See Nutshell in action!
Try Nutshell free for 14 days or let us show you around before you dive in.
It’s important to acknowledge the unfortunate truth of sales: Your leads are conditioned to ignore your sales pitches.
Anyone who’s online regularly is bombarded with sales content. It’s just the way the internet is. So when your prospects realize you’re trying to sell to them something, they might shut down and make it difficult to have a conversation.
This exact phenomenon is one of the biggest reasons why 42% of salespeople claim that prospecting is the hardest part of the sales process. Fortunately, there’s a viable solution to the monotony: pattern interrupts.
Using pattern interrupts in sales can help you break through a prospect’s regular expectations, arrest their attention, and move the sale forward.
A pattern interrupt, put simply, is anything that surprises the person you’re talking to.
Prospects expect certain things from salespeople. By breaking the mold, you’ll alter their apprehensive state and make them much more receptive to you. For example, instead of starting your cold call with the phrase “Hi John, how are you?” what if you said, “Hi John, this is a cold call. Do you want to hang up?”
This opening phrase is different. As such, it forces prospects to at least think about continuing the conversation you’re having. You can’t ask for more than that!
Knowing when to use pattern interrupt in sales can help you cut through a prospect’s default thinking and actually change their response to you—which can make huge waves in your sales success. The benefits of using pattern interrupt psychology include:
Like everything else in life, there’s a time and a place for pattern interrupts. Use them at the wrong time or in the wrong place and your prospect will likely shut down.
Here are three ideal pattern interrupt scenarios:
To be clear, you can effectively use the following pattern interrupt techniques outside of these three scenarios. But if you can warm up your leads before you contact them or connect with prospects in the consideration stage, you’ll probably have more success.
Now that we know what pattern interrupts are and when to use them, let’s talk about specific techniques you can try. Using pattern interrupt psychology, you can add a few of these sales tactics to your repertoire to close more deals:
Here’s how cold calls usually go…
Nobody wants to receive this kind of cold sales call. So what if you took a different approach? What if you immediately launch into your spiel after your prospect picks up the phone?
This pattern interrupt is called “speak first” and requires you to literally be the first person to speak in a conversation with a prospect. As soon as they answer, you jump in with:
“Hi Jane, it’s John, how are you doing today?”
Why does this technique work? Mostly because it’s surprising. When we answer the phone, we expect to be the first to talk. “Speak First” puts the prospect on their heels, unsure of how to proceed. When they don’t know what to do next, they’ll be more open to your pitch.
The shock and awe technique aims to jolt prospects into conversation. You say something worrisome or outrageous or funny—anything that’s outside the realm of “normal.” The idea is to peak your prospect’s interest and make them want you to tell them more.
Fair warning: the shock and awe technique must be used with caution. It doesn’t work in every situation. When you deploy it, be careful not to cross the line.
There are a couple of things we all want to know when a stranger contacts us: one, who is contacting me? And two, why are they contacting me? The second question is actually more important, which is why the “answer the question” pattern interrupt works.
All you have to do is tell your prospect why you’ve called, emailed, or sent them a text before they ask. You say something like: “Hi Jane, we’ve never met. Can I tell you why I’m calling?”
In most cases your prospect will say “yes”. Why? Because you offered to address their most pressing question. Once they give you permission to speak, they’ll be much more receptive to your pitch. After all, they basically just asked you to make it.
Use our sales process worksheet to standardize your most effective sales efforts and close more deals.
Here’s a pro tip: NEVER contact a prospect without doing your research first.
If you don’t know a little bit about the person you’re talking to, it will be extremely difficult to make a sale. The “overshare” pattern interrupt is based on this foundational principle.
You do your research and learn three key things about the person you’re talking to. Then you share these things with them during your initial conversation.
For example, if you learn after scouring your prospect’s LinkedIn profile that they (1) work for a well-known manufacturing company, (2) recently attended an industry conference, and (3) are having issues with a specific piece of software, you could say:
“Hi Jane, I saw you attend the [industry conference]. I was there, too—wish we could have connected. We could have talked about the [software] issues you’re having at [their company]. Let me know if you still have questions about it. I’d be happy to help.”
This pattern interrupt technique works because it’s highly personalized and lets prospects know that you’ve done your homework and have an understanding of their needs.
Why do a lot of people hate sales calls? Because they see them as a waste of time.
They didn’t ask to be contacted, so whatever the rep on the other end of the line has to say can’t possibly be more important than what they already have going on.
You can get around this with “the thief” pattern interrupt technique. All you have to do is acknowledge the fact that you’re “stealing” your prospect’s time and ask them for permission.
You say, “Hey, I know you’re busy. Can I steal 23 seconds of your time?”
Notice how we said “23 seconds” and not “45 seconds” or “half a minute”. When using this pattern interrupt technique, choose a strange number like 23 or 37 or something similar. It will grab your prospect’s attention more than a round number like 15 or 30 will.
Remember what we said earlier? As soon as someone realizes they’re talking to a salesperson, their defenses go up. They start thinking of all the reasons they don’t need the products and/or services you sell. It’s just the natural response these days.
With the “objection” pattern interrupt technique, you can use this to your advantage!
All you have to do is address your prospect’s objections before they have a chance to bring them up. (Note: this means you have to study your prospects to find common objections.)
In action, this pattern interrupt might sound something like this:
Finally, we have the “shared experience” pattern interrupt technique, which will help you find common ground with your prospects and (hopefully!) increase sales.
Lines like, “From one salesperson to another…” and “You know better than anyone how hard sales can be…” and “I saw that we both attended [Industry Conference] last year…”
This technique works especially well in B2B sales and/or if you happen to be selling to professionals with similar roles and responsibilities as you. AKA if you sell to other sales reps.
t’s not that your prospects don’t want what you have to offer—it’s that they don’t know if it will be worth their time. Fortunately, pattern interrupt techniques will help you get around these invisible barriers, engage with prospects on a deeper level, and make more sales.
Ready to level up your sales process with tools that help your reps perform their best? With sales automation, pipeline management, team collaboration tools, and so much more, Nutshell is the CRM you need to manage all your sales and customer relationships seamlessly. Start your 14-day free trial or contact us to discover what Nutshell can do for your business!
Try Nutshell free for 14 days or let us show you around before you dive in.
Join 30,000+ other sales and marketing professionals. Subscribe to our Sell to Win newsletter!
Use our calculator to add up your total investment of CRM and Add-ons
VIEW ALL PRICING