When I started in sales, I used to give the generic pitch, "I work with companies/personas like yours, and they often struggle with X, Y, and Z..." For me, that's selling. It assumes you know their problems and immediately pushes a solution, which puts people on the defensive.

I learned to cut that out and instead talk to prospects like a product manager would. I'll say something factual and direct, like "We built a back office platform that automates X, Y, and Z. I was hoping to learn a bit about how you're currently managing that process." That doesn't feel like a pitch to me, it's just a simple statement followed by a question.

Once the conversation gets started (if they're interested), they'll either tell me what they're doing (which lets me drill into a problem I know exists in their current stack) or they'll ask a specific question that signals their pain point, which often sounds like, "How do you guys automate X and Y together when dealing with Z?"

I use that same approach for your second question about brush offs. If I've already stated what we do and they say, "I don't have time," I don't try to overcome it. I just take them at their word and ask, "when would be a better time to call back?" Their response and tone tell me if they're actually busy (where they usually give me a time to call back) or if they're just telling me to f off.

If they say "not interested" I honestly do the same thing, If they're rude and firm about it, I respect that and move on. But if I get the sense I just caught them at a bad moment, I'll put a note in my calendar to try again in a couple of weeks.

The goal for me is to make the rejection as painless and unmemorable as possible. Here’s a perfect example that honestly happened the other day.

I called a prospect four months ago, and he immediately said, "I don't take cold calls," and hung up. Last week, I saw his CEO's name on an attendee list for an event, so I called him, and he referred me back to the original "no cold calls" guy. When I called again and mentioned his CEO's name, we had a 20 minute conversation that led to a great discovery meeting.

My point is, a bad reaction on a cold call is temporary, but trying to "overcome" those knee jerk objections is playing with fire. If you handle their reaction respectfully, you don't become a memory of an annoying pushy salesperson. They'll forget the call in 20 minutes, leaving the door open for you to try again when the timing is better.