We Owe it to Our Prospects to Help Them Make Decisions

Most of you know we’re the people CEO’s call when the company needs more sales. What you may not know is we also enroll individual salesepeople who want to increase their sales production.

Recently I met a successful medical equipment salesperson who was out of work for the last four months. Emotionally, he looked like he had been dragged behind a truck. Understandable.

Here is the sequence of our interaction:

He was referred of course, but not much more than “check these guys out, it’s really helped me.”

We had a short phone call, whereby at the end I said to him “I will meet with you for 50 minutes, and we’ll make a decision to either enroll you or part as friends. Are you okay with that?" He said, “sure.”

40 minutes into that meeting I asked, “what would you like to do?” He started to say “well, I need to think about…” I said to him in my most nurturing manner, “no, I think you and I need to make a DECISION. It can be NO or it can be YES. I’m okay with either.”

So he said YES, and we enrolled him.

I saw him just a week later and he told me “I really want to thank you.” I said “for what?” He said “for making me MAKE A DECISION… I was really STUCK and now I feel like I’m in motion again... I’m learning; I’m re-motivated…”

Was making a decision at the end of my meeting just for me and “making a sale”? No, we both benefited.

So, here are a couple suggestions and rules for avoiding non-decision paralysis:

1. Decisions aren’t life or death. They just lead to other decisions.

2. “Think-it-over” people, tend to get a lot of think-it-over’s, decision- makers tend to get decisions.

3. If someone has a need you can fix, you owe it to that person to help them make DECISIONS!

4. A decision can be NO or it can be YES. Think-it-over’s clog the mind and the pipeline.

5. Understand your Sales Cycle and know WHEN the time is for a DECISION. This seems simple, but you would be surprised how many salespeople don’t really know when to get a decision. They simply keep presenting and following up, hoping some good will occur.

- Casey Coffman

Are Your Prospects Listening to You?

Are you telling them everything you have to offer? Your features, benefits, and unique selling propositions?  Are you using all of your passion and energy to deliver your message and convince them to buy?  Oooh bad sign.  They'll buy from you when they tell you and you listen:  really listen.

-Rick Burgess