Effective conversation starters and relationship builders for sales

Most salespeople struggle with what to talk about before their “sales pitch.” Small talk tends to be very difficult for people, especially when you’re trying to build a genuine relationship with your prospect. To build that relationship, we want to add value to that person in any way we can. We want them to have an amazing experience interacting with us, which in turn will make them want to engage more often and for longer periods of time. To achieve this, we make sure that we never fight for attention like everyone else. When they stop talking, we are not eager to jump in and talk about ourselves. Instead, we have more questions, so you can go deeper into the topic. We congratulate them when the opportunity arises. We make statements that reinforce your own beliefs. We are fascinated and they can feel it.

Let’s be clear, I’m not recommending that you act like a stargazer. It is important that you maintain a higher status than your prospect or at least be on the same level. If you become a supplicant, not only will you miss out on getting dirty, you won’t even be building the relationship.

If they don’t respect you, then you wouldn’t be of value to them and everything will go downhill. Your goal is to maintain the highest possible status in that relationship and still express a lot of interest in them. This combination in sales is powerful because it says, I don’t need you, but I love you. But in the business sense, I don’t need your business, but I want it. The best part is that he says all that without saying anything. Demonstrations are much more powerful than statements.

At different stages of the relationship, your conversations will change. The more you know about someone, the more you can talk about them, and the less you know about someone, the more you can ask about them.

Here are some conversation starters to play with, where you can substitute words to suit your prospect:

• How long have you been with ABC Corp?

• Have you spent much of your career in the hospitality industry?

• What made you get into the consulting business?

• Your restaurant is amazing. She had never seen such an impeccable kitchen. How do you do it?

• I was reading an interesting article you wrote about… (Praise…Ask a question)

• I have noticed on your LinkedIn profile that… (Ask a question)

You don’t need to read a book on how to ask questions, but you’ll benefit from having some reference questions so you can start the conversation and keep it going. When people have no reason to start a conversation, they turn to the most overused and abused topic in the world: the weather. Please don’t talk about the weather, nobody cares unless we’re talking about something like a hurricane or other acts of God. When salespeople don’t have enough questions to start a conversation and don’t go the weather route, they often end up making statements about themselves to start the conversation. But when you do that without knowing anything about the person you’re talking to, you risk touching on topics your prospect has no interest in or can’t relate to, or worse, offend them.

I was recently listening to a recorded sales call that demonstrated this perfectly. She was listening to the recording to critique it and use the feedback as a training session for a client’s sales team. The salesperson began by speaking to the prospect with great energy in a tone that made it sound as if the two had known each other for years.

Seller: Hi Peter, this is John from XYZ

Guide: Hi John, just in time.

Seller: Yes, I try to be. Hey, did you watch the Rangers game last night?

Guide: No, I don’t really follow sports. Who has time? (Apparently, John did. That bum!)

Seller: Oh man, it was amazing. They were tied 3-3 and lost in extra time! (Didn’t this guy just tell you he doesn’t care?)

Guide: Oh yeah? (Interest leaks out of her voice.)

Seller: Yes, I have to watch it with my son. She sucked that they lost, but it was great hanging out with him. Those are the moments you live for. I can’t wait to take him to the first game of his. Have children? (John probably should have asked this question before telling Peter that the only purpose in life is to spend time with the children Peter never had.)

Guide:No, no, I don’t. But hey, I have a hard stop at 3:15 pm. Sorry to have to cut this short today. Out of curiosity, what are the typical costs involved in this?

You know exactly how that ended. Talking about the price before going through the process will almost never result in a sale. The prospect went straight to the price because he was cutting the conversation short. And he only broke off because the salesperson instantly broke off the relationship by showing the prospect examples of how his worlds and viewpoints are so far apart. Now, could they have 100 other things in common? Absolutely. But Peter will never know because he probably won’t have another sales conversation with John. The worst part of this call was that Peter initially responded well to John. He seemed happy that John called at exactly 3 pm sharp and even acknowledged him, meaning punctuality was important to him. John is professional, so he takes care to call at exactly 3 pm, so he also values ​​punctuality. This might have been the first thing they connected with. They might have joined in talking about the favorite reason salespeople call 5 minutes late and make you wait. Instead, John assumed that Peter loved sports, assumed that he loved hockey specifically, assumed that he had children, and assumed that Peter shared the same belief that you live for sports moments with your children. Remember the saying, don’t assume, you and I make fools of ourselves.