When I first started in sales, my manager at New York Telephone instructed us to find something in the prospect’s or customer’s office that we could compliment. That could be a painting on the wall or an object on the executive’s desk, or an article of furniture in his office. I soon learned that wasn’t a great idea when I said how much I liked a particular painting on the wall across rom his desk. He replied, “It’s only there because my wife picked it out and I hate it.”
Through the years, I learned a much better approach that always got me off to a good start. It required a bit of research, however, in order to be effective. Nowadays, it’s easy enough to learn something about almost everyone, just by looking her or him up in LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter, or going to the company website to learn something about her company.
Once you have learned something about the company or the person, you can easily use the You/I tool. This is simply starting out by saying something about the other person or her company, then adding something relevant about yourself.
Examples are:
“Your company has an excellent reputation as direct marketers.”
“I specialize in telemarketing myself and there may be a good fit for us to work together.”
“You have a great reputation as a man of integrity.”
“And my clients tell me they can rely on me keeping my word.”
“Your company has a great track record for being profitable.”
“That’s great because I love to work with successful companies.”
Using the “You/I” easily allows you to lead into some good probing questions.
If you to start out with “small talk” for a minute or two, that’s fine. Just be sure you start the business conversation with an appropriate “You/I.” Everyone likes to think the other person has heard some good things about him, right?
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