If I ask 10 sales people their views on when you should stop chasing a prospect who isn’t committing, I’ll get 10 different answers. “Give them three months!” “Chase them up four times.” “Until they stop calling you back.”
The problem is, they are all wrong.
Sales people and busy business owners tend to give up too easily because they are time poor and think that customers are wasting their time. They either close a prospect off and move on to the next lead, or worse still, leave the prospect there and never chase it up.
If I was a bright red fire engine, as good as I may be, I’ll only be called into action when the roof is on fire or there’s a smell of smoke.
In simple terms, don’t sell to your prospective customer (they may love metaphorical bright red fire engines), wait until they are ready to buy (and they need one). Notice the subtle difference?
I had a prospect convert into a client recently after six years.
Now, have I been calling her every month? No!
Has she been in my hot leads list all this time? Nope.
Have I budgeted for her converting to a client? Absolutely not!
Has my marketing been drip feeding valuable content to her regularly for the entire time? Hell yes.
Her exact words to me (replying to one of the weekly Snippets I send out) “Now is the time for us to chat, I need your help!”.
The way to get a potential client from pending to spending is to not give up just because they aren’t taking the plunge right now. The trick is to ensure your marketing system is highlighting their challenges and the impact of them, and why you are a sound solution until (as long as it takes) one of three things happens:
- They unsubscribe – there’s no longer a need or you are not the right fit (auto cleansing of your data-list)
- They engage – the time is right however long this takes
- They never engage – there’s no need but they will be advocates of your brand because of the value you are delivering
When I am working 1-2-1 with a client, we take time to flesh out their marketing strategy and how and where this can be automated, so that they continue to promote their business to their prospects until the time is right for them to buy.
This way they will be efficient with their time, money and focus, and convert prospects from pending to spending when they are ready to buy.
Is your marketing strategy converting your prospects when they are ready, or are you giving up at the first hurdle?
Are you converting enough prospects from pending to spending?
