January 22, 2007
The Fine Art of Stalling
“Let me think it over.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
“We’ll take a look at it.”
If you have been in sales more than a day, you are familiar with these sayings. They are the prospect’s attempts to “stall” a buying decision. These comments are trouble for any salesperson who does not get these fuzzy phrases qualified. And yet often the salesperson accepts these stalls and presumes a close date for the deal.
This approach is almost always the explanation for a prospect making it through the sales funnel but never closing. These are the deals that hurt because they have been forecasted with a high probability to close. And then they vaporize.
I know there are always exceptions, but these stalls occur in great frequency among salespeople who do not pursue further clarification on these blatantly obtuse statements. Prospects use these statements since they seem to imply an impending, favorable conclusion in the sale. Yet these statements are artfully crafted in that they commit to nothing. Prospects have also learned that these stalls work with unskilled salespeople.
Stop hiring salespeople who struggle in this area. Start screening them out during the hiring process. We use variations of these statements in our screening stage. After concluding our questions, we offer some stall framed in a manner that states we’ll get back to him or her. Our focus is upon their response – do they ask for clarification? Do they ask how they did? Do they try to clarify when we will get back to them?
The question is not as important as the action of asking it. This is the first indication of whether the salesperson accepts stalls or attempts to continue qualifying until they have a clear understanding of the next step.
Comments(1)
