“Never Force Anyone to Talk to You”: Sales Quotes and Advice for Reluctant Prospects

Never force anyone to talk to you. It’s a part of life — even the most experienced salesperson has a bad conversation with a potential client once in a while. You know the kind: talking is like pulling teeth, nothing feels genuine, and they aren’t interested in what you have to say. 

If your gut reaction in these situations is to keep pushing for a breakthrough in the convo, stop right there. Never force anyone to talk to you. 

What do we mean by this? 

We mean letting go of trying to force a desired result out of every conversation.

In fact, if your angle is stretching out dried-up dialogue and pushing hard for a win, you’ll actually get the opposite result. 

Here’s why: People like to be treated like a human being first, and a lead second. 

If you go into a call thinking you have to make the conversation work and win a new client, they will know something is up. 

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“Wanna Talk?” Why Forcing a Conversation Doesn’t Work

Think about it this way: a stranger calls you up and jumps into a conversation, despite your hesitancy. They push for information on your personal life, then, they try to sell you something — all within 15-20 minutes.

Would you buy anything from someone who didn’t sense your hesitancy to talk and jumped right down your throat with a sales pitch? Of course not! 

You also probably wouldn’t be very open to conversation if someone kept trying to squeeze information out of you; it would shut you down even more. 

If this deters you from pulling up your cold call list, don’t worry. In most cases, there are techniques to save a conversation with a lead who isn’t quite warm yet to your pitch. 

Let go of the ideas of winning every lead and needing to force the conversation to get what you want. 

The key? It’s all about learning the right techniques to convince reluctant prospects. 

3 Techniques for Convincing Reluctant Prospects

So your cold call is a bust — the lead doesn’t seem interested in picking up what you’re putting down. Luckily, you’ll know some techniques you can use to connect with the person at the other end of the phone.

1. Know What Your Lead Wants 

Before even setting our sights on leads, we have to know who we are looking for.

What are the lead’s needs, desires, fears, and common objections? Do your market research; know who you are calling before you even pick up the phone. 

If your message isn’t resonating with a sample group of leads, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and do more research and strategizing on your target audience. 

A good salesperson knows that the only way to get a lead interested is to know who they are before they tell you. Otherwise, you might be blind-selling to someone who doesn’t see the value in your offer.

Here’s a pre-call checklist created by Yesware:

2. Limiting the Number of Choices

People freeze when they have too many choices. The more factors involved and the more decisions to make, the more overwhelmed someone will be. 

This leads to someone being even more reluctant to buy and you needing to do damage control and get them on track to the desired outcome: a successful sale.

Give them the best version of your pitch (write it down ahead of time), then give them a few high-quality options.

3. Evoke Emotions

Emotional reactions are powerful. They make people feel connected to your sell, to you, and to your brand. It’s why the “why” behind any product or service is important to a buyer. 

Establish an emotional connection by helping them to really feel their pain points.

Guide them with questions to help them understand they have a problem that needs to be addressed — and then position yourself as the ideal solution. They will feel trust knowing that you see and understand their needs and desires.

Tip: 8 best ways for building rapport.

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Never Force Anyone to Talk to You: How to Know When to End a Conversation

This one is simple once you know how to spot it. If a potential client is giving you one-syllable responses (ie: huh, yes, no), they are not engaged anymore. Time to end the conversation if you’ve tried objection handling and they aren’t warming up to you.

In addition to this, if it is in person, notice their physical cues — are they pursing their lips, yawning, looking elsewhere, crossing their arms? They are giving you the signs that they want out of the convo. 

Pushing it any further after giving them your best sell can just further irritate them and lead them to still be closed off to your pitch later down the road. 

7 Best Motivational Quotes When Dealing With Difficult Sales

Need some inspirational quotes to get you revved up for your next cold call? Here’s some great motivation.

1. “Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.” — Leon Trotsky
2. “Don’t force anyone to talk about how they are feeling or to tell you something. Just give them their space and time and if they will feel like to tell then they will tell you by their own.” ― Neha Maurya
3. “The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility.” ― Malcolm Gladwell
4. “It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” — Mark Hunter
5. “Force is not a remedy.” — John Bright
6. “Solve customer problems and make sure that the customer is representative of a large market and then you will have a pretty good formula.” — Melanie Perkins
7. “No matter how many customers you have, each is an individual. The day you start thinking of them as this amorphous ‘collection’ and stop thinking of them as people is the day you start going out of business.” — Dharmesh Shah

How Yesware Can Help Convince and Convert Your Best Leads

Looking for the right software to make finding and connecting with leads a cinch? It’s sales made simple with our all-in-one toolkit for professionals. Yesware streamlines all your sales processes, saving you time and increasing productivity. 

From prospecting and tracking to effective multichannel campaigns, from sales insights to scheduling tools, the Yesware toolkit will seamlessly integrate with your team to help them connect with quality leads.