“Pay attention to the no’s that you’re getting and see if there are opportunities to keep the ball in the air.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 1153
Do you pay attention to your no’s?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Jeff Bajorek has pulled himself away from his brand new Rethink The Way You Sell podcast to bring us a great new tip. Here he is:
Jeff Bajorek: It doesn’t take a world-class sales expert to recognize that you’re going to hear no a lot more often than you hear yes. But what I’m going to challenge you to do today is to pay attention to your ‘No’s’. No, not that thing on your face. I’m talking about the no’s that you hear from your prospects. Pay attention to them because there’s a difference in a lot of them. Sometimes it’s just not the right fit. It’s just not going to work. We’re not addressing this problem at this time. Your solution doesn’t make sense to us. We don’t see how this is going to work. Okay, that’s great. But regularly, maybe not often, but regularly, if you’re doing it right, you’re going to hear, “This isn’t the right fit for us right now. We don’t think this is going to work for us at this time.”
There are opportunities more often than you think to set a meeting two months, three months, six months in advance to check back in and to see how their process is going. And this is a pretty simple request. “Look, Scott, I appreciate you spending this time. I appreciate you indulging our presentation. I would really think this is going to fit for you. But if you don’t see it, I understand. And it sounds like you are headed in a direction that well, doesn’t drive with how we would approach this issue. I can see some logic and you’ll probably see some good results.” I’ll tell you what would it make sense for us to get together in a few months and just see if things are going the way you think they are? What can you learn?
Now, most people are going to give up on this. They’re going to think this is an opportunity that is gone. What do I want to do? Why do I want to spend time with an opportunity that’s already gone? Well, you’ve earned the right to ask that should not be ignored. Secondly, you’ve also earned the rapport to have that conversation in a couple of months and think about what you can learn. Think about what you will learn by asking the questions that you really want to ask. Your clients will give you probably not privileged information, but they’ll give you some insights to how things are working and why. And you are going to be so well prepared to compete against those other companies. And you’re also going to be so much better prepared to have conversations with your prospects in the future about what they can expect and why they could expect something different from you. Hopefully that they can expect something better from you.
But you’re missing those opportunities for really good relationship building, really good insight, and intel that’s going to make you much more competitive in the future. And here’s the kicker. A lot of those companies just not ready for you right now. They might be ready for you in a couple of months. They won’t be ready for you if you drop the ball. So much about winning in sales, particularly over the long term, is keeping the ball in the air. It’s just making sure that the opportunity isn’t completely lost even if the timing doesn’t work for you right now. And look, if you have enough in your pipeline you’ve heard me say this before as well as so many other of my colleagues with enough pipeline, you’re not worried about any individual deal. You can take something that doesn’t close right now and still work it to close in the future but if you’re getting too hung up with what you have to do right now, right in front of you, you’re missing opportunities for the future.
Willing opportunities, opportunities that right now are in front of you that says “I see a role for this person, this company to help us. It’s just not the role right now” and they will forget about you if you allow them to. So keep the ball in the air as long as you can. Pay attention to the no’s that you’re getting and see if there are opportunities to keep the ball in the air and you’re going to make things so much easier on yourself because that’s less prospecting you’re going to have to do. These are more people who could refer you. Think about the people who could refer you even if they don’t do business with you right now because they appreciate what you do and how you approach your process. Don’t give up too early.
Scott Ingram: For links to Jeff’s brand new Rethink The Way You Sell podcast, which is just a handful of super high-quality episodes in, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1153.
Once you’ve finished listening through those, be sure to come back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!