What Do You Do When Prospects Go Cold?

It’s happened to everyone — you have a successful meeting with someone and feel great about the connection, only to never hear from them again. Maybe you’ve even had multiple meetings, or gone through much of the buying process with your prospect, and then… silence. It’s frustrating when we spend hours and hours with a prospect and then can’t get them to respond to emails or phone calls. Sometimes it can’t be helped, but other times there are some common reasons that this might be happening. They could have had had a life or financial change, or they may not feel a sense of urgency to get back to you because they’re not quite ready to move forward, or in some cases, they may not be receiving your emails or phone messages. It could also be that they’re just not convinced to do business with you yet.

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So, what do we do? Just move on to new prospects, washing our hands of the ones who ‘ghosted’ us? There will always be a point where we need to give up, but here are a few ideas to save those prospects before moving on:

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Send a Final Round of Messages

This doesn’t mean you should bombard them, but instead, it means to have a strategy for one final attempt before giving up. If all communication has ceased on your prospect’s part, send three more messages. Use multiple mediums of contact, like a phone call, voicemail, or a message on social media, in case your emails alone aren’t getting through. With the first two messages, try to instill an emotional response — generate some excitement with an incentive, or provoke a fear of missing out on a great opportunity. You can also include a testimonial from one of your clients detailing their successful experience working with you, which could encourage them to move forward. In the third and final contact, let them know that this is your last time reaching out. You want them to understand that you’re not desperate and won’t continue to chase them. This is often effective to create a sense of urgency.

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Share Engaging Content

When you share engaging content with your prospects, you increase the probability that they’ll remember both you and your brand. Shoot for informative or fun content, like interesting articles or videos relevant to taking out a mortgage. You can also send prospects a summary of your bold ideas to show them what they can expect when working with you. Of course, pointing to a good number of reviews and testimonials that you’ve received online will go further than anything to prove that you can back up your claims, and that you’re the best LO for the job. If your content doesn’t capture their attention, it will often get deleted before it’s even read. More on creating top-notch content, here.

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Demonstrate Value

Sometimes when we lose a prospect, it’s because we haven’t given them enough of a reason to trust us or see the value in working with us. This is another place where testimonials can be invaluable. If you have a particularly good relationship with a past client, they may be willing to speak to your prospect directly to share what it was like to work with you, and how you helped them. Assurances like these can help lessen any doubt that a prospect has — and increase their confidence in your ability.

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Be Relatable and Personable

Another good strategy for when you’ve lost contact with a prospect, is to offer a more personable approach and ask them directly what went wrong and what you can do about it. While you should always respect professional boundaries, sometimes a simple message expressing concern reaches through to prospects better than anything else. They will often respond to give you an idea of what’s going on in their life that has created reluctance, which will allow you to have a new way to strengthen that relationship, and an opportunity to solve the problem.

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You’ll never be able to convert every prospect (even the qualified ones) into clients. But with a strategy in place to address the prospects that go cold, you’ll create more opportunities for success.

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