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Two Tips for Telephone Introductions

Jim Camp, in Start With No, his book on Win-Lose negotiating, makes the point that in any negotiation only one party can be okay. By that he means one party is going to feel more comfortable and confident than the other. The surprising part of his guidance is that he claims it should be the other party and not you who feels this way.

While his book is on negotiating, the principles translate to sales and, in particular, telephone introductions.

A client of mine once described a telephone introduction as 15 seconds of awkwardness followed by five minutes of great conversation. Awkwardness in a telephone introduction can come from a few different sources but that initial awkwardness my client spoke of was the awkwardness that arises from the person on the receiving end of the call feeling vulnerable.

Information is power, and in that first moment when you get your client-to-be on the phone he has none. You two get on the phone together and you know something about your client-to-be (who he is, why you are calling him) and he knows nothing of you. You have all the information, and therefore power, and he is left feeling vulnerable as the call begins. If, on top of that, you start trying to talk him into something, his vulnerability compounds. 

There are two lessons you can take away from this:

1. Voicemail messages are valuable

They are valuable because they give the client-to-be information about you, which helps alleviate his vulnerability and make it more likely he will pick up the next time you call. In fact, a carefully constructed voicemail will even get a return call.

In your message explain who you are (claim of expertise) and why you are calling (to see if there is a fit). Leave your website URL and invite him to learn more about your firm before he replies to you. Lastly, you want to invite the client-to-be to say no. (Another Jim Camp tactic.)

"Please call me back and let me know if you think there might be a fit between your needs and our expertise. If the answer is no, that's fine - just do me a favor and let me know."

Get rid of the potential awkwardness by leaving a voicemail message, allowing the client-to-be to learn more about you via your web address, and then ask for a reply, with the understanding that a reply of no is accceptable. At best you will increase the likelihood of getting a reply, and at worst you will increase the likelihood the client-to-be will pick up the next time you call. Now he has information about you and feels less vulnerable.

2. It's okay to fumble

On one end of the spectruum of telelphone introductions you have the robotic scripted approach that makes the caller sound like a sales machine. At the other end you have the person who hasn't formalized a succinct, relevant and compelling message and just rambles looking to establish personal rapport.

The sweet spot is in the middle, where you have a succinct claim of expertise but you deliver it in a conversational way, complete with ums and ahs, highs and lows, pauses and accelerations. In this way the content of your message is well-crafted, but you deliver it in a way that implies 'I'm a little bit uncomfortable with this telephone introduction thing.' It's okay to not be okay because it makes the client-to-be feel okay.

Okay? It might sound like this. You dial your client-to-be and he picks up:

"John Doe, here."

You fumble into your intro.

"Ahhh, Hi... John... I'm Bob Smith from ACME Creative."

Pause, followed by sceptically asking,

"Have you ever heard of us?"

It's not okay to ramble off-message but it is perfectly okay to be human and fumble through the delivery of well-crafted content, as long as you sound like a human being looking for the right words. Sounding like you're fumbling through a script will kill you, but sounding like someone who is out of their element in telephone introductions but who is getting to the point is just fine.

In the words of Jim Camp, it's okay to not be okay.