Are your prospects interested or are they being polite, not wanting to say NO?
If you work in sales long enough you soon realise that most prospects find it hard to say NO.
In this report, I?m going to reveal a simple system I have in place that tells me if the prospect is really interested.
?
More...
As most people do not enjoy being rejected, for most prospects having to reject a salesperson?s offer is something they do not enjoy. To save themselves from any confrontation, a prospect will often act friendly towards you as they don?t want to tell you to go away.
You leave the presentation or phone call thinking that their friendliness is a signal that they are interested in buying from you. Only to find out that when you phone them several days later they either do not take your telephone call or send you an e-mail declining your offer.
How can you tell that there positive comments face-to-face are real signs of interest in going ahead with a deal?
Are Your Prospects Interested? Three-Step Process to Clarifying a Prospects Intentions
1. Ask Them a Direct Question
To find out whether a prospect is keen to move to the next step, as soon as my presentation is over I simply come out and ask the question:
?Do you think there is a possibility of doing business together? If you don?t, please don?t be afraid to tell me you have no interest. I hate following up people, only to find out they had no intention of buying. It is a waste of time for both of us?
You may find this approach confronting but it will save you a lot of wasted time. plus, it gives the prospect an easy way out to say NO. Most of this in some form or another fall into the trap of people pleasing and unfortunately saying NO to a salesperson is one such case.
If you are selling in the B2B market, most prospects you?ll come across have at one time or another operated as salespeople and not liking the pain of being told NO, they prefer to put you off gently ? hoping you?ll go away.
2. Agree on a Time-frame for a Next Action
There is nothing like pinning someone down to a specific date for a decision.
If they really have an interest, in most cases taking this step will allow you to quickly find out whether they?re really interested in your offer.
3. Follow-Up with an Automated E-Mail Campaign
Once I have finished a presentation, I send them an e-mail with a link to my video summary of the presentation I have just given.
The following day I send them an e-mail with several links to testimonials.
To send these e-mails I use a program like Mail Chimp which gives me a detailed report on whether they opened the e-mail and clicked on the various links to watch my video or download my testimonials.
Having taken this approach for the past two years, I have always found that the people who buy want as much information as possible and by looking at the click rate of each e-mail I can tell immediately if there is any interest. I cannot think of one example where a buyer did not click through and look at all the material I have sent them.
Where as prospects with no interest, promise to look at your material but in fact your e-mail report will soon tell you that they have not clicked through to view your material. In all cases when they do not click, their inaction has proven to me they have no interest.
I have presented three methods I have found worked effectively. What methods or processes do you use to qualify prospects?
Having gone to the trouble of writing this editorial for you, I would really appreciate your feedback in the comments below.