People sometimes have their favorite quips to throw out at a moment’s notice. This can happen in many different scenarios: casual conversations, pick up lines when meeting members of the opposite sex (men are usually the guilty ones here), sales pitches, political pitches, you name it.
The problem with pre-packaged pitches is that they lack authenticity and spontaneity. Thus, they are phony, and astute people can pick up on it. Pre-packaged pitches usually don’t win people over.
I was recently booking a hotel with Hilton for some traveling I would be doing. After I booked the hotel, the agent I was speaking to asked me to listen to a brief presentation from another agent regarding vacation packages they offer, assuring me that it wouldn’t cost me anything to hear the pitch and I would earn a bunch of points on my account. I gamely said, “Sure, why not?”
The salesman was on the line instantly, before I could even hang up, and proceeded to rattle off vacation spot after vacation spot, asking me if I would like to sign up and buy that package right now – a package I hardly knew anything about. As soon as I was able reply in the negative, he would not even take a breath before rattling off the next one. He told me about Las Vegas, Hawaii, Alaska, the Bahamas, the south of France. Each time I said no.
He finally asked, “Why not?”
I replied because I wasn’t currently shopping for a vacation spot, and that I was only listening because the previous Hilton agent asked me to.
He then put on his therapist hat and asked, “Mr. Norwood, are you OK? Because to me, it just doesn’t make. . .”
I hung up.
Clearly this guy was not well trained. He actually imagined that by getting me to disclose my deepest secrets about my private life that he could play doctor just long enough to sell me a trip to Bermuda. Instead, he got pulled into the vortex of the Bermuda Triangle and found himself alone in the nether regions of the phone call – with the customer no longer on the other line.
Cleverness is not the same as wisdom. Being of a silver-tongue is not the same as having something relevant to say. Canned lines are not the same as an authentic conversation.
Remember that.
