Pop quiz.
Twenty seconds into a cold call, your prospect says, “Can you send me an email?”
How do you respond?
Most salespeople do one of two things:
- They send an email and follow up.
- They try to overcome the objection by saying things like:
“Sure, the email comes with me. Let’s schedule some time next week to chat. How’s Tuesday?”
“My experience is that emails get buried, so that doesn’t do either one of us any good. Let’s schedule some time Thursday at 3 or 4 pm. What works best for you?”
Each of these statements destroys trust because prospects can smell your commission breath.
Whenever prospects feel like the push, they put up their Zone of Resistance (ZOR).
The ZOR is a reflect reaction used to protect prospects from self-serving salespeople.
Here’s how the lower the ZOR so you can understand the truth behind the objection.
Objections carry one of two meanings:
1) They’re true. The prospect is interested and wants additional information.
2) They’re not true. The prospect isn’t interested and is asking for an email to get you off the phone because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.
Here’s some phraseology that will help you get to the truth behind “Send me an email.”
Mirroring
“I’m sorry, an email?”
Mirroring is a simple technique I learned from Christopher Voss where you repeat the last 2-3 most important words with a slight uptone as if to say, “Tell me more.” Mirroring often elicits more information.
Then:
“To make sure I don’t do a disservice by sending you an email that’s not relevant, would it be okay if I asked you a couple of quick questions?”
One of two things will happen after you say this:
- The prospect will say “sure,” and now you’re in a conversation.
- You’ll hear, “No, just send me anything.”
When requests don’t have “oomph” or detail behind them, they’re not true
“Anything” sounds like a brush-off because it’s not specific. There’s no “oomph” behind “anything.”
So you might say, “I might be misreading here, but typically when people ask me to send them anything, it’s just a nice way of saying they’re not interested, which is not a problem at all. I know you didn’t ask me to call you. Is that the case here?”
A good skill to master is knowing how to get to more truth so you can protect your time.