A lot of people have call reluctance in sales. Something stops them from reaching out to prospective customers or donors and they wonder what that is. They know they should do it. And yet, they don’t make the move.
Part of the reason for this reluctance is they think they are supposed to be selling the other person. And they believe they’ve failed if the person says no, or doesn’t meet with them, or doesn’t give them a ‘yes’ enthusiastically.
They are thinking in absolutes – this is the perfect prospect for me; they should say ‘yes;’ I should tell them all about my stuff, and they should be wowed. They should want to have it. I’m unsure how to position it and explain it in a way that they are going to see how great it is and say ‘yes.’ I don’t want to bother them, annoy them, make them angry, or have them say ‘no.’
If you think in possibilities, it changes that entire thought process. What I mean by possibilities is this – ‘This MIGHT be someone who I may want to do business with and who might want to buy from me. It might not. There is the possibility that they will be a good client. There’s also the possibility that they won’t. There’s the possibility that I don’t have something that will help them solve their problem. There’s the possibility that I may not want to work with them because they might not be forthcoming with information, or may be slow to pay, or don’t value what I offer.
When you think about possibilities you now realized the conversation is discovering which of those possibilities is actually the truth. I submit that the only way you are going to know the answer to this is to have a conversation with the prospect.
Your job is not to sell them. Your job on the call is to start engaging them in a conversation about the possibility that you have something they might need. When you think about it this way, and remember that you are only seeking a meeting, it is much easier to pick up the phone and call. There isn’t as much riding on it.
It’s not about selling. It is about starting a dialogue. Can you feel the difference? I thought so! Go on and give it a try. Tell yourself that you don’t know whether the person on the other end of the phone needs what you offer. And you also don’t know if you are going to want to work with them. So, you just want to have a chat, a conversation to discover where they are at and who they are.
It’s possible they will be a good prospect. It’s not absolute that they should be a client.
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