Tweet

Five Reasons Prospects Stop Responding To Your Sales Process

Written by: Rene Zamora

Article Overview: How long do you pursue a "hot prospect" that is not responding to your sales process?

Five Reasons Prospects Stop Responding To Your Sales Process

If the prospect is "Hot", stay on them. But instead of pushing the sales process forward, take a time out to understand why they are not responding and act accordingly. I am assuming that the rep came to agreement with the prospect on the next step or follow-up process and the prospect has now fallen off the agreed schedule. You can find more details on setting expectations in my sales blog titled "Persistent Follow-Up". Here are the most common reasons prospects don't respond to a Service-Minded salesperson.

1. The prospects priorities have shifted and they now have more pressing issues. This does not mean they will not pick up where they left off once your offering rises to the top of the list.

2. Their problem has resolved and the pain no longer exists.

3. The rep is working with a non-decision maker (user) and the opportunity was never identified as a priority with "decision makers."

4. The prospect has a hard time with conflict and saying no is hard for them.

5. The problem is with the salesperson and the prospect is trying to ignore them.

Before you come to your own conclusion (which is usually negative), seek to understand directly from the prospect why the delay is happening before pushing your sales process forward. Here are a few suggestions on how to discover the reason behind the delay.

Reasons 1 & 2 - Send a message acknowledging your understanding that they must be swamped or under the gun with other priorities. In the same message ask the prospect if this is still on their list to work on and if yes, how would they like you to follow-up to support them?

Reason 2 - If the pain has gone - drop back to marketing until the pain rises again. This means it does not matter where you were in the sales process, drop out and begin nurturing the prospect again until the pain is back.

Reason 3 - If you are questioning if you are working with a decision maker find out. You might send a message like this. "Hi _____, we seemed to be tracking a few weeks ago but things seemed stalled. Are more people getting involved in this decision or have they shifted any priorities on you?

Reason 4 - Hi ______, it has been awhile since our last meeting and the last thing I want to be is a pest. Let me know if you would like me to continue to follow up or if you have made a decision or are leaning with another solution I have thick skin, just let me know. Either way I will be here to serve if you need me.

Reason 5 - Sales manager needs to get involved and find out if the sales rep is turning people off.

Final thoughts

• Most B2B Salespeople market and sell. It is important to be aware when you should be marketing and when you should be selling. A good source for improving your marketing messages is at my sales blog under "Marketing Your Emails through Voicemail".

• Practice Patient-Urgency. Be urgent with the activity you need to perform and be patient with customer decisions.

• Don't be afraid of hearing no or being delayed. Always seek to understand where the prospects mindset is before you make "wrong" assumptions.

Related Articles
  Why do People Really Buy
  All Sales People Use Scripts
  7 Reasons Why You Must Zealously Qualify Prospects
  7 Pitfalls of Using Email to Sell
  How Your Salespeople Can Eliminate the Competition

Article Tags: amp, conclusion, conflict, decision maker, decision makers, few suggestions, hard time, marketing, priorities, priority, prospects, reason 2, reason 3, salesperson



Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Simple way to avoid Cold Calling - Gary, A chiropractor I work with hates cold calling (me too!) and he uses a technique to warm people up to using his services - it's so simple! In Sales your dealing with 3 pools of people: 1. Strangers 2. Prospects 3. Returning Customers You need to move people from one pool to the next. We'll concentrate on #1 and #2 as it's most relevant to your question. My Clients does the following (you just have to tailor it to your situation - be creative). My Client (we'll call him Bob) Bob leverages his time and resources to only get people that need his offer (pain relief) to put their hand up. Dealing with Strangers can get expensive and they don't like to be told what to do as they have no trust or relationship built with him. So to get Strangers to put their hands up he writes up an offer with a free report on a particular pain relief - let's say lower back pain (note: he can simply just change lower back pain to neck pain and have a new report). and uses multiple marketing vehicles to promote the Free report - magazines, newspaper, forums, postcards, private clinics etc. The only people picking up this information are the very people Bob would like as customers as they have Lower back pain. Bob's Free report ends with him stating his services and includes a Free in-house Consultation with no obligation. You'd be surprised at how easily Bob converts Strangers into Prospects. Note: They become prospects when they ask for the Free Guide and in exchange provide their contact details. This gives Bob unlimited opportunity to contact them for the Free in-house consultation with no obligation to continue using him. At this stage Bob's ability to close the sale lies in his office providing good customer service, Bob's ability to help the prospect and provide value at the free in-house consultation. Notice, he hasn't had to pick up the phone to COLD-CALL his Stranger pool or his Prospect pool. Hope that example helps to increase your prospecting!
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: 10 Reasons Who Startups Fail & Book Recommendations - Great post,but please edit the headline. I presume it is "10 Reasons Why Startups Fail & Book Recommendation
Decide your market first - Stop for a second and decide exactly who it is that you want to sell your product to. Once you've done this you'll have a far better idea of where to find them and what it is that they're interested in Cheers


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

THE “SECRET RECIPES” OF LEADERSHIP

How do you keep it together on a daily basis?

Common Sense Stress Management

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.