What’s killing your sales? Impatience
Let’s imagine you are in this situation.
You just had a meeting with a prospect, you had a great conversation and everything went right. Just after leaving the meeting you receive an email from the prospect saying how great the meeting was, and that they will happily be in business with you.
Great job! You just closed a sale! And in such a short time! Everything went perfectly…
So time to send the contract and get to the next steps!
You do that right away.
Then one day goes by and still no signature and no news from the prospect. That’s all right, you follow-up by email…. Another day goes by,… still nothing. You call them. No one picks-up. You leave messages.
Actually a week goes by and …still no answer.
Frustrating right? What the hell happened?! Why the hell are they shutting you down after such positive feedback?! 😡
You start thinking:
- What a bunch of f*#%@ing cold-hearted losers!
- Maybe something you said/done killed the deal and you didn’t notice it.
- Maybe a competitor snatched the account, using some sort of vicious tactic.
- Maybe a decision-maker at the company tragically stabbed you in the back for some vile reason.
How could you know, they have completely shut you down…
This probably happened to you more than once if you have been in sales long enough.
Apart from keeping on harassing the prospect, their is only one thing to do then: wait.
And we all hate waiting.
Waiting goes completely against what you do as a salesman, which is closing deals. And you know how much timing is key there.
The more you wait with an un-signed contract on your hands, the more you can literally see the chances of getting a deal falling from the 15th floor and crushing on the sidewalk.
You send a last email saying something like: “just come back to me whenever you guys are ready”.
And you forget about these guys. And you are right to do so.
Then something amazing happens.
They call you back with a lame excuse for shutting you down… but they signed the contract and they are ready to go!!
They are a millions ways that your frustration could have let you screw up that deal. And there are a million ways your impatience can screw up building a successful sales funnel.
Building an efficient sales funnel rests on a simple variable: patience; whether it’s in testing different channels, value propositions, target markets, email copy, follow-up tactics or closing tactics.
It takes a loooong time and effort to A/B test everything and have the best strategy.
But ask yourself this: Do you really give it the time necessary?
The answer is probably no. We all love the quick wins.
Here are my top 2 advice to make sure you are not being an impatient, anxious, irritable, blood-thirsty salesman.
1- Stop being afraid
Fear of failure is always a driving force in the thinking of marketing and sales leaders when they start an initiative. And it can become completely paralyzing. The fear of failing in trying something different …will take you straight to impatience.
2- Surviving the Silent Treatment
All leads are not ready-to-buy. You need to take the time and give it time. Not easy when the quota deadline is approaching or when your boss has got his eyes on you. :) I understand.
But you have to understand, you can only go so far pushing a deal. The best tactic is often to:
- let it go,
- wait,
- nurture the deal (don’t just follow-up),
- be detached,
- or just give the impression of being detached.
Detachment on the sell-side is an excellent reverse-psychology tactic, to make the deal more attractive on the buy-side. Believe me, it works.
