6/10/2013

Sales Worst Practices: Three phrases I don’t want you to say anymore

Sales Worst Practices: Three phrases I don’t want you to say anymore:

from The Funnelholic 

Quick update: I am tired and I missed a post this week.
Well, enough with that. Today, I felt like making a list of passive aggressive sales sayings that suck. My inspiration: I got hit with “checking in” today. Two days ago, a sales rep asked me if I “read some product specific collateral” he sent and I wrote back: “Dude, you really thought I would read that? Come on. Call me today and be a man.”Prospecting
Here are the three sales saying I don’t want you to say anymore:
1. “Just Checking in” — I am going to create a shirt: “Checking-in is for Wimps”.  Here is my tip: Use your brain and come up with something way more compelling than “I am just checking in”. I mean it. If you are about to check in, take a deep breath, study the prospect or call notes, and decide on what you want to say that has equal value to the buyer. When you check in, you are offering nothing and only taking. If this is a stalled conversation or you haven’t heard from someone, then send some arresting or thought provoking content instead. this works.
2. “I want to follow up and see if you got my (fax, proposal, email, etc)” — Dude please.Really? That’s why you are calling? Do you think that they didn’t get your email, phone call etc? (And don’t say: Well Craig, they may not have.) No, the buyer knows at that point that you are trying to break the ice in a really passive-aggressive, wimpy way.
3. “Did you get a chance to read…” — Is that really what you want to know? You sure? You want to know if I read something. You called me today to find out if I read something. Ok, follow along with me here:
-If they ask you to “send some information”, what they mean is: “Piss off”. There is a thing called the internet, they actually don’t need you to send something to read about you.
- Data sheets are used for paper airplanes. Sorry man. I know every sales person thinks they need it so the prospect “knows that they get” but they don’t read it. And besides marketing writes a bunch of marketing-words in there anyway so the data sheet doesn’t say anything.

Net-net, just Cowboy-up and have something meaningful to say…You want to be an equal of your buyer and you will never achieve that always “pussy-footing” around.
Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic and a co-founder of Topo. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

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