← The Sales Hunter Podcast
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Why are your prospects going silent on you, and what do you do about it? Okay, the subtitle for this show is Silence is not rejection, it's uncertainty. Because we have to correct this problem and correct it now. I'm Mark Hunter, the sales hunter, and the show begins right now. You're listening to the Sales Hunter podcast with Mark Hunter, where the focus is to help you as a salesman, sell with confidence and integrity. And now, here's your host. Why do prospects go silent? Why are your prospects going silent and what do we do about it? Let me tell you something. Silence is not rejection. It's uncertainty. You see, it simply comes down to this. We have not created enough confidence in the eyes of the customer. That's really what it comes down to. We've not created confidence. Now, don't sit there and say, oh, well, I've tried to reach out to them three, four times and they haven't responded. So they must not be interested. You don't know because you have not had a conversation with them. This is the first thing you've got to understand. But here's the situation. You sit there and say, well, well, Mark, they must not be interested because they're not. They haven't even told you they're not interested. And oh, by the way, you know why customers don't tell you they're not interested? Because there's nothing in it for them to tell you they're not interested. You see, here's the whole thing. They're not going to tell you they don't need you because deep inside they know that one day they might need you. That's a real comforting thought. But that doesn't help us right now. Today we got it. We got to cut down. We got to get into the core of the issue and say, what is it? You see, here's the whole thing. We didn't create enough confidence in the last interaction, or maybe a series of. Maybe we had two or three interactions with them and then they go silent. You see, we have to stop and ask ourselves, have we provided the customer with enough reasons for them to say, yes, this makes sense to buy. And it's the most confident decision I could make. Because customers right now you. Same way, you don't want to spend any money if you don't have to. Right? It's very simple. So if you spend money, you want to make sure that there's a level of confidence. So what does this mean? We've got to go back and really double check, triple check. Okay, so now what does this mean? This means certainly you do not go back and, and just say you're checking in. No, you got to deliver them an insight. Now let's break down the types of insights that you can do, because here's the whole thing. You, because you haven't had enough conversations with the customer, may very quickly be falling into an assumptive mindset. You assume you know what the challenges that the customer is facing, but you don't know. This is, this is very fatal. In the prospecting phase, don't take anything to the bank unless the customer has told you. And I say unless the customer has told you twice. Because sometimes they'll just throw something out and it's just throwaway to get you off the phone or to end the call or to not have to do a demo right now. But that's not really the reason. See, what you want to do is you want to ascertain exactly what the challenges that the customer is dealing with. So I got, I gotta, I gotta go back and look at the insights I'm sharing with them. Have I asked them questions that truly engage you? See, it's not about what we sell in the prospecting phase especially. It's about how can we help them and are they able to articulate what their challenge is? Don't worry about what it is that you sell in the prospecting phase. That is totally irrelevant. Get that out of your. That's the reason why some customers go silent on you because they say all you're trying to do is pitch me, pitch me, pitch me. I'm not interested. I'm not going. But if you're willing to have a conversation by asking them questions, and the questions I want to be asking them is what is relevant to them now, not only to them as a company, but them as a person. Because again, two different things. Because here, here's what I'm getting to. You can very quickly have prospects who have an interest and they go silent on you because they don't have intent. What I got to do is I got to first of all understand they have interest, but then get to intent. It is when they get to intent that they will remain engaged with them. So I've got to sit there and I've got to give them a reason to respond. These are the questions I'm asking. They have to feel a level of confidence that what I'm helping them with is something they've done before. So are you able to give them confirming statements? Yes, we've done this with other companies. Are you able to. To drop Kind of, so to speak, names of companies specific to what you've been able to help them with. In other words, have you been able to help them understand confidence? Now, okay, that doesn't get you all the way because again, it may not be in their, in their time frame to solve the issue. In other words, they may have interest. I'm thinking of this right now. In my own company. I've got several things that I've got both intent and interest. But unfortunately there are other priorities that are higher. I only uncover those when I'm able to create a level of confidence and trust and authenticity with the customer. That they begin to share that with me, then they can begin to share that. Yeah, you're right. I've got to get this done. But I've got two other priorities that are ahead of this. Now. If those priorities are tied to what it is that you have, great, terrific. Now you're, now you're, you're working in concert with them. But they may be totally different things and that's okay. But I've got to find out. You see, here's the whole thing. If I can't find the level of confidence and the level of intent, I have no sale. So this means sometimes what I've got to do is I've got to find an alternate connection. This is so fatal, especially with salespeople who are trying to go through one door with one person. If you're chasing a large opportunity, it's about finding an alternate connection. There may be two, three, four, five other people that you can get in with. Is there a referral partner that can help get you in? In other words, is there somebody else that they're working with that can help introduce you or can bring you alongside? Or is there a different need that you can identify? Now remember, you can't go into assumptive. I totally understand that. But what I'm saying is this. You may have, what you sell is a capital expenditure and it's okay, but, but here's. And they're just hesitant because it's a capital expenditure and they don't have a budget. But the alternate solution, the alternate need is maybe because of this, it's going to help them reduce their head count. See, so the alternate need is not just the better information that your system is going to help them be able to process, but the alternate need is the fact that they can eliminate some headcount or they don't have