In today's world of selling, it is increasingly more difficult to get the attention of a prospective buyer after only a few outreach attempts.

We know that they're busy but let's face it, we're all busy. So, how do you stay consistent (and persistent) in your outreach with a prospect while remaining sensitive to their daily lives and the distractions they face?

From the dawn of time until present day, it has always been a difficult task for salespeople to be able to reach the prospects they call and email each day. They call…and they email…and they keep following up, wondering if anybody will ever do one of two things:

1. Answer the phone.
2. Return a voicemail/reply to an email.

While certainly not a new development in selling, engaging with prospects has become increasingly and dramatically more difficult in the last 10 years. If we go back to 2009, it took around 8-10 outreaches on average to engage with a prospect. In 2019, that number has risen to 16-18 attempts. Keep in mind that these are averages. Sometimes it takes even more attempts to get the prospect to pay attention to you.

Recently, I was leading a sales training workshop in Dallas and a high-ranking bank executive asked me why I thought the number of outreaches required had basically doubled in the last decade. In my judgment, there are three main reasons:

1. Distraction: Prospects are busier than ever before and are constantly battling the numerous distractions that come their way. Their mobile device buzzes and they have to look. The email notification on their computer sounds and they can’t resist. Some have estimated that the typical person picks up and puts down their mobile device between 600-700 times each day.
2. Competition: There is more of it than ever before and it’s fiercer than ever before!
3. Commodity: The belief of the prospect that, in at least some industries, the vendor calling them and the vendor they currently use are essentially the same. The prospect just doesn’t see any meaningful difference. To them, a bank is a bank.  An insurance broker is an insurance broker.  A technology provider is a technology provider.

Of these three reasons, #3 is the most concerning (or it should be). And here's why...

If you don’t differentiate yourself from your competition by providing value, your prospect will do the differentiating for you. 

But they won’t use a measuring stick of value. They will more often than not use a measuring stick of price.

Finally, here is another sobering statistic about the world of modern day selling. While the average number of attempts has increased to 16-18, most salespeople quit after less than 5 attempts. 

Maybe they think the prospect is being rude by not replying. Maybe they think that, "in the good old days", people used to return calls. Regardless, the world has changed. Prospects are a hard fish to catch. 

You might need to be out there fishing just a bit longer than you would like.

Years ago, while attending the Objective Management Group International Sales Conference, Dave Kurlan, president of OMG, talked about how to effectively manage opportunities through the pipeline.  He made the analogy that prospects are like fruit and vegetables in the produce section of your local grocery – they are all perishable.

Ways of Dealing with a Difficult Prospect

Sometimes, reaching out to prospects is like pulling teeth.  

Some prospects are difficult because they don't understand the value of what you have to offer, while others simply do not want to be bothered by a salesperson right now.  

No matter the reason, you still need leads and so being able to move forward with a prospect

Not Every Prospect has the Same "Shelf Life"

Prospects- they have a shelf life and can have thick skin, just like fruits and vegetables.

Some of them last longer than others. 

While some produce is ripe for the picking, and others have a toughness to them.

Bananas – not so long, apples and mandarins- a little longer, potatoes and squash- they'll last the longest. 

The bottom line is that none of them last forever.  You need to either pick them now or find a way to preserve them for later.

Below, we'll give you some tips on how to help deal with some of those more difficult prospects and in hopes to get them closer to the sale.

How to Deal with Difficult Prospects

Practice Actively Listening

Listening is one of the most important, yet underrated forms of communication.

When people think of listening, they generally associate it with silence or not talking at all.

However, that is not completely correct.

Active listening means that you are trying to understand what someone is saying rather than just wait for your turn to talk.

It takes practice but can be a great tool for not only for your sales profession, but in any conversation in the future.

Practice the Beginner's Mind

The beginner’s mind — also known as the zen mind — is a strategy of approaching every situation as if you were starting from scratch.

When you open yourself up to the beginner's mind, your perspective on everything can change.

When we adopt this way of thinking, it becomes easier for us to enter conversations without any preconceived notions or prejudices about our prospects and their situations; instead focusing solely on what they are saying while putting ourselves in their shoes.

Instead of telling yourself "the prospect should have known this", or "they should have called me back by now", put yourself in the beginner's mindset and it becomes easier to recognize that no one is perfect and you can tailor your approach to better accomodate.

"Chunk" Your Problems

Chunking is the process of taking one big problem and breaking it into several smaller, more manageable portions.

These small pieces are easier for us to tackle because they allow our brain time-out from thinking about all those difficult details while still moving forward with progress made on previous sections!

Chunks can also be used strategically when coming up against challenging problems--chances are if given several tasks in order then maybe we'll find an issue that needs addressing immediately or at least feel less overwhelmed by responsibility alone.

Don't let Prospects Perish

Here is the point.  When going out into the market, you can find yourself wasting your time with prospects that aren’t quite ready or are already past their prime time for consumption. You may experience:

• That the prospect is too "green"
• They just opened a new account with their bank partner
• Just renewed their insurance
• Their lease expires in 11 months

If you want to close more business, more quickly at higher margins, then find the highly perishable prospects and work with them on solving their problem. Present a solution to them and get them off of the shelf.  Do not neglect the potatoes, bananas, tomatoes or green beans; continue to check on them, plant them in your database (your CRM) and, when the time comes to make potato salad, they will be ready.

For more online sales resources, check out some of our other sales articles over at our Sales Brew.

If interested in sales training or sales coaching, we have a dedicated professional team of sales experts that can help drive better sales performance and build better sales teams.

Contact us today to learn more!

In Part 1 of "Negotiating on the First Tee, we discussed the practice of negotiating with your prospect before you begin your presentation.  In Part 2, we continue this discussion and add more to the conversation.

