With your every calling action you are seeking to get more clear “Yes’s” and “No’s.”
The most successful appointment setters communicate value such that qualified buyers can grasp it and they say “Yes.” But the flip side of that is that those with no needs will “get it” and say “No.”
“No’s” are good. When someone grasps your value proposition and says “No,” that means no more follow-up calls to someone that will not buy.
That time spent not following up on those that will never buy means that those calls can be directed toward someone who is more likely to buy or could lead to someone more likely to buy.
Remember that sales prospecting is a sorting process. Make conscious decisions that enable you to spend more time and resources among higher probability buyers and less time and resources among lower probability buyers.
Keep in mind that for most salespeople there are far more high-probability higher-worth buyers than they could possibly call. It makes no sense to spend time with those worth less.
One of the key characteristics about top sales performers, whether it be appointment setting or closing, those that sell and earn the most make very early decisions about whom not to spend time with. They not only make that decision early they make it with confidence.
Those that are best at finding gold when prospecting are also the ones that are best at identifying what is not gold.
When you start to hear more “Yes’s” you will also hear more “no’s.” That is a good thing.
What is to be avoided at all costs are “maybe’s.” “Maybe’s’ are death.
When you are less clear and less direct, when your script paths veer from a structure calculated to get you a “Yes” or “No,” you start to hear “Maybe’s.” When you do, the slide to ruin, inefficiency, mind numbing frustration and lower sales has begun.
When decision-makers that would be great profitable accounts for you say “maybe,” you lose out because an immediate “yes” has been lost. Which means you have to invest additional time in follow-up, time that could have been directed to finding another “yes.” And of course, if someone that could have been a “yes” says “maybe,” you are not meeting, talking, moving toward a close.
“Maybe” is clothed in phrases like “call me back,” or “send some information.”
“Maybe’s” are like a cancer, an insidious force that sucks up your energy and kills your prospecting results.
Dial by dial, conversation by conversation, you think you are doing the right thing, but you are not. You must do everything you can to convert a “maybe” into a clear “yes” or “no.” Ask the additional questions that turn maybe’s into “Yes’s” or “No’s” right now. Set the appointment now. Avoid having to make follow-up calls to those that are unlikely to buy.
Few things are more frustrating in calling than to follow-up endlessly on those that have said warm fuzzies that give you hope or requested a call back or some info, yet never pick up the phone or respond. That circumstance is much more your fault than the fault of those wasting your time.
You had them on the phone and there were thngs you could have done to determine if they had a real need and were willing to act on it. You chose not to do those things so now you are stuck in “maybeland” and it is your fault.
At best, 1 in 10 is a legitimate prospect
My belief has always been that among the group of decision-makers that ask us to “call them back” or “send them info” or some other maybe code speak, that at best one in ten is a legitimate prospect.
It is better to not make the calls and not get the meeting than it is to make the calls and not get the meeting.
Guide them to a clear Yes or No when you have them on the phone.
One final point on this. Take a step back and take a bigger picture view. One of the root causes of appointment setting/prospecting frustration is spending far too much time with those who will never buy. Think about how that happens.
Conversation by conversation you let too many maybe’s that will never buy slip in. As the maybe’s slip in less and less of your time is spent with higher probability suspects because you have chosen to allocate more time to low-probability suspects.
Do everything you can to elicit a clear “yes” or “No” from the “Maybe’s.”
“Maybe’s” are death.
