What's your best advice with how to respond to a customer no-decision? As in, "let's revisit this in 6 months."
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VP - Practice Management & Retirement6 months ago
I learned years ago in sales... the best answer is YES... the second best answer is NO... The worst answer is... maybe, revisit, call me back, let me think on it... If the service or product is something they can use now, then make a decision... yes or no. Save us all the time and hassle. For best resources on training, I loved my SANDLER sales training I took over 10 years ago. Really good stuff.VP of Sales in Software6 months ago
A confused customer will not make it a session. Or it is just an excuse to not make a decision and postpone it to the future.
I would start asking questions to figure out if I left any questions and answered, if it is about the offer, or if there are internal reasons such as budget or resources. Customers tend to not say the truth, to avoid an uncomfortable conversation but it is very important to know what the real reason is because otherwise, you can't do anything about it.
What works really well, is asking a triggering question such as "Can you afford to not buy it?" and then do a quick calculation to show what is the difference between starting now and in 6 months.
Director of Sales6 months ago
I respond to a "no-decision" asking why after revisiting the pain/issues driving pain. This sounds like, "why, what's changed?" I stay completely silent after asking the question. Sometime this elicits an honest response around costs, or approval process that can be worked thru. Other times it is a genuine stall tactic due to a business or market change they didn't see coming, other times it is cold feet, and you have to rely on your "coaches" in the account to tell you what has happened or if the competition has wiggled their way in. CSO6 months ago
100% agree. If proper business discovery (not just technical discovery) was conducted during the qualification stage, the business reason(s) for the sales engagement should be well understood. There should be an understanding of when the pain point needs to be resolved by and the business impact of not achieving that date. So the obvious question if there is a stall is: "What changed?"
Sr. Director, Commercial Learning6 months ago
This is not as uncommon as one might think, I encounter it even still and when leading sales teams encountered it with well experienced sales professionals.My go to question when encountering this and to focus the customer on describing the urgency to solve and the benefits of solving now versus 6 months is to ask the customer “What are you putting at risk by waiting an additional six months to kick-off your resolution plan for [insert need your trying to validate]?”
This is because in my experience, whether you encounter this in the beginning, or late, stages of an opportunity should clearly demonstrate to the representative (and the sales leader) that we failed at validating the customer’s critical issue needing to be solved, quantifying the value and impact the customer would realize by resolving the issue, the unique value our solution offers the customer to help to resolve it, and lastly our differentiated credibility to guide them in doing so.
Director of Sales in Insurance (except health)6 months ago
Do mean a negative decision, Like No or that the Customer takes no decision weather yes nor no?