Sales is all about getting people to change their minds. Whatever their current solution might be, your job is to convince them to buy your company's solution instead. But sometimes, after you've worked through the whole sales process and gotten a handshake agreement, the prospect will suddenly tell you that he's changed his mind. Or worse, you'll try to set up an appointment to sign the final paperwork and find that the prospect has vanished.
These situations are terribly frustrating because by this point, you believe that it's a done deal. You've probably told your sales manager to expect the order shortly and if it's a big sale, you may have done some bragging to your fellow salespeople. And now you have to tell all of those people that your sale has evaporated.
When a prospect calls off a sale at the last minute or simply becomes unavailable, your task becomes finding out what went wrong. Sometimes you'll be able to retrieve the sale or at least keep the opportunity open for a future one. But you won't know whether that's a possibility unless you can figure out what happened.
The first and most common cause of this situation is that the prospect never really intended to buy. Some prospects are very uncomfortable about saying no to someone, and this can be especially true if you've done a good job of building rapport – if he likes and respects you, he won't want to hurt your feelings. Such prospects may imply that they want to buy just to get you out of the room, even though they don't intend to make a purchase. These are often the prospects that then stop returning your calls and drop out of sight.
You may be able to retrieve such a sale, but if you've gone through the whole sales process without realizing what your prospect intends, your chances are slim. The best option here is to get back in touch with him at a later date and basically start over, while keeping his nature in mind. You may be able to interpret his clues better now that you're more familiar with his personality.
Another common cause for last-minute cancellations is talking to the wrong person. In other words, the person you've been selling to isn't the real decision maker, or perhaps not the only decision maker. After you pitched this prospect, he took the information to the decision maker and was shut down, leaving him with no option but to call you up and tell you the deal is off.
If you can get to the other decision maker, you may be able to sell him on your product. However, you'll have to be careful about it because it's likely that this decision maker is pretty hostile towards you. He may feel that the person you've been selling to is trying to undercut his authority, and can easily transfer that anger onto you.
Finally, you may have said or done something to offend your prospect right at the end of the sales cycle. Your error was severe enough that she was no longer willing to buy from you, although she may have intended to do so up to that point. Such sales are usually not retrievable. If you can get her to tell you just what you did wrong you may be able to make amends, but if the prospect is offended enough to do an about-face she probably won't be willing to forgive you. For B2B sales, you might want to drop this lead into your cold file and tackle it at some point in the future, when this particular individual is no longer the decision maker for the company.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
These situations are terribly frustrating because by this point, you believe that it's a done deal. You've probably told your sales manager to expect the order shortly and if it's a big sale, you may have done some bragging to your fellow salespeople. And now you have to tell all of those people that your sale has evaporated.
When a prospect calls off a sale at the last minute or simply becomes unavailable, your task becomes finding out what went wrong. Sometimes you'll be able to retrieve the sale or at least keep the opportunity open for a future one. But you won't know whether that's a possibility unless you can figure out what happened.
The first and most common cause of this situation is that the prospect never really intended to buy. Some prospects are very uncomfortable about saying no to someone, and this can be especially true if you've done a good job of building rapport – if he likes and respects you, he won't want to hurt your feelings. Such prospects may imply that they want to buy just to get you out of the room, even though they don't intend to make a purchase. These are often the prospects that then stop returning your calls and drop out of sight.
You may be able to retrieve such a sale, but if you've gone through the whole sales process without realizing what your prospect intends, your chances are slim. The best option here is to get back in touch with him at a later date and basically start over, while keeping his nature in mind. You may be able to interpret his clues better now that you're more familiar with his personality.
Another common cause for last-minute cancellations is talking to the wrong person. In other words, the person you've been selling to isn't the real decision maker, or perhaps not the only decision maker. After you pitched this prospect, he took the information to the decision maker and was shut down, leaving him with no option but to call you up and tell you the deal is off.
If you can get to the other decision maker, you may be able to sell him on your product. However, you'll have to be careful about it because it's likely that this decision maker is pretty hostile towards you. He may feel that the person you've been selling to is trying to undercut his authority, and can easily transfer that anger onto you.
Finally, you may have said or done something to offend your prospect right at the end of the sales cycle. Your error was severe enough that she was no longer willing to buy from you, although she may have intended to do so up to that point. Such sales are usually not retrievable. If you can get her to tell you just what you did wrong you may be able to make amends, but if the prospect is offended enough to do an about-face she probably won't be willing to forgive you. For B2B sales, you might want to drop this lead into your cold file and tackle it at some point in the future, when this particular individual is no longer the decision maker for the company.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου