A common brush off sales people get is “email me some information…” There are many reasons you may hear this: poor pre-call research, weak opening, bad timing, not focusing on the prospects needs, the wrong strategy, the list goes on (I’ll address some of these in other posts). Regardless of the reason ALL sales people have to deal with this from time to time.

Unfortunately over 80% of the sales people I speak with just shoot off an email, schedule a follow up and enter the prospect into their pipeline. Then they find themselves wasting time chasing an unqualified lead and never move the prospect through their sales process.

A great response I teach sales people to use when dealing with this brush off is:

“I’d be happy to send you some information, we have 25 product brochures I can email you. Or, if I can get just a little information, I’ll can narrow down what I send, so you only get what you’re most interested in”

It works great every time. It gives you the chance to ask a couple more qualifying questions and re-engage in conversation.

Now, you may not have 25 product brochures so make an adjustment and tell them what you do have. It may be brochures, spec sheets, price lists, white papers or catalogues. List them all and then offer to narrow down to what is most important to them.

The great thing about this response is that it flushes out if they are really interested or if they are trying to get rid of you. If they don’t cooperate, set another time to call back when they have a few minutes to talk.

If they are even remotely interested they will give you the chance to ask a few qualifying questions. Either way, you chase fewer leads and close more sales.

How do you handle this?