Have you ever lied and gotten away with it?
You know Bob who bailed on your birthday? He may not have had a headache.
We lie because we don’t want to be the bearers of bad news.
Sometimes prospects lie for the same reason.
Here are some lies prospects tell:
“Call me next quarter.”
“Send me a proposal.”
“Send me an email.”
Asking for an email is usually a nice way of saying “no.”
The problem?
I often see salespeople burning way too many calories pitching, sending, and chasing.
A powerful sales skill to master is protecting your time.
So the first step is to determine IF the prospect is remotely interested in the problem you solve.
The keyword being “if”.
When you assume you’re a fit, you pitch.
When you pitch, prospects can smell your commission breath. They know you’re putting your best interests first. When people feel the push, they pull away.
When you let go of assuming, you create and environment where propects feel comfotable being hones with you because they don’t feel the push.
For example, here’s how to have an honest conversation about “send me an email” so you can protect your time.
Prospect: “Send me an email?”
Mirroring
“I’m sorry, an email?”
Mirroring is a simple technique where you repeat the most critical piece of information with a slight uptone as if to say, “Tell me more.”
Mirroring makes the prospect feel heard while encouraging them to share more information.
Determine If the Prospect Is Remotely Interested
Move with the objection, not against it.
“So I don’t do you a disservice by sending you irrelevant info, would it be okay if I asked you a couple quick questions?”
Poke the Bear
The key to what happens next is to ask a question related to a problem your prospect might have. Poke the bear.
Example for CaptivateIQ:
“I’m not sure if you’re experiencing this, but we’re seeing that determining payouts involves a lot of manual data entry. Stuff like hard-pasting entire Excel pages into Google Sheets and then manually making adjustments. How are you currently calculating and running payouts?”
Conversation started.
Understanding, not overcoming.