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By admin

What happens to a prospect when they go dark and getting to the real objection

When I first started selling, I often experienced the following scenario.

I’d have a meeting thinking I totally nailed it, only for the prospect to go dark after my attempts to follow up.

What the heck was I doing wrong? Well there were a few things, I’d made a classic error: I’d fail to uncover the secret objection my prospect still had at the end of our conversation.

Unless you directly ask, it’s easy for a prospect not to reveal their actual objections to buying. Not only is it too hard for a prospect to pin down the objection on their own, but there’s a stigma associated with rejection, and they don’t want to feel like a bad person by doing it to you.

Also, although the prospect realised both a pain and solution, they were still stuck with an existing process and habit which is hard to break.

On my side, there was still a lot of work to do if I wanted to consistently move these deals forward. The way you can motivate someone to make a change is to continue to play investigator. A few questions I like to use are:

  • Do you want to change this? (sounds simple, but no one asks this)
  • Where would making a change like this sit on your priority list? (get specific, are you in their top three or bottom three? you can learn a lot here. maybe you can solve other priorities and they don’t know it yet)
  • How committed are you to changing this in the next ______? (this gives you a sense of timeline to close/implement assuming you’re on their priority list)

These questions sound basic, but surprisingly very few have a habit of explicitly asking them.

What is your strategy to face this situation? Leave your thoughts and comments below!

By admin

Have you faced this situation in a sales call?

 

Have you faced this situation in a sales call? 

(Source: Flickr)

Here I am with another live experience and a valuable lesson and situation that sales people face on daily basis. I experience this scenario every other day.

Sometimes a prospect will try to push you into giving a demo early in a conversation – we’ll talk about how to avoid this later in subsequent posts in details, but if it happens, here’s a quick fix.

Let’s say you’re selling an amazing product to a prospect over the phone:

PROSPECT: “We need a new system and are evaluating options. Can you show me a demo?”

YOU: “Happy to do a demo. I want to make sure I show you the right parts of our system so do you mind if I ask you a few questions first so we can make the best use of our time?”

PROSPECT: “Sure.” (Most of the time)

Instead of getting straight into the demo, frame your first questions in a way that shows you’re trying to help them get the most for their time (which you will be) and they’ll appreciate it. Also make sure to note down every response and write down corresponding product solution points with your prospect’s responses.

I call this process “earning the right to pitch.” Next, I’ll walk you through a verbal tactic you can pair this with to close deals faster and more consistently.

Have you or someone on your team started selling the solution before you’ve ‘earned the right to pitch’? 

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What happens to a prospect when they go dark and getting to the real objection