How To Put An End To The Chasing Game

Chasing prospects has always been considered normal and necessary, but it’s rooted in the macho selling image that “If you don’t keep chasing, you’re giving up, which means you’re a failure.” This is dead wrong. And inevitably, it can create conflict with the very people you wish to sell to if you are selling the old way, going for the close and playing the numbers game.

Whenever a sales relationship is initiated, the person initiating the sales relationship triggers sales pressure and rejection. The more you push the sale, to make it fit, to close it, the more likely you are to hit a wall. It’s very painful.?This may not be your fault, if you have only been trained to sell that way.?

Those common responses from prospects, ‘Let me think about it?!”, "we already have a preferred supplier", "xyz problem isn't important to me right now" . .. are passive dismissves that often get thrown back at you at the end of a call to politely tell you – “we’re not interested.”?

You would panic at this point in the old way of selling. It seems like you’ve lost the chance, so you try to change the close or at least try to schedule another appointment. However, this only places pressure on the prospect and may cause the wall to remain up.

My suggestion instead, is when you have your next sales conversation, let go of trying to close the deal or get an appointment. As a result, you will find you are no longer responsible for driving the sales process forward.

Let’s say you’re on phone with somebody, a first contact, the first opportunity of the company, maybe you’re selling business services. It’s the first conversation. It’s good chemistry, it looks like a good fit, and they are qualified. The call comes to an end at the end of your first call. What are we trained typically to do at the end of a call like that when we have somebody on the hook that we think could be a good buyer???Most people would say “When should I follow up with you?” “How about we move forward?” “How about we move to the next step?”

We’re conditioned, we have a hot fish on our hook, our instinct is to move things towards the sale.

What happens if you attempt to move somebody forward right there and they aren’t ready yet? You break trust right there at the moment without even realizing it.?Instead, saying, “How about we go to the next step?” “Where do you think we should go from here?” changes the dynamic of the chase and instead throws the ball in their court to decide what the next step is in order to make sure that they suggest what the next step should be XYZ.?The power is now shifted and what happens is the truth comes out.

You will find that prospects will give you the direction you need if you simply focus your conversation on how you can help prospects solve problems, and don't try to rush the sales process.?What you’re doing is, bringing out the truth of whether they’re a fit with you or not. If they’re not a fit, you disengage. If they are a fit, and you can elegantly schedule a nice conversation without them feeling you are trying to pull them down your process.?The way you do that is you do this, you say, “Would you be open to the possibility of scheduling a second conversation to see if I can help you along this process and take care of what you might be looking for? Would you be open to that?”

There are times when even if you and your prospect both recognize that you can solve a problem, you need to ask whether it is a priority to solve it. It might be because there's no budget, or maybe it's not the right time to solve it. It's crucial that you find out this now because months from now you'll regret not knowing this earlier because you could have moved on, knowing they weren't the right fit for you.

To get to the point where you care more about the person you're helping than the commission you're after, you can shift your mindset to a place of asking if they're a good fit or not, in doing this you won't have the pressure that you were experiencing previously and can either give them the attention or move to the next prospect.

Unlock The Game?, a new sales mindset that overturns the notion of selling as we know it today. His personal insights on how to build trust between buyers and sellers continues to break new ground. Thousands of Business Owners worldwide have been transformed by his trust-based sales approach. Get access to the Free Masterclass at www.UnlockTheGame.com/Video and subscribe to this podcast or to be a guest on the show, visit www.UnlockTheGame.com/Podcast