As a salesperson, you've heard this brush-off before: "Just fax me the info." "Can you email me something?" "Go ahead and drop something in the mail and I'll take a look."

Sure, your prospects are busy, but so are you. You're busy making a living by selling. Don't let your prospects get away without hearing your full value proposition.

Particularly when you are making your first contact, don't think that your website, email, or fax is going to communicate the benefits of your product as well as you can over the phone. Even if they're busy, you've got to overcome the objection, keep them on the phone, and pique their interest right then and there.

So what types of sales rebuttals are most effective in this case?

The "right now you've got me on the phone" rebuttal:

"Sure, I can have my assistant send you something, but let's be realistic -- I can fax you all day long, but right now you've got me on the phone. Let me tell you how this can benefit you, and then you can make a decision if it's right for you or not, fair enough? ... THIS ISN'T FOR EVERYONE, but I think it's right for you, and here's why ..."

"A piece of paper won't answer your questions" rebuttal:

"Sure, I'll go ahead and do that, Jim, but a piece of paper won't be able to answer your questions ... nor will it be able to explain the benefits we offer UNIQUE TO YOUR BUSINESS. It will just take two minutes to have a quick discussion and then we'll either be doing business or we won't, OK?"

The "we can decide right now" rebuttal:

"No problem, I will have my assistant fax you in the next hour, but let me say that IF YOU ARE SERIOUS about cutting costs then let me please ask you some questions about your business needs and then we can decide RIGHT NOW whether you will be able to take advantage of this or not."

The "when do you anticipate" probe:

"Sure, I would be happy to send you some information about our company. Jim, when do you anticipate you'll need to take a serious look at this type of service?"

The "I can send you something right now" turnaround:

"No problem, I can send something off to you right now while we are on the phone. Let me ask you this. If I could make your job easier and cut some of your costs at the same time, you'd be delighted, wouldn't
you? .. we've had a lot of success helping businesses like yours, for example ... "

Bob Firestone is a best-selling author and sales trainer specializing in writing sales scripts and sales rebuttals for inside-sales driven organizations.