In order to increase sales and close more deals, you must understand the client's business strategy, build a strong foundation for negotiation, and cross off all the boxes for a killer Sales DNA.

1. Establishing the ground rules for time of presentation are critical. Before we get to that though, you must have a transitional discussion
   • "Let me take a minute to review where I think we are..."
   • "You have the following issues a,b, and c that if not taken care of within this time frame will cause the following to happen and this outcome is a have to fix problem"
   • "Your capacity to invest time, money and effort to fix the problem is this…"
   • "And I’m assuming for a minute that if we are able to fix this for you, in the budget you’ve identified with the right criteria and priorities, you would also want me to be in a position to answer any and all questions at that time"
   • "Did I get this right?" (Buyer says yes)
   • "Good, assuming we can do this I will be prepared to do all those things. If I can’t, I will call in advance and cancel our presentation meeting.  Fair?" (Fair)
2. Ground rules discussion:
   • "It may not be effective here, but there is a process that we recommend to make sure we are all on the same page, can I share that with you?" (Yes)
   • I need for you to be prepared as well:
     • "As I am going through my presentation, you will be thinking one of 2 things: 1) this makes all the sense in the world; let’s do this, 2) This won’t work for me, the money is wrong or I don’t think there is a fit"
     • "When I’m finished, I’m going ask you which one you are thinking. What objections do you have to that process?"
   • Anticipate and prepare for objections when you complete step six. Keep in mind that  an objection, stall or questions does NOT mean they are telling you no. They just need more information or you need to find out more clarity about compelling issues, capacity to invest or clarity on decision making. At the end, you do your best to eliminate any TIOs (Think It Overs)
   • Let's assume for a minute that this works for you. You are not done minimizing the opportunity for negotiation at time of presentation.  When you finish this discussion, you must return to your  office and write out and send the "As we agreed to letter" that covers the 3 “Cs” and inform the buyer you will call to confirm the information you’ve sent.  Then call to confirm.
   • Presenting to get a decision is as much of a mindset as it is a process:
     • Review what you’ve discussed
     • Review the as we agreed to letter including money and decision process that will take place today
     • Ask, “What’s changed?”
     • Make the presentation starting with their priority item not the first page in your presentation
     • Answer all of their questions about each solution, get them to score that solution on a scale of 1-10. If you are 7 or better you are in good shape but still you need to get them to a ten.  Once you get the ‘10’ you check that item off.
     • Ask our closing question:
       • "What where you thinking as I went through this. Assume for this discussion they said, This is really great we should do this! 
       • You ask, what should we do now?

• Or your alternative is:
  1. Do you believe based on what we presented that we understand your business and what you are trying to accomplish?
  2. Do you feel we can help?
  3. Do you want our help?

6. Despite this great process and effort, you can expect buyers to ask you questions that they haven’t asked yet, raise objections, or present you with stalls.  The first thing is this: Be prepared by conducting pre-call strategy meetings and role play these challenges.  Always understand that prospects are looking out for their best interests and not yours. Do not get emotionally involved when they throw you the curve ball!

Now I bet you are thinking, Tony, where is all the negotiation stuff?  Well that’s it right there. You win the bet on the first tee.

Prospecting for salespeople is often a struggle due to varying factors including their ability to stay committed to the process and overcome rejection.

In this article, we cover the often dreaded, but mandatory, task of sourcing and creating new sales opportunities.

Salespeople have to prospect – that’s the truth. Salespeople can find their prospects through a variety of different avenues, including; introductions, direct mail, internet offers, networking, internal referrals from business partners, cold calling, campaigns, association memberships, and business networking groups. 

What is also true is that, no matter how a sales person gets a name, the next step is to contact them. You can contact them by mail (email or snail mail) or by phone (the most common method). If you are going to have any chance to schedule time to talk with them about their current situation to determine if they are a prospect for you, you must have contact. That’s the truth.

Prospecting is FUN! Now, that’s a lie. Prospecting isn’t fun. It’s not intended to be fun. Anyone that says it’s fun is lying. If you are a manager, don’t tell your people to “just pick up the phone and have fun with it”. They will know you don’t know what you are talking about.

They’ve had fun before: Water skiing, swimming, hiking, going to a play or the opera, having a picnic, watching a ballgame, getting a promotion, a raise, or recognition for a job well done. All FUN! However, facing rejection, not talking to anyone, having people curse or hang up on you, having people who schedule appointments and then cancel or don’t show up?  ZERO FUN.

If prospecting isn’t fun, then what is it? Back in the day when I was still trying to figure out how to be successful in selling, my coach told me this:  “You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it!” And that is prospecting.  It’s called work and not play for a reason. It is work. You have to put a lot of preparation, emotion, intellect and skill into being successful at prospecting.

David Kurlan from Objective Management Group has found that the single biggest contributor to sales success is the ability to be rejection-proof. Even with all the skill, techniques, scripts and preparation, if you cannot handle the rejection and emotional roller coaster of prospecting, then you will struggle, be inconsistent and fail more than you succeed.

The bottom line is that this isn’t about making it fun. It’s about getting the job done so you have solid appointments that turn into solid opportunities that turn into closed business.

THAT’S where the fun is!

Sales and marketing go hand-in-hand.  Without leads, salespeople will have a hard time selling.  Without marketing, salespeople will have a difficult time sharing their product and features with prospective clients.  

But how much is too much?  In this article, we discuss the difference between giving salespeople every lead and teaching them how to cultivate their leads to strengthen their pipelines and their careers as a whole.  

I’m sure a majority of people have heard the Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

This, of course, means it’s more worthwhile to teach someone to do something (for themselves) than to do it for them (on an ongoing basis).