Check out this guest post by Karen Andrews of Shine Sales Solutions. Karen has the uncanny ability to get right in there on key issues for salespeople, which we love here at Telesales Magic!

You feel as though you have done everything right. You’ve connected with your prospect well, they have explained their business issues and you are working directly with the person who has the authority to make the decision. They have given you all the right buying signals but the only problem is you can’t get them to sign on the dotted line and now they aren’t returning your calls.

In order to wake up a stalled sale, you must first diagnose the reasons behind it. The problem may not be that the sale stalls, the problem is that we just don’t recognize it soon enough and waste valuable time and resources on dead-end opportunities.

Little connection to a critical business issue - How is your product or service addressing a business issue for your customer or prospect? For each opportunity in your sales pipeline answer this question:

Why does your prospect want to buy this product or service?

If you cannot communicate how your solution can: 1) Improve revenue, productivity, qualify or efficiency, 2) Save time or money, or 3) Solve a critical problem, challenge or frustration that the business is facing, you can expect your sale to stall. Business owners and Senior Executives only spend time on matters that directly impact their business. If cannot identify a business reason and you want to jumpstart the sale, try to meet with your prospect again to discuss their critical business issues rather than your solutions.

Customers Are Busy
The end of a sale often becomes difficult when your customer or prospect stops returning your calls and emails, overnight. It appears as though they have lost interest and the sale has gone cold…Or has it?

Many of us find it difficult to get everything done during work day or experience unexpected problems which take our focus elsewhere and your customers are no different. In fact, the better the prospect the busier they are likely to be.

It is important not to panic at this stage and let the customer or prospect fall away or to annoy them with endless phone calls and messages.

Keep momentum by maintaining regular contact, acknowledge your client is busy and perhaps ask them when would be an appropriate day or time for you to call and follow-up.

“I Want to Think it Over”
That old chestnut! When a customer says, “I want to think it over,” this may not always be the case. Some are actually saying “thanks but not thanks” to avoid a potentially negative and uncomfortable situation and some genuinely do want to think it over or talk to their business partner. The important thing is to know the difference between the two.

Some people just need a little push and a little help to make the decision. They may find making decisions difficult and are afraid of making the wrong decision. To many, no decision is the best decision.

When the prospect says, “I want to think it over,” it is important to acknowledge and respect what the client says. Smile and say “that’s a good idea, this is an important decision and I completely understand your need to think about it” which will help the prospect to relax.

It’s important now to leave things for a while, or you will lose this person as a prospect and begin the never-ending game of phone tag and follow-up!

Karen Andrews is the Director of Shine Sales Solutions, based in Australia, and has over 10 years experience in managing new business development campaigns for companies. She also holds a Bachelor of Business Studies in Business Management & Human Resource Development.

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