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When Talking to Strangers

Written by: Jeff Mowatt

Article Overview: Discover three reasons potential customers may distrust you or your employees.

When Talking to Strangers

Interesting to hear the response from managers when asked about what factors impact sales. Many will reference the economy, customer demographics, competition, and recent innovations. While those factors certainly play a role, I often find, when brought in to train sales and service teams, that employees inadvertently chase away new potential customers. It usually happens within the first 10 seconds of customer communication, and most employees have no idea that they are committing these offenses. See if this is true in your organization. Consider these three reasons potential customers may distrust you or your team members.

1. Faking Familiarity
Imagine that you are relaxing at home at the end of a long day. Supper’s cleared away; at last it’s time to relax with cookie, blankie, remote. The phone rings. You drag yourself off the sofa to answer. The voice at the other end replies, “Hello, is this Mr. or Ms. So-and-so?” “Yes,” you answer. The caller’s next line, “And how are you this evening?” Thinking quickly you turn to your sweetheart, extending the phone, “Honey, it’s for you!”

The telemarketer made a common mistake—faking familiarity. It’s true that customers want to be treated in a friendly manner, but managers and employees need to recognize that before you can foster friendly feelings, you need to create trust. The telemarketer lost trust in the first five seconds when they asked a stranger, “How are you?” The potential customer realizes that the caller had never met them, so really doesn’t care how they are. One of the techniques I share in my training sessions for salespeople on cold calling methods is to never ask a stranger, “How are you?” Instead, salespeople get better results by opening with, “Hello, is this So-and-So? Hi, I’m So-and-So with ABC Company. We’ve never met. The reason I’m calling is…” In other words, you’ll get better results by saying, “We’ve never met” (which proves that you are up front and honest) than by insincerely inquiring about the health of a total stranger.

Today’s consumer is more educated, streetwise, and, frankly, way more cynical about salespeople’s motives than ever before. Consumers seem to be taking the advice that parents give their children: “Come straight home, and don’t talk to strangers!” That means that beyond telling employees to be friendly with customers, managers need to quip their staff with tools for establishing trust.

2. Evasive Answers
Which person would you trust in this scenario: Picture yourself as a customer asking this simple question of two employees: “When can you deliver this?” Employee A’s response: “This is the busy season for us and the plant is operating at about a two-week turnaround. That means it will be delivered by March 15th.” Employee B’s response to the same question, “By March 15th. This is the busy season for us and the plant is operating at about a two- week turnaround. That means delivery by March 15th.”

As the customer, you’re likely to have more confidence and trust (there’s that word again) in Employee B. That employee answered the question with a direct answer, then elaborated. Employee A sounded as though they were avoiding the question. That’s also referred to as sounding like a politician. When trust is our primary objective, better to opt for instant honesty. In other words, answer the question directly, then explain. It’s a subtle technique that’s often overlooked.
Speaking of up-front honesty, let’s look at a third reason strangers may not be receptive to our ideas.

3. Slight exaggeration
I have spoken at conventions for three major real estate corporations who each claim that they are number one in the industry. While you and I know all three companies can’t be first, when we read the fine print, we find that each is using different metrics to rank themselves at the top. My comment for those three organizations – so what! What does the client care if you happen to have the most sales, most realtors, or most offices in the country? At best, those are features - not benefits – that aren’t particularly meaningful to the average customer. All they’ve done by claiming to be number one (when others are doing the same), is raise the skepticism of the customer. This use of slight exaggeration, or “puffery,” is the third reason customers distrust us.

Customers have become so inured to organizations claiming to be the first, best, and biggest, that they often tune-out when they hear it from employees, advertisements, the media, or read it on websites. To influence the customers’ buying decisions, we’d better provide more than just grandiose claims. Fortunately, there are three pieces of information that do help to sell ideas, products or services. Your message should convey: 1.What the benefit is. 2.How you are unique 3.The evidence. Together the benefit, uniqueness, and evidence are known in marketing circles as a Unique Selling Proposition or USP. Your USP helps to remove doubts and raise buying interest.

