Sales Leadership Training 

Gold Medal Top Sales & Marketing Blog 2011 Silver Medal Top Sales & Marketing Blog Post 2011 Finalist Top Sales & Marketing Thought Leader 2011 Finalist Top Sales & Marketing Thought Leader 2011

Your email:

Google

Email Me

salesachievementgrader

          Baseline Selling 

Great Sites


topsalesworld
Sales Pro Central

Understanding the Sales Force

Current Articles | RSS Feed RSS Feed

Stalled Sales Opportunities: When Your Prospect is Hiding

  
  
  
  

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.

stalledThis happens to every single salesperson on the planet engaged in a sales cycle of longer than one call.

"My prospect won't return my calls".

"I can't get my prospect to the phone".

"My prospect is ignoring me".

Those of us who train, coach or mentor salespeople probably hear one of those three even more often than "I'm having trouble scheduling appointments." What should you do when it happens to you or your salespeople?

UP TO 8 ATTEMPTS.  8 CONSECUTIVE DAYS. LEAVE MESSAGES.

You may be surprised to learn that while it doesn't happen very often, Sales Development Experts occassionally experience scenarios like these too. As a matter of fact, in August I identified 9 stalled opportunities where calls were not being returned.  I decided to track the activities from that point forward so that I could report the results here and show you, based on data, the actual steps and outcomes.

Opportunity Required
Email and/or 
Voice Mail
Messages		 Result of
Attempts		 Outcome
A 6 Received Email scheduled mtg to close
B 8 Received Email went with someone else
C 6 Received Call will close late 2011
D 4 Received Call scheduled mtg to close
E 5 Received Email will close this week
F 4 Received Email will close late 2011
G 4  Received Email  scheduled mtg to close 
H  5  Received Call  will close this week 
I 4 Received Call  will close early October 

Summary:

  • 9 Stalled Opportunities
  • 5 Attempts on average Required for Response
  • 100% Finally Responded
  • 1 Opportunity Lost
  • 2 Closes Delayed
  • 2 to Close This Week
  • 3 Additional Closes scheduled for this month
  • 1 to Close next month 

Conclusion:

How a salesperson responds to a stalled prospect who has gone into hiding depends on the type of salesperson they are:

  • If they become angry, impatient, or surly, they may blow-up their prospect - punish them - for their unacceptable behavior.  Salesperson loses.
  • If they become pests - continually calling to ask if a decision has been made - wasting prospects' time - they make their prospects angry.  Salesperson loses.
  • If they sit back and wait - believing the prospect will call when they're ready - the prospect will forget about them. Salesperson loses.
  • If they assume that they lost the business then they have.  Salesperson loses.
  • If they consistently leave nice messages, without pressure, the prospect will return the call in fewer than 8 attempts. The results here show that salespeople could close up to 90% of that stalled business.
The data that Objective Management Group has collected from more than 500,000 salespeople that have been assessed shows that more than 80% of them follow up in one of the four inappropriate ways listed above.
Don't allow your salespeople to make the mistakes that so many salespeople make by following up inappropriately.  Just have them be consistent!
The EcSell Institute's Sales Coaching Summit is taking place on October 4 in Atlanta.  If you manage a sales team, and enjoy tips and advice like I present on a daily basis, then this two-day event is a good one for you to attend.  Click here for more information.


whitepaper-banner2

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Tue, Sep 13, 2011 @ 05:17 AM

COMMENTS

Dave 
 
Thanks for the empirical data. It is a great to have actual data to support what we teach. However, I think it is worth noting that the results you obtained with follow up are only possible if the sales process up to the point that the prospect disappeared was effective. It appears that in all 9 cases you had a prospect with a compelling reason to buy, had qualified them for money, were speaking to someone who could make a decision and had obtained a commitment that they would make a decision before they disappeared. In other words they were at or near 3rd base in your baseline selling model. Many times prospects disppear because of ineffective initial sales calls. If salespeople, don't bond with the prospects don't qualify properly and don't get the propect to agree to a difinitive next step, then they shouldn't expect the same results you got. Selling is a little bit like golf in this case. great shots require a strong swing and a complete follow through. the follow through (follow up) completes the swing and insures that the proper flight of the ball. However, no amount of follow through can make up for a misaligned back swing and a weak approach to the ball.

posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 5:51 AM by Dan Caramanico

Dave, I think your blog is one of the few valuable gems in sales training today. If I understand you correctly, you say to attempt follow-up 8 times, leave 8 consecutive messages for 8 consecutive days. Then you go on to advise not to badger your prospect. I'm confused here.  
 
The consultative training I'm familiar with advises us not to chase prospects who disappear (or have them at all if possible), but instead work with those who have urgent pain/need for change. So to me, either the salesperson hasn't done a sufficient qualification job, meaning they didn't get enough pain on the table for the prospect to acknowledge the need for change was urgent (= buy now), or I'm missing something.  
 
It is interesting that most of the opportunities you followed up on turned out to give you decision dates. However, couldn't the ones saying they were closing in late 2011 merely be putting you off some more (ie. not making a decision, but putting off telling you No until later)? Could you please elaborate on this?

posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 7:20 AM by Jason Kanigan

As always, very interesting post. In our experience, 2 challenges; 1. balancing being a pest with ignoring them. How do you know the right mix? 2. leaving nice messages; leaving 7-8 messages that are varied and keep the prospect interested is difficult. One way is to assume at the start of calling that you will have to leave 5 messages minimum and plan ahead what you will say in each message, what do you think?

posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 7:29 AM by Paul Hesselschwerdt

@Dan - yes, absolutely, this assumes that you did everything right up to the point they went away!

posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 7:38 AM by Dave Kurlan

@Jason - right - the balance between consistentcy and not being a pest. The key is that if you've run the sales cycle appropriately, you have identified their compelling reason to buy. Your calls therefore, have to include some messaging about "wanted to talk with you about the _______problem" and not "just following up to see where we are".

posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 7:40 AM by Dave Kurlan

@Paul - vary the messages but keep them short and simple.

posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 7:41 AM by Dave Kurlan

Comments have been closed for this article.