A business owner is always on a mission to attract potential new customers, to introduce them to the company’s products and/or services and pique their interest by helping them to envision how using one (or more) of your offerings will make some aspect of their life or work better—-solve a problem, save time or money, achieve a goal, or enhance the company brand, for example.

You are aware that the answer to most sales appeals is “no;” but have you ever unpacked the deal-breakers that cause prospects to turn you down? Respectfully, I suggest that you explore this uncomfortable question. What you learn may surprise you, but I’ll wager that it will not discourage you, even if you discover a lapse that you should have anticipated. Being all things to all potential buyers is not a goal for the vast majority of business entities. If you’ve made a couple of mistakes, you’ll have a chance to fix things. As for non-customers, they can be grouped into four categories that describe their relationship with your brand:

• Prospects who are unaware of your company, service, or product and may also be unaware of your product or service category.
• Prospects who are aware of your company and its offerings, but they are uncertain that your service or product is an effective solution for their needs.
• Prospects who are aware of the category of services or products that you provide, but your company is unknown to them.
• Prospects who are satisfied with the services or products provided by a competitor company and they are not motivated to change.

Every now and again, fortune will smile and a non-customer will decide to investigate your online marketing funnel and become an active prospect. This individual could enter into active engagement and request information that leads to a chat with you. As you answer questions and position your solution as a preferable alternative to what s/he uses now, you may spark a level of trust and confidence that convinces the prospect that there is something better—and that better mousetrap could be your product or service. Make the most of what could be a good opportunity and listen for cues that subtly reveal a prospect’s niggling dissatisfaction that, with skillful handling, could blow up to become the motivation to abandon ship and buy from you.

Engagement

The most immediate way to assess a prospect’s feelings is by noting the level of engagement s/he demonstrates. A serious prospect will actively participate in discussions with you, either directly in conversation or by way of interactions with your online sales funnel. S/he will make comments, ask questions and solicit recommendations for how to use the product or service in specific situations. Serious prospects want to understand how your product or service will perform; will the results and outcomes justify the purchase? Will your product or service address specific pain points, solve a formidable challenge, or help to achieve an important goal? These prospects will be engaged with you every step of the way. Their responsiveness is typically swift; they are happy to follow-up on emails or to take meetings.

By contrast, prospects who are merely browsing are not prepared to become a paying customer anytime soon. They may need to obtain the support of higher-ups in their organization; they might be waiting for budget confirmation and timing. Prospects who are just looking around are inclined to be casual about their communication with you or your team. They might be motivated by curiosity to comparison shop; or maybe there’s a missing element in what they’re using now, something that was not a deal-breaker when they bought from your competitor. So, your commitment phobic prospect will occasionally search for a product or service that could become a potential replacement and mentally entertain a comparison. But will the prospect change horses?

For this prospect, there is no rush; s/he might take days or weeks to respond to your follow-up attempt. Casual prospects may postpone meetings without requesting a reschedule date; the feedback they give is likely to be vague and noncommittal. If you’re chasing someone for a response, or repeatedly trying to reestablish contact, it’s almost certainly indication that s/he isn’t fully invested in the conversation—or, worse, they’re simply not that interested. Ask yourself: which prospects make an effort to stay engaged with you and which respond only when you reach out—if that? When it’s the latter, you may find that the prospect is even more unreliable than they let on.

Urgency

Prospects with an immediate need for your product or service are usually far more likely to convert. They’ll have a specific problem that requires timely attention and they’ll make that clear early on in your interactions. Whether they’re on a tight timeline or under pressure to resolve a pressing business issue, serious prospects will express a desire to move quickly. You might get questions such as, “How soon can we start?” or “We’d like to get a solution in place by X date.” These statements indicate that the prospect is motivated and ready to move forward and make a purchase.

By contrast, a prospect who is merely browsing will not exhibit urgency. S/he might express interest, but when it’s time to take the next step, there will be hesitation. Commitment phobic prospects push timelines into the future or claim that they need more time to think things over. The lack of urgency may signal that the prospect isn’t prioritizing the purchase or, worse, that there is no plan to move forward. As a rule, when prospects are serious, their enthusiastic and consistent engagement communicates that they are eager to do the deal. If you detect only lukewarm interest, expect that prospect to disappoint you.

Decision-maker

One of the most frustrating experiences in sales is trying to mid-wife a buyer’s journey with a prospect whom you discover doesn’t have the authority to make purchasing decisions. Serious prospects usually have the power to buy, or they’re closely connected to the one who does. If your prospect must refer decisions to higher-ups, or is unclear about who will make the final call, this could be a red flag.

Early in your conversations, smart Freelancers ask the prospect questions about their decision-making process, such as “Who else will be involved in the decision?” or “What steps do we need to go through for final approval?” It’s critical to know if the person with whom you’re communicating has sole authority to make the buy, or if s/he has one vote on a decision team of five people, for example. Or maybe your prospect is doing the legwork for the sale because the person(s) who can green light the sale don’t like getting directly involved in sales (it happens). Whatever the protocol the prospect’s company follows, if s/he is serious, that person will give you accurate info about the purchase approval process and will fill you in on the internal steps and timelines needed to make a decision.

Uncommitted prospects, on the other hand, tend to be ambiguous, if not evasive, about who holds the decision-making power. If the prospect repeatedly tells you s/he needs to consult someone else about the sale, but never seems to move the process forward, that individual is most likely wasting your time. Without clear authority or a transparent decision-making process, it will be difficult to determine when, or if, the sale will be approved.

Moving forward

A serious prospect will move through your sales funnel with consistency and purpose. S/he will ask questions, including those intended to obtain information on the service or product delivery and implementation timelines and pricing specifics. Even if discussions and negotiations take time, there will be clear forward momentum.

Commitment phobic prospects, as you might guess, tend to stall. It’s possible that what appears to be genuine interest is demonstrated early on as the prospect engages in preliminary discussions. But when it’s time to progress to more concrete steps—such as proposing a delivery and implementation timeline, or reviewing a proposal—you find that communication becomes opaque and slows down, it does not bode well for the possibility of consummating the sale. This stalling tactic is manipulative as it traps you in uncertainty and denies you from good faith business practice. Such prospects may be unable to guarantee an adequate budget, or they may be in serious negotiation with another vendor and merely using you as a bargaining chip or a Plan B option. You are advised to be circumspect.

It’s important to recognize the potential significance of persistent delays and face up to the possibility that the prospect may not be willing and able to make a decision. If the prospect habitually postpones meetings, this could surely indicate that this individual is unreliable, probably because the authority to make the purchase is not in hand. Do yourself a favor and monitor how quickly and smoothly prospects move from one step to the next in your sales funnel; any unusual delays are worth questioning.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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