Q&A: The "Maybe Later" Objection

Today I'm dipping into the email inbox to answer one of your questions. I've gotten some great questions, but I'm going to cover one today about how to deal with a certain objection (similar to my other lesson on objections: "I'll Think About It").

I have a former client for consulting services, we worked together in the past and was very satisfied with the services we provided for him. He says he’s ‘interested, I know I need this, but not right now. Maybe sometime in the future."

Since you know that it's a legitimate and sincere answer because they have more urgent projects on hand, my question is how can I stay in touch without being annoying or pushing?”-Cesar Diaz

So this is somebody whom you've provided services in the past, and they've been happy with you and is a satisfied customer, and you've approached them with a project and they're not interested at this time.

For this client and situation, I would ask, "When can we follow up? Should be a month, three months, six months, you give me an idea." And let them tell you.

If you say, "Well why don't I just call you back in a month?" You’ll only receive an "Okay." in response. Now you're annoying and you’re pushy.

Suppose they tell you, "It's going to be more like three months." Then, again, what you say is, "Fine, then what I'll do is I'll go ahead and send you an email and confirm a date and maybe in three months we can reconnect."

Don’t just stop there, I would follow up with an email thanking them for their time, and reminding them in that email that I'm going to get back to them in three months.

That's the ABCs of selling right there, but I want you to take it a step further. I would say to you, did you qualify this client? Did you investigate, did you ask the key qualifying questions to see if it was even worth spending any time with this customer in the first place?

What’s coming across right here is they're not qualified. In other words, they really don't need the services and you just wasted your time presenting services to somebody. Again, because it's an existing client, there's nothing wrong with touching base. But let's assume that it is a qualified customer, let’s say you did qualify them and you still got the answer “not right now, maybe in the future.” What do you do?

Then I'm going to say to you, the mistake was you didn't create enough urgency, because you're right, they have other priorities. And they're looking at your proposal saying "That's a good proposal, but it doesn't take higher priority than what we have in the pipeline already with other things we have to do." So, my question to you is Caesar, in that presentation did you create enough urgency?

Now, if you go to one of my other podcasts or articles, I talk about there are five reasons people don't buy. No money, no time, no need, no urgency, no trust. Let me say it again, M-T-N-U-T. Then maybe Caesar, where you failed is that you didn't create enough urgency. If you created enough urgency, they would make the time. Let me say that again. But if you create enough urgency and you can show people how they'll save money, they'll always make the time.

My next question to you is did you quantify the value? Did you show them specifically how you can help them increase revenue? Did you show them how to reduce cost? Did you show them how your services can help them expand the market share? In other words, you said, "Mr. Customer, based on this, just this, we believe we can reduce your cost by 30% which translates into $100,000 a month. And if we do thing A, B and C, we know that we could increase your revenue by 20% which puts that at about $50,000 a month in additional revenue for you.”

Conversely, if they tell you they would like to revisit your proposition in 6 months you could quantify their loss in that span of time; "Six months? Well at six months times $150,000 Mr. Customer, we're looking at about $900,000 in lost revenue opportunity. Do you have the luxury to wait six months to let almost a million dollars go to waste?"

Do you see how that's much more powerful when you have a number to quantify?

Giving your customers options and respecting their time will help you in the future. Before you do, remember to qualify your clients and quantify the value to them to make the urgency of the situation more obvious.

Save time, money, and lost sales with personalized coaching with Victor Antonio.

Victor Antonio has a B.S. Electrical Engineering, an MBA and built a 20-year career as a top sales executive, before moving up to become President of Global Sales and Marketing for a $420M company before becoming a sales trainer, author, and keynote speaker. He has shared the stage with top business speakers: Rudy Giuliani, Paul Otellini (CEO of Intel), and John May (CEO of FedEx Kinkos). He's the author of 12 books on sales and motivation and 200+ sales training videos.