I talk with business owners all the time and the continual
frustration is how much business they do not get in a certain
time-frame; generally 30 days it seems! Lead generation and prospecting
extraordinaire!
They fail to appreciate that clients have buying cycles; clients will
research themselves into a frenzy …because they know can….and clients
do not like to take risks! All too often the sales person has been
busy identifying needs, talking solutions and talking themselves into
their own time-frame without checking with the client.
I meet sales folks all the time and I hear: I KNOW they will buy in a
month they said they would. Or I hear: I know they order regularly
and they will call me next time they order. They said they want to order
from me but they can’t right now.
There are missing pieces of information here and the sales role is to
ask, ask and ask again to ascertain what it going on and then, when
they hit that good old “wall of delay” what they need to do is ask
again.
Here are some ideal questions that should work:
• Why are you considering making a change at this time?
• What is the exact threshold of performance improvement that has to be achieved for us to win this business?
• Who has the greatest amount to lose in your company if you agree to do business with us?
• Since you are delaying the decision for 30 days, what specifically
will change during that period to enable you to make a better decision
in 30 days?
• If you made the decision today and went with our firm, what is the
biggest thing that could go wrong? Who would be the first to point it
out?
This is about combing Sherlock Holmes sleuthing with Inspector Lewis’
cunning and adding Brenda Johnson’s patience! Let’s not forget Castle
and put him into the mix! (Great final episode by the by).