Last week I gave you ideas on how to avoid frost bite. That is, how do you avoid having your relationships and your networks go COLD.

The thing is, just because they’re not COLD doesn’t mean that they’re WARM.

The other day I got a call from one of the banks I have a credit card with. I use the card almost every day and I like getting their emails to enter competitions to win a dream holiday etc etc (although I never win!).  So I would say my relationship with the bank was definitely not COLD by any means.

BUT when I received a call from them asking me if I wanted to buy insurance I immediately wanted to hang up.   I got to thinking, why is that?

Here are the mistakes the bank made in trying to get me to buy the insurance product and the lessons you can learn to help keep your audiences warm.

1. It was unfamiliar

WRITE THIS DOWN. People don’t buy “new” information.  They only buy something that they’ve known about for a little while. Even impulse buys – when we buy a piece of chocolate or a new dress on the spur of the moment it’s because we’re familiar with chocolate and dresses and what having those things can do for us.

The insurance product on the other hand was not familiar. I had never thought about it and it had never occurred to be that having that insurance product would significantly benefit me. 

LESSON – you must get your audience familiar and educated about your product or service before you try to sell.

2. Everyone was doing the same thing

That wasn’t the first time I got a call like that. Over the past few months I’d been getting calls from practically all the banks I’ve got products with asking me to buy something similar. In my mind, even though I was talking to a different bank every time, I felt like the same people were trying to sell me the same thing over and over again.

LESSON – don’t follow the crowd. Get creative and sell in a different way to everyone else.

3. I felt it was a low status call

As soon as I picked up the phone and before anyone said anything, I knew it was just a standard telemarketing call where they churn through numbers. How?

For starters, the phone line wasn’t clear and there was a delay. And secondly I could tell the person on the other line was reading from a script. As a result, I felt like they weren’t willing to make the effort understanding what I wanted. So why would I waste my time listening to what they had to offer?

LESSON – show your audience that you’ve spent the time thinking about what it’s like to be in their shoes. Get curious about your audience and they will get curious about you.

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