How are you?

The phone rang. I answered. The person on the other end asked, "Hi, How are you?"

What a stupid insincere opening. When will they learn?

The automatic response might be, "Fine, How are you?" The whole exchange would be insincere and a waste of time.

I've heard and been annoyed by "Hi, how are you?" so many times that I have trained myself to pause and respond differently.

I said, "What do you want?" That should tell the caller that I don't want to waste time and I'm open to a direct explanation.

There was a pause and a mumbled response that I didn't understand.

My response was, "What are you selling?"

There was a long pause and then the phone went dead. She must have hung up on me.

If you are selling then you must know the answer to those two critical questions:

What do you want?

What are you selling?

If you are cold calling then you are most likely selling.

Be prepared for those questions. Don't be surprised and don't be annoyed. You interupped someone with your call.

And stop asking, "How are you?"

It annoys the people you call because they know you don't care. You might think that question is polite. One caller said, "I'm just trying to be polite." It's rude because you are pretending to know them and and care about them. If your first statement is based on a false premise - why would anyone trust you?


George Torok