How to Handle Rejections From Cold Outreach Attempts
This month my goal was to learn everything I could about how to succeed in sales. I read books, listened to podcasts, did a ton of research, and put what I learned into practice. This is one part of my project; check out my entire project here.
“We already use company x.” “I am not interested.” “We don’t need that right now.”
These are some of the typical rejections that cold callers/ emailers get when reaching out to potential prospects. In this post, I will be going through a 3 step formula for the best way to handle these rejections.
Here is a call I recently received:
Cold caller — “Hey Caysen, this is Amanda from “Company name,” is this a good time to talk?
Me — “No, this isn’t; I am currently about to walk into work.”
Cold caller — “Well, this will only take 30 seconds.” And then she starts her pitch. “Blah blah blah.”
Me — Hung up
I try to be as nice as possible to cold callers, but in this case, I felt like she wasn’t even listening or completely disregarded what I said. So, I hang up. After this happened, it got me wondering; Is there something she could have did differently so that I didn’t hang up on her?
Before going further, I want to recognize that asking “Is this a good time” was her first mistake. That’s just an easy way to let the prospect off the hook. All the prospect has to say, “it’s a bad time,” and hang up the phone.
But some people (most people), when getting cold-called honestly, are busy. And even if a cold caller doesn’t directly ask if it is a good time to speak, a lot of people interrupt and indicate that it’s a bad time.
Instead of handling “it’s not a good time right now” by completely ignoring me and rushing into the value proposition as this cold caller did, it would be wiser to use this three-step formula.
Three-step formula
Step #1 — Empathize
“Oh, okay, it looks like I caught you in the middle of something.”
You want to indicate that you listened to them and show empathy by showing you understand their current situation.
Step #2 — Validate
“I totally get why it might not be a good time to talk.”
Validate that you understand that it might not be a good time to talk.
Step #3 — Offer
“but is it cool if I take 30 seconds to tell you why I’m calling to see if it’s even slightly relevant to you, and then you can hang up on me?”
Reasoning — They might be busy, but they can’t be that busy if they picked up the phone, so don’t give up on what you set out to do in the first place. Being very clear that you only intend to take up 30 more seconds of their time is very important.
In the next portion of the offer, I emphasize the word “slightly” because it takes the pressure off of them. They don’t have to understand the product I am selling to them completely, and they don’t have to make any sort of real decision.
The final portion of the script says “and then you can hang up on me”. This might be the most important thing I say. The goal is to be disarmingly blunt. They are busy, and I need to make sure they are aware that I intend to respect that.
Example #2 — “We already use company x.”
Here is another example of a common rejection that cold callers typically hear. This usually comes later in the call once the prospect learns about what they are getting sold. When a prospect indicates that they are already using a competitor’s service, this is how I would handle it:
Step #1 — Empathize
Well, I am sure you are probably thinking, “why would you want to spend time talking to me about a solution that you already have taken care of?”
Empathize by saying you understand why it might not make sense. People what to be heard, so let them know you have listened to them.
Step #2 — Validate
“which is understandable.”
Tell them they are correct so that you can validate them.
Step #3 — Offer
“This might be a long shot, but I am reaching out because we work specifically with Shopify stores and help companies automatically segment their customers. Not sure if that is interesting to you or not, but at the very least, we can provide you with some tips and tricks to get the most out of your current text message marketing software. Does that sound moderately interesting?”
Indicate why your company can bring them more value than the company they currently work with, so they have a reason to learn more about your solution.
Continue to validate and empathize throughout this offer to continue to show you understand their situation.
Give them an additional reason to be interested in setting up a meeting.
Don’t make the first question you ask them a hard ask. Ask first something like “does this sounds moderately interesting.” A question like that is lot easier of a question to get a yes to.
Get After It!
I have received a lot of cold calls lately and have noticed a pretty common theme. Cold callers rush into their offer way too fast. It seems like they rush into their offer as quickly as possible so people like me don’t get the chance to hang up. That strategy has not worked and will continue not to work, so if you’re making cold calls, make sure to take the extra time to empathize and validate the prospect before getting into the offer.
Thanks for making it to the end! If you want to check out my entire project, you can do that here!
