“I can save you money over what you’re paying today!” “I can make you more productive and save you time!” Ever had someone call you with a message like these? If it’s not in the opening message, a lot of us cold callers resort to this approach as we try to talk the person we’re calling into meeting with us. When I hear that, I get even more upset at the interruption than I was when I realized this was a cold call.

In my opinion, we lose credibility when we make statements like that as it assumes we have intimate knowledge of their current situation and in most cases we don’t. (This does assume we haven’t done our homework and do know that we can help them. If we did though, the message would still be slightly different – a topic for another Blog.)

How do we know what they’re paying or how well they’re doing? For that matter, how do we even know they use what we’re selling? We do want to find out if we can help them, but let’s not use the assumptive position that we can. It’s insulting and makes us sound like the proverbial telemarketer.

One last thought. Go ahead and use this approach if you’ve been able to help 100% of the prospects you entered into a buying cycle with, because you’re selling the proverbial better mouse trap – and take advantage of it while you can. It won’t last long.