Smoke screens are moves prospects use on salespeople that appear to be reasons for not moving forward with a deal. Many times these smoke screens sound something like this:
We’re going to take a look at all options.
We need 3 quotes before deciding.
We need to think it over.
Smoke, nothing more. If you have salespeople believing these statements are a precursor to a close, take them out to the wood shed on their qualifying. These “prospects” are not qualified and should not be on any forecast.
Justsell.com offers up a simple, yet powerful web page that addresses the real objection from the prospect. Their objection falls into 1 (or more) of these 8 areas:
- lack of perceived value in the product or service
- lack of perceived urgency in purchasing the offering
- perception of inferiority to a competitor or in-house offering
- internal political issue between parties/ departments
- lack of funds to purchase the offering
- personal issue with the decision maker(s)
- initiative with an external party
- “it’s safer to do nothing” perception
Ask your salesperson to answer each one of these 8 topics and you are guaranteed to discover where the smoke is coming from.