Bottom Line
There are plenty of reasons/excuses for sales not meeting expectations. Before blaming external factors, managers would do well to look at their customer communications to see if there’s room for improvement in building trust.

Related Articles
  Help Your Way to More Sales
  Increase Sales by Demonstrating an I Love to Meet Strangers Sales Skill 24/7
  Increase Sales by Getting Strangers Coming to You
  Match Your Marketing To Your Relationship With Your Market
  X is for Xenophobia

Article Tags: building trust, customer service, sales, talking to strangers



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Book: Talking From 9 to 5 - Book: Talking From 9 to 5: How women's and men's conersational styles affect who gets heard, who gets credit, and what gets done at work Deborah Tannen, PhD 1994 You say something at a meeeting, it is ignored, then someone else says the same thing and everyone embraces it as a marvelous idea. You devote yourself to a project but don't get credit for the results. You work around the clock to avoid a crisis, but your efforts are not recognized because no one notices a crisis that never occurs. YOu give what you think are clear instructions, but the job is not done, or is done wrong. ... Work is a special world because as we talk to get our jobs done, we are also being evaluated. How we get others to do what we want, and how we accept or avoid responsibility for mistakes, display or challenge authority, reveal or conceal what we don't know -- all affect how we are regarded and rewarded. TOC 1. Women and Men Talking on the Job 2. "I'm sorry, I'm not apologizing": Conversational rituals 3. "Why don't you say what you mean?" Indirectness at work 4. Marked: Women in the workplace 5. The glass ceiling 6. "She's the boss": Women and authority 7. Talking up close: Status and connection 8. What's sex got to do with it 9. Who gets heard? Talking at meetings References Index
Simple way to avoid Cold Calling - Gary, A chiropractor I work with hates cold calling (me too!) and he uses a technique to warm people up to using his services - it's so simple! In Sales your dealing with 3 pools of people: 1. Strangers 2. Prospects 3. Returning Customers You need to move people from one pool to the next. We'll concentrate on #1 and #2 as it's most relevant to your question. My Clients does the following (you just have to tailor it to your situation - be creative). My Client (we'll call him Bob) Bob leverages his time and resources to only get people that need his offer (pain relief) to put their hand up. Dealing with Strangers can get expensive and they don't like to be told what to do as they have no trust or relationship built with him. So to get Strangers to put their hands up he writes up an offer with a free report on a particular pain relief - let's say lower back pain (note: he can simply just change lower back pain to neck pain and have a new report). and uses multiple marketing vehicles to promote the Free report - magazines, newspaper, forums, postcards, private clinics etc. The only people picking up this information are the very people Bob would like as customers as they have Lower back pain. Bob's Free report ends with him stating his services and includes a Free in-house Consultation with no obligation. You'd be surprised at how easily Bob converts Strangers into Prospects. Note: They become prospects when they ask for the Free Guide and in exchange provide their contact details. This gives Bob unlimited opportunity to contact them for the Free in-house consultation with no obligation to continue using him. At this stage Bob's ability to close the sale lies in his office providing good customer service, Bob's ability to help the prospect and provide value at the free in-house consultation. Notice, he hasn't had to pick up the phone to COLD-CALL his Stranger pool or his Prospect pool. Hope that example helps to increase your prospecting!
Re: Your Gmail Account can be hacked! - Very informative post , thats why i don't like to use free services for My own business , but still i'm using gmail for some Product Promotion and talking with Strangers And after reading your post i'm going to change my gmail setting right now , Thanks again for sharing
Re: pitching - Friendliness is closely related to the concept of "permission marketing" as articulated by Seth Godin. The subtitle of his book says it all: "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers." The old method was "interruption marketing" where you suddenly get an ad in your face whether you want it or not...
Social Media Marketing Category... - I agree that a social media marketing category would be useful and added my vote. I would include "bookmarking" sites in the mix as well. Such a category would be useful for several reasons: 1. Talking about SMM, its purpose and networking strategies and tips. 2. Discussion of the various SMM sites. 3. New about new sites and developments. 4. Helping to build each others SMM networks.


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