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Do prospects lie?

You better believe it. Yes, The most common phrases - "I would love to meet". "I can't wait to get started" "Send me the proposal. I'll call you by next week!". And then, you don't hear from them. The reasons are so obvious. They don't have the money, and they tell you they have the money.

How do you deal with a such situations? It's pointless to deal with those who constantly lie. Everybody lies. If that is the case, how much should you follow up? After a while you just consider that, they were probably lying, and stop sending your follow-through. When it's not a good fit, instead of you getting rejected, can you disqualify the prospect? Read on as we discuss each objections in fine print.

"Sounds good, I'll get back to you, thank you."

Have you ever had a prospect that says, "I will get back to you". Do you hear from them a day? A week? A month later, perhaps? Or did your prospect ghost on and then disappear & never to be seen? This is not so different from when any prospect says, "I want to think about it". How do you handle this objection?

First of all, find out the exact truth. Are they just being polite? Or are they needing little bit more time to make the decision? Or are they just politely declining and rejecting you? As a sales "closer", get to know what exactly what is stalling the sale. When a prospect says, "I will get back to you", here's few ways you can reply to handle that objection. When a salesperson approaches, any prospect obviously says, "Oh, I will get back to you," and the salesperson says, "Oh sure. Should I call you back? Maybe follow up with you, like next week?" Or "Can I call you back in a month to see where things are at?" And, that's not something you want to say scripted like a textbook salesman. Sales talk need not be looking so hard. You don't need to do that because that immediately puts you at risk of being naive. Delay kills a sale.

Here's what some of things that you could say to avoid a further appointment. Example: "Well I'll get back to you." Response: "Well dear Prospect, the odds of us meeting are quite far! What would it take for you and I to do business today?"

You ask the prospect this very simple but profound question. "What would it take for you and I to do business today?" At times the prospect would open up and say, "Well you know actually, what I need is, …," or "I need some references," or "I need a plan," or "I need to talk to someone," whatever it is, the prospect seeks something extra. He wants a value addition upfront, and focus on handling this usual objection or solving his/her tiny problem, rather going blind and asking your prospect another date for an appointment.

Another thing that you could say, if the prospect wants to play polite, and doesn't want to reject. Ask -- Exactly what's going on. "Is it the price? Is it the schedule? What part you don't seem to like? You can tell me candid?"

"Assuming we're not gonna do business, let's lay everything on table. Tell me, what don't you like about the deal?" And then the prospect might add to say, "the price is a little bit too high side". Okay then, let's talk about price. What can we do? What if I can offer you some kind of payment plan? Would that make a difference? What if I give you better terms? What if I can do this? Okay, what if, we can lower the upfront fee? Would that make a difference? Oh yeah, that would make a difference. Good! (snaps fingers) Now we've got a deal. So you got to look at all happening aspects, versus take whatever prospects say and take it literally. Every man in sales has to understand one rule, everybody lies. You lie, and prospects lie. That's one thing you should learn in sales.

No one is telling you the whole truth, and why? Obviously, they wish to protect themselves, their business, minimize their risks, and clients don't wish to give out too much information. Nobody likes to hand out their weakness in a silver platter to anyone, fearing this same information could be used against them. There's a a bit of difference between selling vs closing.

Not that your prospects, hate you and, are simply objecting to stop you to getting a decent commission, they simply don't want to be sold. As a closer, you are clearly aware about the resistance ahead. Cut through the smoke and mirror, and get to the truth of what is going on. Get to the bottom line. "What would it take for you and me now to do business today? Not tomorrow."

Most people, find it hard to communicate. Fewer people know how to sell and almost a few percentage understand how really to close. In any sales environment, be it conversation, or meeting, as a sales person, you do not get paid by selling. If you think all you can do is sell sell sell sell and get paid, sorry that's not the way! Literally, you turn off every prospect with this approach. You only get paid when you close a sale.

Why do you want to stop selling and start closing? There is a stark difference between a sales agent versus a "closer". Sales men are reputed for their pushy attitude. Most engage in use of aggressive tactics which are textbook, snake oil, scammy, slimy, and pushy ways to close.

With regards to a "closer", how do you know when you are a good closer? After you've done a sale, after you've closed a prospect, when he/she says, "Thank you for helping me make this decision." "Thank you for helping me move forward." That's the big difference, between being a sales agent and a closer. Sometimes it's just asking a couple questions and that's all you need to close that sale. It's wise to stop memorizing scripts, and when closing with a prospect on the phone, keep it short, and simple.

