looking for it.)

“Get lost.”

Okay, I made up the last one.  In 30+ years of selling, I’ve only had two people get upset with me for cold calling them.  I’ve made 873,547 cold calls.  I’ve been rejected 835,333 times.  You don’t need to win them all to be successful.

Cold calling is the scariest part of selling.  Building relationships is the hardest part.  Selling is the easiest.  If you know where to expect objections and bring them up first in each stage, you’ll increase the odds that the relationship will flourish.