Tweet

What to do when the sale stalls

Written by: Karen Andrews

Article Overview: How many stalled sales do you have in your sales pipeline right now? You feel as though you have done everything right. You have connected well with your prospect, they have explained their business and relevant personal issues and you are working directly with the person who has the authority and ability to make the decision. They have given you all the right buying signals but the only problem is you can’t get them to sign on the dotted line and now they aren’t returning your calls.

What to do when the sale stalls

You feel as though you have done everything right. You have connected well with your prospect, they have explained their business and relevant personal issues and you are working directly with the person who has the authority and ability to make the decision. They have given you all the right buying signals but the only problem is you can’t get them to sign on the dotted line and now they aren’t returning your calls.

In order to jumpstart a stalled sale, you must first diagnose the reasons behind it. The problem may not be that the sale stalls, the problem is that we just don't recognize it soon enough and waste valuable time and resources on dead-end opportunities.

Little connection to a critical business issue
How is your solution addressing a business issue for your customer or prospect? For each opportunity in your sales pipeline answer this question:

Why does your prospect want to buy this product or service?

If you cannot communicate how your solution can

• Improve revenue, productivity, qualify or efficiency
• Save time or money
• Solve a critical problem, challenge or frustration that the business is facing

You can expect your sale to stall. Business owners and Senior Executives only spend time on matters that directly impact their business. If cannot identify a business reason and you want to jumpstart the sale, try to meet with your prospect again to discuss their critical business issues rather than your solutions.

Customers Are Busy
The end of a sale often becomes difficult when your customer or prospect stops returning your calls and emails, overnight. It appears as though they have lost interest and the sale has gone cold….. Or has it?

Many of us find it difficult to get everything done during work day or experience unexpected problems which take our focus elsewhere and your customers are no different. In fact, the better the prospect the busier they are likely to be.

It is important not to panic at this stage and let the customer or prospect fall away or to annoy them with endless phone calls and messages.

Keep momentum by maintaining regular contact, acknowledge your client is busy and perhaps ask them when would be an appropriate day or time for you to call and follow-up.

"I Want to Think it Over"
When a customer says, "I want to think it over," this may not always be the case. Some are actually saying "thanks but not thanks" to avoid a potentially negative and uncomfortable situation and some genuinely do want to think it over or talk to their business partner. The important thing is to know the difference between the two.

Some people just need a little push and a little help to make the decision. They may find making decisions difficult and are afraid of making the wrong decision. To many, no decision is the best decision.

When the prospect says, "I want to think it over," it is important to acknowledge and respect what the client says. Smile and say "that's a good idea, this is an important decision and I completely understand your need to think about it" which will help the prospect to relax.

It important now to leave now or you will lose this person as a prospect and being the never-ending game of phone tag and follow-up.

Ask the prospect "Obviously you have a good reason for wanting to think it over. May I ask what the reason is?”

This gives you the opportunity to see how genuine the prospect is and to uncover their real concerns and objections and say “If we could do this, would that solve the problem?

Fear of Rejection
A major obstacle to selling is the fear of rejection or criticism. This fear can jeopardize all your hard work asyour sales simply slip through your fingers and go cold.

Fear of rejection is a geniune emotion that many people in sales experience at one point or another and can be overcome through practice and by changing your mindset about sales and follow-up. Sales is not about being pushy and arrogant, it is about you communicate your ability to help and solve problems.

Did you know that one of the biggest complaints consumers have about salespeople is that they don’t follow up?

Your customers are busy too, so making a quick courtesy call to see how the decision is progressing may actually be doing them a favour. Who knows, they may have been meaning to call you all along but have simply been too busy.

Related Articles
  Cutting Through Stalls and Objections
  The Complex Sale Pt II
  How to Close the Deal Your Salespeople Can't Close
  Top 10 Keys to Getting Through and Getting Heard
  Increase Sales Coaching Tip: Understand How the Nos Get You Closer to the Yesses

Article Tags: consultative sales, handling objections, needs based sales, sales expertsales pipeline, stalled sales



Related Forum Posts
Re: Selling on eBay - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":ctamvpom]Does anyone know if you can remove an item that you've listed for auction on eBay and then conduct a private sale? Is there a way to do this without violating the rules on eBay?[/quote:ctamvpom] If you are going to have a private sale with someone that saw the listing on Ebay and you complete the sale off the Ebay site, it violates their rules as far as I understand them. You can re-enter the info on Ebay and let someone bid right away to complete the sale and then Ebay gets their share. Chris
Prospecting for the new guys! - Hello all, I have read and read and I still don't have a good idea how to sale. Everyone tells me that I have the perfect personality and I can talk to anyone. My problem is I don't know if I should just walk into the clients office unannounced or should I try and "cold call" and see if that gets me anywhere. I own a service company. This is my biggest obstacle because I don't know how to sale a service and not an item that they can see and put in their hand. I think I could be a good salesman but I just need some direction. How do I get the prospects to sale to? Any help would be great.
Re: Discover 5 Traps of Internet Marketing that Derail Business - Well, I'm impressed that someone's doing good with Amazon! I've never had any luck with them. I think in the four years or so that I've been with them, I've had a "big" sale (someone who buys more than 5 items) twice. Mostly I get someone who buys one item, and that's it. And since Amazon sells used books as well as new books, more often than not my commission for that sale is in pennies. And if I get one sale a week I'm lucky... Buy hey - if they're doing good for you - more power to ya!
Biggest Challenge: Closing The First Sale - My biggest challenge was getting someone to believe in my product. It was difficult as well for me to ask for the sale but once we got one we went and got another... and then another... myownboss, can your clients finance your business? Can you make a sale and use that to build? It's slower growth but it's always a plus if you don't have to rely on outside investors. Jennifer.
Book chains - [quote:3k60a92e]I was dying to remind them that authors are the reason they have a job, but held back. [/quote:3k60a92e] Oh, you should never hold back! Sounds like that was something they needed to hear. But chain bookstores are a bit of a pain. My nearest Barnes & Noble closed down recently (the Mall it was in closed.) I expected everything in the store to go on sale, and planned on buying a hundred dollars worth of books on the strength of it. But...no. No sale - not even a lousy 10% off! All they did was strip the covers off every single paper back book and send them back to the publisher. They just didn't care. Hardbacks didn't go on sale - presumably they were just returned to the publisher as is, or sent to other stores in the area. The thought of it still rankles...


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

Sales Flubs

The Death of the Sales Magazine

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.