So you make a prospecting call, deliver your opening, and their response is a quick,

"I’m not interested."

Or, "We don’t need that."

Or something similar.

What do you do?

Many reps say "Thankyouverymuch" and hang up.

Granted, this is not a position where you are going to have your greatest shot at success, percentage-wise. This is like a football team starting from their own two-yard line, 30 seconds to go in the game, and down by eight points. It’s tough to pull this one out.

However, it’s not impossible. It still is worth running another play. After all, you are there anyway and there’s still time on the clock.

First, let’s assess the situation. Are those prospect "not interested" responses REAL objections?

Of course not. They are attempts to get salespeople off the phone. And they usually work. So prospects keep using them.

I call them Triple R’s; Resistant Reflex Responses.

They are reflexive, just like most people typically flinch without thinking about it, reflexively, when startled.  In this case, people say these things without thinking, in response to what they consider a typical sales call.

So what should we do?

Ignore the RRR.

That’s right. It’s not real anyway. So trying to address it with some goofy rebuttal will get you blown off the phone for sure.

What’s goofy? Maybe you’ve seen this in some sales literature:

"Of course you are not interested yet. That’s because I have not yet told you about all the great things that we do…"

Ever try to argue with someone who is irrational? It’s hair-pulling and gets you nowhere, because there is no reasoning behind what they say. Same thing here.

The best route?

Get them talking. Ask a question.

Get their mind off of the response, and instead, talking about something else, preferably a need or problem area you might be able to drill deeper on.

Ask a question about what they are doing, using, or buying in a certain area. Ask how they are now dealing with a problem that you know they are experiencing.

And, be sure you deliver it in a non-threatening, non-adversarial, non-smarty pants kind of way.

Again, this is not necessarily a high-percentage chance for success, but you might just start moving the ball downfield.

Let’s hear this in action. First, the set-up:

Every two weeks I meet with the talented sales crew at Tigerpaw Software http://www.tigerpawsoftware.com/ , the leaders in CRM and integrated solutions software in the niches of telcom, IT/computer networking, and AV/system integrators. Last week we reviewed recorded calls from the reps.

On a prospecting call, one of the reps, Tim Justus, was hit with the Resistant Reflex Response after his opening. Let’s listen in to how he responded.

That was a great question!

The prospect paused for a few seconds because she now had to think about the answer to the question.

In this particular case, this woman was the accountant at the company. Even though she technically "handled" the software for the organization, it was likely more the administration of the payment details with their vendors. She did know not the nitty-gritty details of the problems being experienced by their technicians, the actual users of the software.

Asking a question like this usually provides an answer, something of substance that we may be able to take and run with. (If you’re wondering what happened on this call, it did not progress further, but at least the attempt was there, which I look at as somewhat of a "win" given the situaton. It was a great question, nevertheless.)

OK, let’s open this up; What do YOU say when hit with the RRR?

Or, what will you say after giving some thought to what I’ve presented. Leave your replies here on the Blog. (To leave a comment, click on "Comments" at the top of this post, or click on the headline of this article if you do not see "Post a Comment" below.