“Call me in 6 months”, “Let’s get in touch after a few months”

Hearing such statements can be a real buzzkill.

Now, for you, you’re probably doing everything right.

I mean, if the prospects see things your way, they’ll buy what you’re selling at a drop of a hat. But it isn’t always this easy, right?

Here’s the catch: There are two sides to it.

1. The prospect is really saying NO!

If a prospect is asking for months to think, you probably haven’t uncovered the true objection. Now, there could be a lot of reasons for this objection: you’ve not established rapport, buyer confidence, value, trust, that urgency to buy; or it could be that the prospect isn’t a decision maker, doesn’t have money—- even that they don’t like you, your company or your product.

Now, you can try to overcome this objection and find out where the sale is by making them think: “What difference will 6 months make?”, “Who else is involved in the decision?”, “Have you looked at the cost of delay?”
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And so on and so forth.

2. Coming to the second side.

You know your service is a perfect fit for the prospect’s business.

You know you can help them.

Everything’s going well.

And then the bomb drops, and it crushes your soul,

“Get back to me in a few months”

All your hard work goes in vain. Those words you’d prayed not to hear, painfully whispered into your ears.

For any non- sales person reading this, that’s why this job is hard.

So, what can you do to turn your fortunes?

Let’s start with what you shouldn’t do.

Don’t kill the opportunity by being pushy. There’s a difference between nudging and being straight up desperate; “We do this for your competitor”, “Are you saying you don’t have this problem?” —-NO! Just Stop!

What you can do:

• Be polite, take a note and call after a few months. Aghh, what a waste of time.
• This is where the sales and marketing alignment comes in.

  The perfect response would be to say that you have a lot of great content and ask if they’d like to stay in touch via mail. It’s very rare that someone will say no.

  Shoooop, here comes marketing! You’ve now brought yourself some time to create desperation in your prospect’s mind, or at least have a base to start your next conversation with.

  Start the process by identifying the key challenges you help people solve.

  Work with the marketing team to create content, just simple, generic, educational content.

  With every piece of content that goes out, you’re politely pointing out: Your company name, logo, website link, key messages and your name.

  Even if they give a cursory glance, the chances of them knowing you shoot up tremendously. Brownie points if they do read the content!

  When the task finally pops up after a few months, your prospect will go from ‘what, who?’ to ‘Ah! Yes, I remember’.