Power Phone Scripts

Chapter 3Dealing with Resistance When ProspectingHow to Overcome Initial Resistance While Cold Calling

Many sales reps ask me how to deal with objections when they are prospecting, and they are surprised when I tell them that there are no objections when cold calling. “What do you mean?” they ask. “I get the objections like ‘I'm not interested,’ and ‘I'm too busy,’” and ‘We are all set,’” and many others, they tell me. Those are not objections, I counter; those are simply initial resistance statements. I tell them that they use them all time themselves. Think about walking into a department store and being approached by a sales associate, I say. When they ask how they can help you, don't you reply, “I'm just looking?” That is not an objection; rather, it is simply your immediate reaction to someone trying to sell you something.

It's the same thing with your prospects. They get approached all the time, and they also have developed initial resistance statements to blow sales reps off. The reason these are not objections is because your prospect hasn't been pitched anything yet. Because they don't know what you are selling, nor the details of your offering, they can't be objecting yet. Instead, they are just trying to blow you off. The difference here might seem subtle, but it makes a huge difference in how you handle it.

How you handle an initial resistance statement on a prospecting call (and sometimes even close, for that matter) versus how you handle an objection makes a huge ...