How To Handle Prospects Who Give You The Silent Treatment

If you have been in sales and marketing for any length of time you have most likely had a prospect or two drop off your radar and give you the silent treatment.

One of my colleagues described this prospect behavior very well:

I just don’t know what to do whe I get the silent treatment, like, when I have spent a lot of time working with a prospect, with productive conversations and everything, and they say they’re interest in our solution and look like they’re ready to commit. Then, Bam! Suddenly everything comes to a halt.

I’ll try to call them a couple of times, and send a followup email to two, but they don’t respond. It’s like they just disappeared. I just assume I lost the sale without knowing what went wrong, or how to proceed. This kind of thing makes sales feel like an grueling and painful process.

You might feel confused and a little anxious when this happens to you. You might feel like it’s not you who did anything wrong, that you put a lot into the relationship. Then you’ll wonder how in the world are you going to save the sale if the prospect isn’t even talking to you.

Hopeium trap

There is a low pressure way to reconnect with your prospect after the become silent. However, you need to understand how this situation came to be to begin with.

Most salespeople get caught up in hopeium, an expression meaning we focus our hopes on closing the sale. Unfortunately, hopeium can become a trap. Because when you’re under the influence of hopeium it becomes impossible to stay focused on the most important goal, that is to know your prospect’s truth.

Once we set our minds on the outcome of closing the sale, we start to anticipate how the sales process will go, then we start to expect things to happen the way we think they will. And we do this automatically without even thinking about it.

What happens if we are under the influence of hopeium, and are focused on closing the sale when the prospect abruptly ceases all communications. Typically, we will feel a combination of anxiety, frustration, a sense of loss, discouragement, and confusion. We get preoccupied with what went wrong.

There may even be feelings of betrayal.

How to clear up the mystery

By letting go of your agenda and taking the time to learn where you really stand with you prospect, and accepting whatever that truth may be.

If you try to reconnect with the prospect while you are still hoping to close the sale you are going to unnecessarily introduce sales pressure to the relationship. Pushing you prospect away and ruining any trust you may have established. Eliminate that sales pressure by letting your prospect know you are okay with their decision to not move forward.

Put another way, take a step back and don’t try to chase the sale or do follow up calls because you are still focused on getting to yes.

Bottom line

If your getting the silent treatment from one of your prospects, it only means you don’t know their truth yet. It does not necessarily mean you have lost the sale.

Four reasons the truth is important

1. You will regain your confidence is selling. Without the truth we start to blame ourselves. We become unsure of where we are with the prospect. We begin to think negatively about ourselves and lay on the self-blame. We get overly anxious wondering it the sale will close somehow.
2. Your sales efficiency will increase and your level of stress will decrease. After you figure out the truth about your prospect you will be able to make an informed decision about staying involved with them or moving on. Often a “no” is nearly as valuable as a “yes” because a “no” can free up your time to find prospects who are a better fit for you. This increases you efficiency by cutting out prospects that you cannot close on. You can walk away without the guilt.
3. Prospects are pushed away by sales pressure. Responding to the silent treatment with calls or email is telling them you are determined to close the sale. That means you are looking out for yourself not your prospect’s. Leading them to mistrust you.
4. Completely breaking off all communication, the silent treatment, is the prospect’s way of protecting themselves from sales pressure when they are not comfortable revealing their truth. The harder we press, the more the clam up and avoid us.  The opposite is also true. The more relaxed we are and inviting of the truth, the more upfront the prospect will be with us. They will feel alright sharing their information with us when they know we are open to hearing it.

How to restart communications

After my colleague and I talked over these issues he said, “This makes sense, but I don’t know what to say when I call them”.

It might be simpler than you think.

• First, just call your prospect. Voicemail and email are not very personal and should only be used after several attempts to connect with a phone call.
• Second, take ownership and apologize for causing the situation in the first place.

