unReceptive

Prospects object to sales calls.

Many salespeople spend most of their time doing a job they dislike: trying to find people to contact to sell their products or services to. Making calls and building contacts is hard work and can be hugely frustrating.

Often, the prospects salespeople work so hard to line up simply reject their offerings. The response rate for sales emails is less than 3%, and the prospect response rate for sales telephone calls is even worse: 0.3%.

As salespeople make calls, they often don’t understand that the people they contact aren’t rejecting them or their offerings. They object to the bother of a sales call. No matter how compelling your offerings or sales messages are, most prospects don’t care.

Today, many people live in “tribes,” bonded groups that follow the same media, listen to the same authorities and vote the same way. Such people can be unreceptive to ideas that don’t coincide with their mind-sets or deeply held beliefs. 

No matter what you say or how you say it, tribal people automatically retreat behind their battle lines, where they feel...