You are Just Not Interesting…
You are Just Not Interesting…
If you are in sales, or if you ever tried to sell anything, have you ever had the prospect say…”I am not interested.”? So, how do you overcome this objection? Well, you don’t. Because “I am not interested” is not an objection. It’s the truth. You are just not interesting. Sorry.
Someone came up to me the other day and wanted me to sign a petition. I said, no thank you and he seemed very confused. He had this look like why wouldn’t you take 5 seconds to sign my obvious “this will change the world for good” petition? Well, I don’t know anything about this petition. I haven’t done the research yet. I haven’t studied the opposing side and even had any time to ponder and think about it. I don’t even know you. Maybe you have another agenda…how do I know? And therefore, why would I sign? So…no….I am NOT interested. And yes, you definitely are NOT interesting and you gave me no reason to sign.
So, how do you make yourself interesting to someone who could potentially buy from you?
You need to shine a light on a meaningfully different idea related to a problem your prospect might not know about. What does that mean? It means, first identifying their problem, then solving it in a way that they’ve never heard of. Surprise them. Educate them. They will become interested. Here’s a perfect, real-life example…
Okay, pretend that you own a small coffee shop chain. You have 5 stores in the area and you want every cup of coffee from each store to taste exactly the same since that’s your signature roast and brew. You also understand that 98% of coffee is water so you must have an amazing water filtration system. So, you’ve been shopping for one and you finally run into an expert filtration salesperson…me.
Let’s pretend that I am a Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration Salesperson. I would start the pitch by saying something like, “Did you know that the reverse osmosis water filtering system takes all the impurities out of the water? Sounds great, right? Well, not really because when all the impurities are taken out of the water, the water is simply too pure to brew coffee with, all the flavors are in the minerals, and the RO system purified it, so…your coffee is going to taste terrible. This expensive RO system I am trying to sell you is basically useless.”
Are you sold yet? Hahaha.
Then I would say, “But guess what? Our system analyses your raw water impurities at each store location and we are able to mix the ratio of the raw water vs the purified water to make a perfect cup of coffee. And because we are able to control the ratio, each store will have the exact same tasting water regardless of what city or what type of water the store is getting.”
Now, are you sold yet?
I just solved your problem by shining a light on a meaningfully different idea related to a problem you didn’t know about. Before you met me, RO filtration was out of the question, but I came up with a different idea to solve the inconsistent-tasting coffee you were having at each of your store locations. Did I identify your problem? Yes! Did I solve it in a way you’ve never heard of before? Yes! Did I surprise you? Yes! Did I educate you? Yes!
So, am I interesting? Oh my yes!
When people say “I am NOT a salesperson”, I think what they are really saying is “I am NOT comfortable selling.” The ability to sell is not something you’re born with. In fact, what selling really is: exposing a problem to a prospect and swapping it out with a new possibility. Selling is easy. Selling is fun. Selling is life. It’s helping bring a change to someone else’s life, and getting paid doing it. What’s not fun about that? What’s not interesting about that?
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