Question submitted by Michael Marsan, CEO & Founder of New Market Translations:
I had a seemingly successful meeting with a prospective customer. Next steps were agreed to and followed through on. I continued to receive positive feedback and then was finally told that they would like to do business with my company and that they'll contact me when the next project opportunity arises. Then nothing happened -- no projects came, phone calls were not returned, messages not replied to, etc. What went wrong? Should I try to revive this account or just accept it as a loss and move on?
Danny Wood's Answer:
Wow. There is a lot to cover in this scenario. I hear this question quite often and it is difficult for me to answer without knowing all of the facts, but I will share with you many possible reasons you are experiencing this outcome. Just a suggestion, had you been following a "selling system" we would be able to identify where you made a misstep. There is an expression I frequently use when I debrief my clients on their sales calls, "it's not were they fell, but where they slipped". It's not the end result we need to look at, it's where in the process they went wrong.
The first question to ask yourself is, "why were you there"? Was the prospect "interested" or "curious" as to what you had to offer? If so, both of those are very low level reasons for going on an appointment. Interested or curious prospects without compelling, personal, emotional reasons and a commitment to make a change from
what they are currently doing are not prospects at all. No Pain, No Sale. If you did a good job of helping the prospect to discover his "pain" through proper questioning, you may have fallen into the next trap. And here is another rule I share with my clients,"a positive prospect is the most dangerous prospect". Why do you think that is? There is no place left to go except where? You guessed it. Down! The prospect needs to convince you, that's right, you shouldn't have to convince the prospect. The way we get the prospect to do that is to use a technique called negative reverse selling. Now this technique usually goes against every grain in a person's body when we begin working together, but they become more comfortable with it over time. When your prospect says something positive such as, "we would like to do business with your company and we'll give you a call when we have a project opportunity", I suggest you respond with, "well thank you Mrs. prospect for your decision to move forward and give us an opportunity, but frankly you surprised me. From the way you were reacting, I didn't think you were interested. What is it that made you want to make a switch and choose my company"? Now sit back and wait to hear all of the reasons. If you don't hear good reasons, you have more work to do and your built in smoke detector should be advising you that you may have been led on and this is not a great opportunity after all.
The last thing that concerns me is when you say, "next steps were agreed to". What were the next steps? Were you to give them a proposal, send samples, follow up with pricing, do a big feature and benefit presentation with all the information they may share with their current supplier or help solve a problem they are having? This is called "unpaid consulting" which using traditional methods of selling results in salespeople being prey to prospects who want to steal the salesperson’s information without paying for it. They then lead them on with lines like, "you've got the business next time the opportunity arises, or we are thinking about maybe doing something but you’re looking good". There are other reasons, as well. One is many prospects are nice people too and they don't want to be honest with you because they will feel bad, so they choose to just lead you on. The other reason is, they don't want you to go away because they want you to stick around and obtain information from you that will help keep their current suppliers on their toes. For example, "George, you need to sharpen your prices because I can get the same solution from ABC Inc". in which case you are used as leverage against their current supplier.
My suggestion for you Mike, is to use the negative reverse technique in a situation like this and either call or email your prospect, and tell/write them in a nurturing manner, "I appreciated the opportunity but I haven't heard from you in a long time and in my experience over the years I have found that means, you are not anticipating any new opportunities which is unusual, or you have had opportunities but decided to use another supplier. That is fine, but please let me know if that is the case so I can close your file". Typically you will hear back and if not, you know what you've got. The same thing you started with, nothing.
I hope I was able to give you some insight, Mike, on the situation you experienced. The Sandler Sales Institute in which I am an affiliate offers a structured a program that helps salespeople systematically approach their prospects and customers and work through these type hurdles with confidence.
