Calls that go wrong with decision-makers

Posted by admin on Sep 16, 2011 in General, NLP Skills, Resources | 0 comments

One of the biggest fears about cold calling is that people will make a fool of themselves. So what do you do when a call does not go the way you want it and moreover it ends on a poor note?
If it is a completely cold contact, you may want to leave it for some time so you can make a fresh start and call again. When you do speak to the Personal Assistant or the decision-maker themselves, depending on how “bad the call was, it may be worth acknowledging the mistake/s that were made in the past, so you can truly move on from what happened before. If you work in a team, it may be worth swapping this account with a colleague, so you can avoid mentioning the previous contact. However if this is an actual customer, this puts a very different complexion on the situation… My advice would be to run this “perceptual positions” exercise so you can cast some light on how to resolve this issue, as you will want to reestablish a cordial relationship as soon as you can.
Take three chairs and put them around a table. On one chair put your name, the next chair the name of the decision-maker and the last chair put “observer” or “wise owl”. At each place at the table put a piece of A4 paper for making notes. Sit in “your own chair” and write down your perception of the situation and what can be done about it. Then move to the chair of the decision-maker -see the world through his or her eyes, what happened? What annoyed you so you put the phone down etc? Write down your observations. What would have to happen for this situation to be resolved? Now move to the place of the observer/wise owl. Ask the question again: What needs to happen to move on from this situation? Again note down your observations. NB Make sure you are looking at the dynamic between you and the decision-maker through the observer’s eyes not through your own! Now move back to your own chair, what new ideas spring into your mind? You should have enough information now, to be able to rescue this situation. This is a fantastic exercise to use with any communication situation where you feel you are stuck or you need to resolve some form of conflict. It really does work!!