You will be able to answer the three most common brush-offs with one calm question.
You deliver a clean opener: your name, a request for permission, your reason for calling and a question. The buyer says they are busy. Your mind goes blank, you apologise, and the call ends. That reply is normal, but it throws away the work you put into the opener.
A brush-off is a reflexive deflection in the first minute of a call. It is rarely a considered no. It is the same reflex people use when a stranger stops them in the street. If you have one calm, short reply ready for each of the 3 most common brush-offs, the reflex does not end the call on its own.
All three replies have the same shape. First, accept what the buyer said. Don't argue with it, and don't carry on as if you didn't hear it. Then ask one short question that gives them an easy way to keep talking or an easy way to fix a better time. Keep it to that one question and don't give a speech. When a brush-off is followed by a minute of reasons to listen, it confirms what the buyer feared about cold calls. A single question leaves the decision with the buyer, which is where it was always going to be.
"I'm busy" is often true. Accept it and offer a specific later time, framed as a choice: "Of course. Could I call you back for five minutes, later this afternoon or tomorrow morning?". A specific choice is easier to answer than "When's a good time?" The open question makes the buyer think, and they avoid that effort by saying "I'll call you." When you offer two options, the question stops being whether to talk and becomes when to talk.
Then keep the promise exactly. If you agreed on tomorrow at ten, call at ten and not at ten fifteen, and keep to the five minutes you asked for. People notice a caller who does what they said. Mei, a bookkeeper, has found that a call kept exactly on time is often warmer than the first call, because by then she has already shown she respects the buyer's diary.
"Just send me an email" sometimes means "I'm interested but can't talk now". More often it means "please go away politely". You can't tell which. So agree, then ask one question that makes the email worth reading: "Happy to. So I send you something useful and not just a brochure, how do you handle month-end at the moment?". If they answer, you are back in a conversation, and your follow-up email can refer to what they said. If they don't answer, you have lost nothing. Send a short email about their situation as you understand it. Either way, the email now has a reason to exist. Lesson 4.1, "Anatomy of a cold email that gets a reply", shows you how to write it.
This one is more useful than it sounds. It tells you the buyer sees the problem as real enough to pay for. Don't criticise their current provider, and don't ask them to switch. Acknowledge it, then ask what one thing they would change: "Most groups your size do. If you could change one thing about how it works now, what would it be?".
Many people have a small frustration with a current supplier that they have never said out loud, and the question gives them permission to say it. Darren, an adviser, often hears "I already have an agent." When he asks what they would change, the answer is often that the agent hasn't been in touch for years. He doesn't treat that as a reason to start selling. He treats it as a reason to offer a second opinion when it suits them.
If they say they would change nothing, believe them. Thank them, ask if you may check back in some months, and end on a friendly note.
If a buyer says no twice, thank them and end the call. Don't ask a third question and don't add a final "just quickly". A close can be as simple as: "Thanks for your time, I won't keep you. All the best with the new outlet".
A third push rarely turns a no into a yes. What it does reliably is turn a neutral contact into someone who remembers you as the caller who wouldn't let go. That person won't answer next time, won't take your email seriously, and may mention it to others in a small industry where people talk. Ending well keeps the door open for when their situation changes, perhaps after one of the triggers from lesson 1.3.
If the buyer asks not to be contacted again, note it straight away and stick to it. Lesson 5.2 covers how to record a do-not-contact request.
These replies only work if they come out naturally under mild pressure, and reading them is not enough for that. Say them aloud enough times that they arrive without you having to reach for them. Each time you practise, check that you:
accept what the buyer said without arguing or ignoring it ask one short question that gives an easy way to keep talking or to set a better time offer two specific times for "I'm busy", then keep the time and length exactly ask a question that makes the email useful for "Just send me an email" ask the one thing they would change for "We already have someone" thank them and stop after a second no
The activity below asks you to write your own one-line reply to each brush-off, each ending in a question. Then practise with a partner who throws the brush-offs at you in random order. The random order matters because real buyers don't warn you which one is coming.
Write a one-line answer to each of the three brush-offs, ending each with a question. Practise them with a partner who throws the brush-offs at you in random order.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).