Your conversation could go something like this:

Hi, Sam, this is Ben. First off, I just wanted to apologize that we ended up not being able to connect. I feel like I dropped the ball, or failed to give you the information you need. I’m not calling to keep things moving. I assume you went ahead with different company, and that’s alright. But I am interested in getting some feedback so I can improve for next time.

The results for responding this way will probably surprise you. Your prospect may have a legitimate reason for not getting back to you.

Just remember, you didn’t lose the sale, you just don’t know your prospects truth yet.

Further reading

• Relationship Selling
• Customer Prospecting
• Difficult Customer Behaviors

Involve The Family In Your Home Business

You can read the various business forums out there and find stories illustrating how someone eagerly started a work at home business of some sort and their spouse began to belittle them, dampening the enthusiasm of the once ambitious entrepreneur. Search Google for “family business forums”.

Does your family participate in your home business or are you going it alone?

Luckily, my partner could see that I am not just a talker, that I do what I say I’m going to do. So their perception changed. It didn’t hurt that I was earning as much from my home based business as I had from my prior day job.

Three years have passed and I have heard too many stories about the failures of home business start ups. I have also learned that most family members, spouses, and friends react in such a way due to ignorance or fear that it’s damaging to the person running the start up. Perhaps some people are just mean spirited, but that’s something I’ll leave to the woman of The View to discuss.

Life is very, very, good for the lucky home business owner that has a family which encourage them. Imagine having a fourteen year old as a part-time assistant… and they want to help. Another plus is their small salary is a tax deduction.

Improving the family’s financial situation and preparing for their future is the number one reason “why” people start a home based business. So with such a strong reason to work from home, why not involve the entire family? After all, it is for them too.

How do you involve the family in your home business?

Create jobs that even the youngest family member can do in the family business. Also remember that doing, chores, watch the littler siblings, taking care of errands, having a turn making dinner, etc., are just as important as doing the home office work. Maybe more important as life skills.

Please don’t give up if you are suffering with a family that just doesn’t understand what you are doing. Keep growing your business and work on helping them to understand what you are doing. Often it will take a lot of time for family members who are not business minded to get their heads around what you are doing – don’t give up on them. Since money talks, you may not be taken seriously by the people closest to you until you show them the money you earn.

With persistence, and consistency, you will win your family’s acceptance of you work from home dream.

Your turn

Now take a moment and leave a comment sharing how your family helps, or hinders, your home business.

Further reading

• The Keys To Family Business Success
• Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins That Destroy Family Businesses
• 9 Elements of Family Business Success

Consider These 5 Areas Prior to Starting a Home Based Business

Owning and operating a home based business is very attractive to many people. Being your own boss, not having to commute back and forth every day, choosing the hours you wish to work, and your own day without a superior telling you what to do.

If you are thinking about starting your own business from home, start by asking yourself these questions:

1 – Your Day Job

If you plan to continue your day job while you start your business, when will you find the time for the business? How many hours a day can you commit to you start-up? Will you be working early in the morning or in the evening? What about weekends?

 2 – Office Space

Is there a place in you home where you can work uninterruptedthat is suitable for you to conduct your business? What about your neighbors, will you work from home business interrupt them?

3 – Learning and Delegating

How much effort are you willing to put in to learn something new if your business requires it? Even if you know your home based business inside and out how about its management? Should you delegate anything, perhaps the bookkeeping?

4 – Marketing

Do you have the knowledge to effectively market your home based business to make people aware of it? What type of marketing should you use, online, offline, or both? How much money and time should you budget for marketing? Can you develop a cost effective marketing plan alone, or should you hire a consultant?

5 – Capital

Lastly, what about the money? How do you plan to fund your start-up? How much financing is needed? Will you have to buy or rent equipment, or do you already own it? What will buying or renting cost?

That was just a few questions to start with and have the answers for before you begin your home based business. Knowing the answers to those questions will make you start-up go more smoothly and have a greater chance of success.

Resources:

• Starting up a home based business
• Outsourcing
• Bookkeeping
• Business Financing