to look at continuously replacing headcount. You see, what I'm doing is I'm Taking what it is that I offer and packaging it up different ways. This is absolutely critical because here's why. The larger the opportunity, the more the different tracks you have to have going in to help satisfy them. You know, I do a lot of speaking, I do a lot of speaking at conferences and trade associations and so forth. And naturally it's, it's kind of, I, I would lean in to say that, that I want to go in and be part of, part of a company sales kickoff event. But the alternate entry for me might be because I could do executive coaching, see, So I might come in and do and, and, and work to do executive coaching and then come around to that. Or I might come in and say, hey, I can help you really redefine your, your go to market strategy from a consulting standpoint. And you see, whatever it is that you sell, whatever product or service that you sell, it can be delivered and perceived and received in value in different manners by different customers. And this is what you have to be able to understand. So when I say don't hesitate to create alternate connections, many times, that's right from the start. If you are prospecting in a space that you're not well known, you are going to have to go in right away with, with numerous connections. You're going to have to go in with referral partners. You're going to have to go in and find things. You see, because here's the whole thing. I have to create interest and then I have to create intent. But that intent has to fit their time line and their budget ultimately. And if I can't line that up, it's a little bit like taking a football and throwing it through a tire. Okay, I can throw a football through one tire. That's great. I might be able to throw it through two tires. But if I've got three, four, five tires, that's pretty hard to throw that football through all those tires. Pretty hard. Yeah, but this is what you're doing when we're prospecting. So when our prospect goes silent, don't think for a moment now some of you are sitting there saying, marquee, I've been trying to reach out to this prospect and they have just not responded to me. So you know what? I'm going to shut it down. Here's the whole situation. Your level of continued contact must be in relationship to the size of the opportunity. Now, I don't have time to go into all of the nuances in terms of determining the size because sometimes, you know, the size might be, there's only A little bit here, but you know, because of acquisitions, it's going to be bigger or maybe they're coming out with a new product that's going to be bigger or because of their profile in the marketplace, whatever. But my rule of thumb is this. I'm going to stay engaged for a length of time relative to the size of the opportunity. That, that, that's just the easiest way. So if it's a small opportunity, you're right, I might reach out to you half a dozen times and step away. If it's a big opportunity, I'm going to stay in the game. I've had situations where I have stayed in the game for well over a hundred contacts, a hundred touches, meetings to land a deal. But it's, it's been worth it because it's been big enough. I've had deals where, where I've had to, to stay in the game for not just a month, two months, but multiple years to get deal because they're big enough and well worth it. And this is what you have to do. Now here's a couple other pieces that I want you to keep in mind. Remember, when the customer goes silent on you, don't think they necessarily have gone silent on you. They may be doing background work. In other words, they might be checking out your website, checking out social media, finding out what others are saying. This is why it's so important from a prospecting standpoint that you have to have a presence in the marketplace because the customer, the prospect, is going to check you out before they engage with you. I see this happening a lot. I see this happening where a salesperson may reach out to person and you have one or two conversations, then they go silent and the salesperson says, mark, they're no, they're checking you out. They've downloaded some white papers. They've maybe attended this webinar. They've gone to this. They are talking to other people about you. This is where it comes back to this whole piece. It's about creating confidence because the customer, the customer is only going to engage with you when they have a level of confidence in you. And that's really right at the interest stage. Yeah. That doesn't even get us to intent. It better be confidence on steroids. Yeah. Okay, where do we go with this? I want you to do three things. One, I want you to look at the list of questions that you are asking your prospects. I want you to look at the information that you're sharing and this is why you have to stay in your icp. Your Ideal customer profile. The tighter you stay, the more relevant. The questions that you're asking are going to work for multiple prospects. The information that you're sharing is going to work for multiple prospects. The multiple things, this is absolutely the case dance. And also when you create things on social media, your company's website, etc, not only is it appealing to this prospect, but it's also appealing to these other prospects. You see, it becomes a multiplier effect. The more you stay in your icp, the more you have a multiplier effect. Okay, so we talked about the questions, the information, the insights. Now I got to ask myself, what is my cadence? How frequently should I. And remember this, remember this. If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out to them. Don't think you are bugging them. If you are delivering value, period. If you're saying buy from me, buy from me, you're bugging them. But if you're delivering value, you can keep reaching out to them. So many salespeople, again, back off because they feel that they're bugging the person. No, you're not. So critical questions, the information you're sharing, the cadence. And next is the number of people, other contacts and referrals that you are using to help get you in the door. And the last piece is of course, making sure that you understand very clearly how long do you want to stay in the game because you, you're able to to gut check the size of the opportunity. And again, if you're staying in your icp, you're probably going to know the opportunity stay in the game longer. Hey, I'm Mark Hunter, the sales center. I want you to pick up my new book, Integrity First Selling. Because this is what I'm talking about right here. This is, this is Integrity First Selling. When we prospect like this, leave me a review on your favorite podcast app. And hey, reach out. If this resonates with you, reach out to me, email me, message me. On social media, whatever it is, reach out to me because I want to be part of your next sales meeting, sharing with you how you can be driving more sales. I'm Mark Hunter, the sales center. Two episodes a week, one like this, second one where we do a deep dive with a subject matter expert. I'm Mark Hunter, Great selling.