{"id":33510,"date":"2020-06-30T15:39:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T22:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeffshore.com\/?p=33510"},"modified":"2020-07-09T13:19:01","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T20:19:01","slug":"what-to-do-when-a-customer-says-not-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffshore.com\/2020\/06\/what-to-do-when-a-customer-says-not-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"What To Do When A Customer Says “Not Yet”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/p>\n
The following article is an excerpt from Jeff Shore\u2019s newest book, Follow Up and Close the Sale<\/a><\/em>, coming from McGraw-Hill July 14. Click here<\/a> to pre-order your copy and unlock Jeff’s exclusive pre-order bonuses.<\/p>\n Do you close every sale on the first customer interaction? If so, congrats! For us mere mortals, we must view follow-up as our response to hearing \u201cnot yet.”<\/p>\n In its best form, follow-up is a continual conversation that begins at the first customer interaction and continues through the purchase process.<\/p>\n Emotions drive buying decisions more than anything else. As time goes on, our emotional altitude decreases, And decisions are more driven by logic than emotion.<\/p>\n This move into the analytics zone can cause us to become mentally paralyzed by data and details. The result? A slower decision to purchase, if that a decision is made at all.<\/p>\n This means, as sales professionals, we must do everything possible to shorten the buying cycle and get to the close as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n It might take days, weeks, or months for a prospect to make a final decision, but you want to envision the entirety of the sales process as one long conversation. Your purpose in that extended conversation is to fuel the emotional momentum.<\/p>\n Too many salespeople see the sales process as a series of disconnected conversations. The various sales discussions you will hold along the way should not be seen as a succession of independent conversations but rather as one long dialogue.<\/p>\n The best way to do that is by planning for an extended chat from the start. Your follow-up will be so much stronger if you are planning for your next conversation during the initial presentation.<\/p>\n And during that follow-up conversation you should be planning what happens next . . . and so on. This is a progressive strategy formed in real time as you look for ways to set up future follow-up discussions.<\/p>\n