No Such Thing as Ungrateful Prospects
Do you ever feel like youíve bent over backwards to detail your product to a client, even going so far as addressing issues they never thought to ask about, only to get a ìthink it overî, or ìIíll call youî response? Below are some explanations for why this can happen, as well as some suggestions on how to avoid this problem with these seemingly ungrateful prospects. Oh, by the way, this situation is almost always the salespersonís fault.
ìDonít Spill Your Candy In The Lobby.î Making presentations too early is like a kid spending five bucks on a box of candy at the movie theater, fumbling in the lobby to open the box, and then spilling most of the candy on the floor, before he even gets in to find a seat. Now he has only a few pieces of candy left to get him through the whole movie óìDíoh!î
Salespeople do the same thing when they are too eager to make presentations or submit proposals before they really understand the prospectís buying motives and decision-making criteria. They ìspill their candyî by making their presentation too early in the selling process, and then they are often puzzled why they didnít get an order. They think, ìI answered all of their questions, covered every unique feature and benefit point-by-point, and explained every reason why they should buyÖwhat just happened?î
There are a number of reasons why a premature presentation can undo the sale. Letís take a look at the most common ones.
1. They never planned to do business with you in the first place.
Once prospects have your information and pricing so they can shop your competition, or so they can go drive down the price they already get from their Brother-In-Law, do they really need you anymore? Itís called ìfree consultingî and if you are ìspilling your candy in the lobby,î stop it, immediately! Prospects are not entitled to your information unless they will actually do business with you, and become customers.
If you are providing more ìfree consultingî than you are closing sales, how are you going to stop it? Try living by the ìDonít Spill Your Candy In The Lobby.î Rule, and ask them early what it will take for you to set yourself apart from the pack. If they wonít tell you, or they make it all about the price, seriously reconsider whether you even want to be in the bidding, theyíre probably just ìworkingî you for information.
2. You have made them feel not-OK with technical information .
When used at the wrong time, product knowledge can be intimidating to a prospect. If ìbuzz wordsî technical terms, and/or industry jargon are used in the selling process, before finding out if a prospect is familiar with those terms, there is the risk of making a prospect uncomfortable. When this happens a prospect has two choices: They can be honest and admit they donít understand and ask for an explanation (which might make them even more uncomfortable). Or they can get rid of the source of discomfort-THE SALESPERSON! What does this situation sound like? ìWell, Tom, I didnít realize that we were going to get into such detail today. Iím running a bit short of time. Why donít you leave the proposal and give me some time to review it and then Iíll get back to you.î
Product knowledge and expertise are important for the confidence of a businessperson, but it can be detrimental to a selling process if a they use it to ìshow how smart they areî to a prospect. It should never be used to ìone-upî, overwhelm or ìwowî a prospect. Be sensitive to a prospectís facial expressions and body language while presenting, and if itís apparent that the prospect is uncomfortable, back up and say something like: ìBill, I just ran through that much too quickly. Let me back up.î Then, review what youíve just said using simpler terms and more common language.
There Are No Ungrateful Prospects.
The solution is to fight the tendency to share everything you know about your product or service and stay focused on the features and benefits that relate directly to the problems or issues they told you they are trying to address. If you do, youíll run less risk of providing free consulting, or intimidating a customer right out of the buying process.