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I recently answered a cold call: “man, thought you were someone else calling”

Sales rep responded: “while I got you, mind if I share why I’m calling?”

Fair play.

For the next 3-4 minutes the rep ran through a list of questions like a nurse would before a doctor enters the room.

The call ended shortly after - no meeting.

I get it: cold calling is intrusive so reps are trained to ask direct questions so they can quickly find pain points, then push for next steps.

“Sell the meeting, not the whole solution.”

Here’s the issue: when you ask prospects ‘checklist’ style questions on cold calls you often get blunt answers in return.

The prospect has no context as to who you are and why you’re asking questions, so they respond defensively or dismissively.

To shift this dynamic, you need to reframe your questions.

In this post I’ll show you how…

Give to Get:

When I first start managing outbound reps, I would give new hires a list of questions to qualify prospects, identify pain points and overcome objections.

Typically, they looked something like this:

• “how are you currently handling [situation] today?”

• “how is that working for you?”

• “what changes in 6 months?

Then we would role play.

During these mock conversations (and live ones) I noticed that reps were asking the right questions but getting stonewalled on the responses.

• “we have a system for that today”

• “it’s working pretty well”

• “we’re all set, thanks”

It didn’t take long to realize that I needed to enable sellers on why to ask these questions, not just what questions to ask.

“The reason I ask…”:

These four words can turn a rigid Q&A session into an engaging conversation.

It’s also helpful for ramping up new hire product/prospect knowledge.

Adding brief explanations after (or before) your question builds trust and shows the buyer that your questions have purpose.

Here’s what it might sound like:

By reframing your questions, responses like: “we have a system for that today”

Evolve into: “no, we don’t really run into that because most our customers are high value but lower volume”

It might not be the answer you want to hear, but it adds context so you can dive deeper or disqualify. And knowing where to spend your time is half the battle in outbound.

Framework to Copy:

Here is a guide I use to teach new hires buyer personas and relevant questions.

Make sure you check out both tabs at the bottom.

Happy Halloween,

TSG

P.S. I reply to all emails.