Overcome the ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’ objection

Man and woman sitting at a table in a sales meeting

Objection Handling Techniques: A Guide to Sales Follow Up

Are you stuck knowing what to say when a client says “Don’t call us, we’ll call you?”

Do you follow-up a possible sale after they request information? Here’s an easy way to keep the door open to an ongoing relationship until the time is right for them to say ‘yes’.

Perhaps you’ve experienced a possible new client shut the door to telephone follow-up with a brush-off statement like ‘I’ll contact you after I’ve read your information.’ That’s what I call the Hollywood objection, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ After auditioning, aspiring actors in Hollywood were often given this clichĂ© response.

If you respond with, ‘OK, I’ll wait to hear from you then,’ you haven’t asked for permission to contact again.

Instead, use this 3-step sales technique whenever you get a DCUWCU — don’t call us, we’ll call you — response, so you easily gain consent to stay in contact.

1. Say ‘That’s Fine.’

Your automatic reaction should be to agree by saying, ‘that’s fine.’

2. Ask Permission.


‘And if I haven’t heard from you in say, 10 days, is it ok to call you then?’

Start with ‘and’; never use ‘but’ (which sounds oppositional and creates resistance.)

  • Judge the right timeframe. It might be one month or three months, whatever feels right.

Nine out of ten clients will say yes, unless they absolutely have zero interest and tell you again, ‘No, please don’t call.’ That’s good to know; you can simply take them off your call-back list.

3. When You Call Back, Remind Them They Gave You Permission.

‘When we last spoke in < November >, you suggested I phone around this time regard­ing . . . ’ Now when they hear from you, you are not interrupting them, but following their instructions. This is the elegance of gaining permission.

How you end a sales call determines whether the next time you contact your prospect they’ll be happy to hear from you or whether they’ll consider your call an interruption.

Selling today is about continuously asking your customer for permission to stay in contact, so they expect to hear from you, keeping the door open to an ongoing relationship.

Action

  1. Remember to end every sales phone call referring to the best timeframe to contact again, and wait for them to agree.
  2. Then make sure you make a note of the agreed call-back date in client history and schedule the call-back on your calendar.

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