The Fine Art of Greeting Your Prospect

“How are you today?” “How's it going?” “What’s new?” We hear these phrases all day long when we greet someone in the hall or answer the phone. Most of us are guilty of using these meaningless greetings, and half the time the other person doesn’t even bother to answer the question. 

Salespeople are particularly guilty of this because they haven’t given much thought to better ways to open conversations with their prospects and clients. Similarly, they tend to abuse other phrases as well, such as “I’m just calling to touch base with you” or “I’m checking in to see how you are doing with our proposal.” I know that when a salesperson calls on me with those kinds of phrases, I start thinking he has no good reason to call other than to try to convince me to buy something now, which means that he is wasting my time, and therefore has no chance to win my business. You can be sure that your prospects are thinking the same way about you. 

Aren’t these simply polite and common ways to greet your prospects? Certainly. However it also can cause them to go into an automatic prospect mode: The prospect stops listening immediately, because he knows it’s a salesperson. In other words, the salesperson thinks he is actually having a sales call, while the prospect is thinking only of how to get rid of this pest.  

The whole idea is that if you look, act or sound like just another salesperson, you will be treated like one. So you need to change the pattern. Be professional, but be different. Try these two alternate methods with your prospects and clients that will get them to take notice and engage in real idea exchange with you. 

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” (Most people say, “Did I catch you at a good time?) “This is a cold call, you probably want to hang up on me, don’t you?” (then chuckle a little). With the right tonality and personality, this causes the prospect to chuckle also, and stay on the line and engage in conversation. Don’t worry about those who actually do hang up — they would have done so anyway. When you make follow-up calls, don’t “check in” or “touch base,” but actually have a valuable reason to call your prospect. An example: “Dave, I know you’re really busy, but I’ve got that information you asked about when we talked last week. Do you have 45 seconds to hear it?”  

Change the pattern, and watch your sales effectiveness soar!

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