We've all had them. Well maybe not all of us, but I have. Had one today. Richie Hammerhead from New York. The famous "one call close".
Unfortunately for Richie, I'm a pro at this stuff too. I have several ways to handle these dorks, but my way may not be the best way for you. So post your own successful way to get the guy with the "next sure thing" off the line forever.
My two best ones:
1) The Jerry Seinfeld ploy: works really good, and it makes you laugh after the weasel has hung up. If you are at home, you ask the guy what his home phone number is. (They will almost never give it to you.)
If he doesn't give up and hang up, keep asking. Just say you never do business with anyone unless you have their home phone. Usually this works. Once in a while the guy will give you a number. At that point, you ask him when he eats dinner. When he asks why, you say you want to call him so he knows how you feel, and you hang up.
2)The real hardass hammerheads will call me back just to annoy me. They have some stupid training or something that says they must be "in control" and they interpret this to mean that it is OK to annoy anyone as long as they feel OK when they hang up. Usually these guys have been brokers for about a month, and most of them wouldn't know a good stock if it walked up and bit them on the rear end. They are working for commissions, not clients.
I wait for the sap to start his pitch, and then I interrupt and say, "Oh! Oh! Hold on a second!" and I quickly put the phone down and just go back to whatever it was I was doing. At some point, the dude hangs up. They are always on a quota for number of calls, so the longer they wait, the worse it is for them. When my phone starts making the beeping sound, I hang it up.
3) If this doesn't work, and the guy is really persistent, and calls me back again, I ask for the name of his firm and then I ask to speak to the compliance officer. Bingo bango, he hangs up.
If I get the compliance officer, I tell him that I know if I am on the "Do Not Call" list for his firm, and somebody calls me, I can sue for 500 bucks.
Works really good.
Anyone else have any good ideas? |