As an educated reader and sales "closer", develop your own questions. If your way of handling objections are good and effective, why do you need different techniques? One simple way is empowering yourselves is how you prepare yourselves to handle multiple objections with one simple way, rather use multiple ways to handle one single objection. The way you would handle objections like "I want to think about it", or "I'll get back to you", it's very similar. You might change a couple questions, a few words here and there, but handling objections are basically the same thing, evolve with what makes your life much simpler and learn how you can close sales with ease.

Value in advance

Buyers are impatient optimists. Every single time when you make an offer, try to close a sale, because you only have a very short period of time to persuade, convince a prospect to say "yes". Instead of waiting for a phone call or waiting for your meeting, face to face to do all your closing, you need to do a lot of work, before you even open up your mouth, and say a single word.

DYK, the best way to sell a box of chocolate? Is to give people a taste. One piece of chocolate, if they like that they'll want to buy the whole box.

Even before you go face to face, on the phone, to do all the heavy lifting, any good sales "closer" will know how to end the battle even before you start. Deliver value in advance! For someone who is consuming your content, product/services, make an offer, and the element of trust is already sowed. It is easy for them to say "Yes"

Here's a perfect example.

Let's say you are a teaching piano lessons, and you are teaching someone how to be a expert mastery in piano. There are a series of steps you need to go through in order to attain your certification and mastery. Lets say, the very first step is you need to learn 'elements of music'. Then you need to understand some basic g-notes. How to do first chords, practice section melody, work first scale pattern, learn about chord progression, how to work on octave G-major scale et all.

Lets say, lesson 1,  you teach some left-hand piano techniques. And, later on you also were able to teach your first chords. Lets say it takes anyone 7 steps to get from point A to point B, the best way you could convince any student is to say, "I'm am a piano teacher. I can give hands-on for you lessons from basic elements of music to that confident piano master in 21 days. Instead of telling you how good I am, I know it takes you 7 steps to get to your goal. Here's 2 free paid sessions." All you would need is to provide some value in advance.

Teach your students how to do a proper left-hand chords. That first step. Not going to get you to the end goal, but first few steps to help your prospects, get interested in learning piano. Now what happens is if the prospect sees the value in you, he/she seeks more content. Not to the end goal yet, but you're already getting value from free piano sessions you are providing, the prospect gets to think this, "Wow, If I'm getting so much value from the free stuff, if the free stuff is so good, I wonder what the paid stuff is going to be like" and that's exactly how the "value in advance" works.

You don't wait till money to start closing. When you provide value in advance, you started closing from the beginning. When you're putting forward, and delivering value to the consumer, you make an offer to your prospect. You've the first two steps done, and when there are five more steps to go instead of trying to convince them, and earning their trust, and asking them to sign up - Give clients value upfront.

Help them solve few problems upfront, the smart way. If you are doing it via social media, content, blogs, video, vlogs, and you do wish to do this on a massive scale, you're impacting many prospects, and adding so much value to their lives. When you make an offer, it is easy conversion. It is just a moment when you realize all the hard work you've done in the beginning has paid off today.

But, its wise not to waste your time and energy on giving out freebies for everyone. There's a time and place in sales for everything, but you don't need that to appease everyone with giving free value-add.

Delivering value in advance is usually not part of any b-school books that teach selling. Its honestly not trying to use tactics or black-hat methods trying to close sales, but bringing in organic conversion. Instead of isolated components, value addition in sales is combining your branding, marketing and closing all as one entity.

Recently, a company launched fitness foods, and decided to provide free healthy salad lunch buffet for every gym member. Many loved the concept of combo offer, a gym subscription renewal and free vegan buffet at a very affordable price point. A win-win for both the business, and people recommended this idea to many they knew, and soon a significant number of new members subscribed to the gym workout program. This was a great complementary value addition to the gym members, and it saved time, and extra money.

So, the time is right to stop selling and start closing. Every single time you offer something, make it a thumb rule, to deliver 10x more value. Strive to deliver 10x more cheaper, more affordable, and 10x better than your single biggest competitor.

Implement "Value in advance" in your business. Closing is something that you do for somebody. Value in advance is something that you do for everybody. In the end, ask yourselves, are my clients happy to buy from you, and do they see how much value you are delivering? And, that simple thank you from your client matters.

Stay motivated, Always!