Sales Prospecting Perspectives

3 Great Email Responses To Make You Laugh

  

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This past weekend I happened to be visiting family back home on the east end of Long Island.  During my trip, I got to stop by one of my favorite hometown restaurants, Amano; coincidentally, I also spent one summer working here.  The executive chef is quite well known on the island and is somewhat famous for his “Top Ten” lists he publishes in Great Restaurants of Long Island at the end of every summer season.  The list is a roundup of the top ten most bizarre/interesting/hilarious/dreadful customers of the season.  As in the restaurant industry, it can be said that teleprospecting presents itself with just as many bizarre or interesting encounters.

There have been a few blogs written regarding how our marketing team drives traffic to our various social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc.)  We regularly run photo caption contests on Facebook, where the comment with the most “likes” wins a gift card to some local establishment.  For our most recent caption contest, our “social media mafia” put their employees and fans to the test to share what they felt to be their most entertaining objection from a prospect.  In case you do not frequent AG’s Facebook page (you should!) I thought I would recap some of my favorites.

#1. “ Hi Colleen,  We have thus far avoided clown computing.  We don’t think giving out data to clowns is a responsible thing to do.  We like to keep all of our data safe and sound on our own servers behind a wall of fire and not expose it to the possibility of a seltzer spritz to the face from some chucklehead with face paint and big shoes.  But thanks for the interest!”-This one gets a 10 for creativity A+ for effort, and in case you were wondering, the intitial call was regarding "Cloud Computing".

#2.  The next “objection” was not a fit for the product or service our BDR was calling on.  In return, the prospect gave kudos for a prospecting job well done and included the picture below.  “Hey Andrea, you are doing a super job!  I wish I had three or four more folks like you on my sales team.”  What came next was a cartoon this prospect used to have on a business card showing a salesman trying to sell a machine gun to a medieval king fighting a war who “had no time for a salesman.”  The prospect then told the BDR to keep up the great work.  Again I give this one an 10 for creativity as he included the actual cartoon in the body of the email response.  A++ for the overall email considering this prospect became a prospect for our teleprospecting services and is currently being nurtured by one of our sales reps.  

#3.  These next objections are not as original, but the way different prospects disseminate them is almost always unique.  These would be objections surrounding injuries or death.  Some of the examples are as follows; ‎”(Prospect's Name) is the best contact. He would potentially be interested in chatting with you, but he was recently hit by a city bus and won't be in for a couple weeks.” Or, "I'm sorry, I've got your voicemails and emails but I'm currently being read my last rights. I'll call you next week if I'm alive."

I guess the point is that in every job you are going to have moments where you say to yourself “you can’t make this stuff up.”  When working in inside sales, it's always nice to have a good laugh every now and then.  What are some of your most entertaining responses?