Cold calling, and prospecting in general, is a great challenge for most sales reps, across industries and at all levels of experience. Over the many years we’ve worked with sales professionals, we’ve managed to formulate several ways to make reaching out to prospects a more seamless and successful undertaking for those who sell for a living.
We start with our 10-30-3 approach to cold calling prospects: 10 seconds to clear the noise, 30 seconds to give your Other-Centered(R) Position (OCP) and get to a 3 minute discovery meeting.
During that 3-minute mini discovery meeting, it’s vital to have a few good, open-ended questions prepared to pose to your prospect – use your question allowance wisely. The goal here is to see if maybe, in the future, it might make sense to set a meeting to dive deeper into the potential relationship.
Now, it’s time to take it a step further and dive into ASLAN’s ADAPT responses which will help you handle any (false) objections from your prospect. If you prefer to take this topic on the go and listen to our conversation on ADAPT responses, feel free to check out sALES with ASLAN podcast episode 75:
What is an ADAPT Response?
You’re going to receive objections from customers and prospects… that’s the reality of inside sales and sales in general. Our goal here is to help you strategize what to do when, despite your best efforts and perfect delivery of your 10-30-3, your prospect still says “no.”
The truth is, when you’re on the phone with a prospect and they don’t want to engage further, they’re not actually going to say the word “no.” They may say something like:
“Can you send me some information?”
“You should probably talk to _____. S/he handles that kind of thing.”
“I don’t have time; I’m busy.”
“We’re all set” or “We’re happy with what we’re doing now.”
We call these “false objections.”
(There are real objections that come up later in the process once you’ve had a discussion and uncovered their needs and goals. Real objections come up during the back and forth later in Discovery, and these are valid and deserve to be treated as such.)
However, the objections you get in the first 30 seconds of a relationship are a different story because there is nothing yet to object to. These “false objections” are simply your prospects attempting to give you the run-around and get you off the phone – they’re objecting to a sales call, not to your actual offering or solution.
So they say things to get you off the phone. When you hear any one of these “false objections,” this is where an ADAPT response will serve you well.
Now, what is an ADAPT response?
A – Agree or Acknowledge
D – Drop the Rope(R)
A – Address the false objection
P – Permission
T – Three minutes
The Components of A-D-A-P-T
Remember, the goal here is to get to Discovery. So while it’s not a bad idea to “send information” at some point during the sales process, you don’t want to let that be a brush-off. You don’t want to concede to sending information immediately, ending the call, and probably your relationship with that prospect. Because this early in the “cold” call, the chances of your prospect actually reading that info and being open to a follow-up are quite slim.
Let’s cover these ADAPT response steps in order:
Agree or Acknowledge
This first step is crucial when you get a false objection from one of your prospects. Agree with them. When they say, “I’m really busy now, just send me some information,” reply with something like:
“Sure, no problem,” or “I’d be happy to.”
When they hear this acknowledgment from you, they relax and become more open to you and your message. Our natural inclination when faced with an objection is usually to either fight or flee. But neither of these will advance our relationship with the prospect.
Drop the Rope®
It’s important to note here that you’ve already given your 10-30-3 intro, and it didn’t work – your prospect still said “no” by actually saying something like, “Send me information” or “I’m busy.” So the last thing you want to do here is repeat yourself with that same position (OCP) again. You need to remove the pressure. Try saying:
“I’m not even sure if the information I have is relevant.”
Now we have a new reason to talk with the prospect.
Address the False Objection
This part here is the key – this is the meat of ADAPT responses. This is the part of the acronym that counts.
You need to get comfortable with addressing each of the false objections. Don’t treat this as a script because you will sound rehearsed and inauthentic. But get used to using these responses in your prospecting calls, put them in your own words, make them true to you.
We’ll look at a few full examples of this below.
Permission
Ask them for permission to continue: “Would that be okay?”
Three Minutes
This indicates the 3-minute discovery meeting you’re shooting for.
Putting it All Together
“Could you just send me information?”
“No problem, I’d be happy to send you some information. I’m not even sure the information I have is relevant. Just to make sure what I send is most relevant and helpful to you, would you mind if I ask you a couple quick questions about your ______?”
Let’s pick this one apart:
You’re acknowledging (A) with: “No problem.”
You’re dropping the rope (D) with: “I’m not even sure if the information I have is relevant.”
You’re addressing (A) their false objection, getting permission (P) with: “Would you mind if I ask you a couple quick questions about…?” And you now (hopefully) have those three minutes (T) to ask your discovery questions.
The following are sample responses for each of those false objections that you might get:
To listen to a live example of this in action, skip to minute 17:15 of this podcast episode.
It can be a little clunky, especially at first, but learn to do this, develop the habit, and you will find success using the ADAPT response.
What’s Next?
In the meantime, if your team is struggling to make the transition to virtual selling, or for more on how to get at the truth in any selling scenario, click here for our new program.
We would be happy to understand your challenges and see if we can help. We started as an inside sales training company in 1996, working to help sales teams overcome the very same challenges we are all facing today.
Marc Lamson
As President of ASLAN, Marc is responsible for all day-to-day operations including our sales and marketing efforts and growing our success in helping our clients be Other-Centered®.