Your Hello Sucks

"I can see why you're having trouble making appointments. Your Hello sucks!"
Those were the words of Dave Kurlan, author of Baseline Selling, when I was able to have a full day of one-on-one sales training with him a few years ago.

I had been having good luck making appointments with company presidents, who were my prospects, so I was a bit surprised by this response from Dave after we role played a prospecting sales call.
"You sound like a salesman right from the start, and that immediately turns off most people including company presidents who don't see you as someone bringing them valuable information, but rather an annoying pest who got past their gatekeeper."
(On a personal note I don't mind being thought of as an annoying sales pest, as long as it is followed up with "...but he always has some new idea for me.")

The sales lesson went on.
"How do you say hello to your friends?" Dave asked.
"Hey Mark! How is it going?" I responded.
"Exactly." Dave replied.
"You're relaxed, friendly, and more importantly you're not being pegged as a salesman."

When I went back to the office and started making my cold calls to prospects I tried Dave's advice.
At first I didn't see results that were any different, however after about 50 calls saying "Hey (insert name)" I did sound more friendly, relaxed, and conversational and not like salesperson.
What is happening is that for a brief moment I had the president's attention. The president because they were used to hearing "Hey (insert name again)" from their friends, for a brief second they wondered how they knew me, if they had met me before and where. It was that brief moment that I needed for them to stop what they were doing and listen to me.
My appointments went up 15%.
Not bad for only changing "Hello" to "Hey."

As my friend Tony Perkins wrote in his column about Chinese street peddlers being pegged as salespeople by the way they say "hello,"
"Hellllooooo" by Tony Perkins 
you are also pegged as a salesperson in that first few seconds by your word choice.
"Hey" may not be the word that works for your style and personality, find a new intro to your sales calls and see how much your response rate goes up.

Thanks for reading...
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy