When Buyers Stall
By Shane Dale
May 2010
He who hesitates is lost sales for you. Here’s how to gently push picky prospects into taking the plunge.
They’re playing the field. That’s Joan Landorf’s simple explanation for why prospects leave you hanging. “Buyers stall because they are gathering additional information, both internally and externally,” says the executive vice president for Axis Promotions (asi/128263). “Internally, they’re checking with their promotional department and sales department. Externally, they’re checking with our competitors to see if they have the best price and timing to meet their deadline.” s Landorf’s plan of action: Don’t sit tight and wait out a client’s decision. “If your clients are delaying, it’s important that you contact them and give them additional information and samples, because you need to assume that they’re talking to your competitors,” she says.
Case in point: Landorf was called on by one of her existing clients in the beauty industry for a large order of plastic shopping bags. Her team provided all the pricing information and samples, but the client hesitated. “When we probed, we found out that our price was high and they had two lower quotes,” she says. “We went back to our vendor and talked to him about it.”
Landorf then went back to the client with a new quote and a new sample. “Here’s where it gets interesting: At that point, the client said the price and the sample looked good, but we still didn’t hear anything,” she says. “We waited two or three days. Then, we reached out nicely.”
Two more days passed, and Landorf still didn’t hear a firm yes or no. “We reached out again with a friendly reminder that we were worried about delivering the bags on time,” she says. “The client said, ‘We still don’t have a final decision, but it’s in the works.’”
At that point, it was time for a different approach. “The person who was running this on our team, Renee Capanere, called and said, ‘I just want to know if you need any help on other projects,’” Landorf says. “They discussed three other projects, and then she asked, ‘By the way, how’s it going with the custom bag order?’ They replied, ‘Everything is great and we’ve awarded the job to you.’”
Landorf, however, makes it a point not to rest until it’s official. “We didn’t believe anything until there was a purchase order,” she says. Two days later, the order did arrive.
Landorf’s technique of following up by offering additional help and keeping her company in the forefront of the client’s mind was a winning strategy. “The distributor has to manage the project,” she says. “If they don’t respond to you right away, it’s important not to push and demand the order, but to always be offering additional ideas and information, and keep probing to look at the project a little differently. The specs could have changed and they may not have told you, or the overall approach might have changed.”
Remember there’s always a motive behind the buyer’s delay tactics. “If they’re not getting back to you, they’re stalling for a reason,” Landorf says. “Whether it’s a large or small order, it’s up to the distributor to keep the momentum going.”
Setting timetables for purchase orders and delivery will also allow distributors to keep the ball rolling. “We’re driving the process and making it easier for the client to understand,” Landorf says. “Good clients don’t tell you their real timing; that’s how they’re trained internally. Just be aware that if your clients are stalling, they’re not just being difficult. It’s up to you to find out what other options you can give them to help them make a decision.”
Expert’s take: “Joan Landorf used creativity and persistence, and took the extra steps needed to secure the business,” says small-business consultant and speaker Scott Gingold. He is also the owner of Confidential Counselor and CEO of Powerfeedback.
Additional tips: Gingold adds that it’s vital to be tactfully persistent, like Landorf, so that your tenacity isn’t viewed as annoying. “We must also have good gut instincts to know when, despite our best efforts, a sale is not going to happen, and we need to focus our time elsewhere,” he says. “Also, remember to look at the net-net-net of the sale. In other words, we typically take the cost of the product, subtract the cost, and then subtract other costs, like salaries, insurance and office expenses, to determine the net-net. The third net is business development time. What did all of those phone calls cost, and what other potential opportunities were passed on pursuing this one?”
Money Matters
For Bruce Cohen, vice president of Jack Nadel International (asi/279600), the most common reason clients hesitate to buy is the oldest one in the book: price. So he knows it’s crucial to go into a meeting armed and ready with facts and figures.
“Lately, we’ve been focusing on the return,” Cohen says. “You’ve got to show the formula. You can’t just go in and say, ‘You’re going to make money on that.’ You have to show in the long run how the program is making money.”
Cohen did this kind of number crunching recently for a banking client. The program was intended to convince thousands of the bank’s customers to switch from mailed paper statements to the online, less-expensive version.
To motivate customers to make the switch, everyone who converted to e-statements was eligible for a prize. At the very least, each person would receive a music download or ringtone card. At most, they could receive a cash award or a high-end gift, such as a TV. “Everyone who converted got a gift, and the bank got the conversion forever,” Cohen says. “Basically, I said, ‘It’s going to cost you nothing.’”
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as just assuring and reassuring the bank that the program would be a success. The thing that put Cohen over the top was a program run by Jack Nadel that allows the client to track the ROI for the order. With it, he was able to break down the return on each promotional item for each customer. “We can give them the statistics because we get the data of who is going to convert,” he says. “If they spent x dollars, they can say that they brought in a much bigger number than x.”
The process reiterated a piece of information for Cohen that he has recently learned all too well. “Nothing’s a no-brainer anymore,” he says. “Everything has to be analyzed.”
Expert’s take: “From a sales perspective, what Bruce Cohen did was very smart and obviously effective,” says Gingold.
Additional tips: “Looking at this from a process point of view, I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Cohen could have achieved faster results by suggesting a very limited and focused trial with a small base of customers of the bank,” Gingold says. “I also wonder if Jack Nadel looked into secondary market research reports, and/or considered some primary research of its own to help speed up the sale.”
Jenny Gray, owner of Instant Recall Promotions, finds customers drag their feet because they are afraid to commit to one product. Ironically, this is a result of an industry that offers a near infinite number of choices.
“There are so many options out there,” she says. “It can be very overwhelming for a customer to see 30 different travel mugs on a Web site.” She focuses on only a handful of items with potential clients.
“I always try to narrow the choices down to two or three to simplify the decision process,” Gray says. “Sell yourself as the expert; you’ve done all of the research for them and are recommending three choices.”
Gray’s next step is to build confidence by ordering samples. This way there are no surprises. “I have never encountered a situation where the customer requested a product sample and liked the sample, but did not place an order. Unless there is another obstacle that was not uncovered earlier, the sale should follow,” she says.
However, if the sample is not enough to convince the client to proceed, a product proof may be in order. “A product proof should only be necessary if the customer is ordering a huge quantity of an expensive item,” Gray says. “Usually you can get around a product proof if you have a good electronic proof and a sample with any imprint on it. But, if your customer is adamant about the product proof, by all means, provide one to them at their expense. They will be confident that the end result will be what they are expecting.”
If your client insists on ordering a lesser-quality item, be sure to alert him that it probably won’t hold up as well. One of Gray’s clients in the cement industry, for example, buys large quantities of embroidered polo shirts to give away to customers and employees. “The last batch he ordered was on special and did not hold up very well,” she says. “They faded after a few washes and did not keep their shape.”
When the customer complained, Gray made the point that if he would order better-quality shirts in the first place, at a few dollars more, he wouldn’t have to reorder them as often. She recommended he try a moisture-wicking poly-cotton blend golf shirt. “The shirt was at least $7 more than the shirts he previously ordered,” she says.
But Gray didn’t end her pitch there. “It was the sample that actually closed the deal,” she says. “I ordered a sample of the shirt in his size and favorite color, and told him to wear it and wash it often. He was sold on the more expensive shirt because he saw the quality first-hand.”
The client ultimately ordered about 300 of the higher-quality shirts in various colors and sizes. It was just a matter of helping the client get past his initial fear. “This particular customer has all of the field employees wearing the shirts on a daily basis. He also gives them to special customers. That’s why he needed something of better quality,” she says. “He’s just the type of customer that needs to see it, touch it and smell it.”
Expert’s take: “This case reminds us that people buy from people,” Gingold says. “While Jenny Gray did provide the buyer with a product to try, ultimately it was her demonstration of concern that landed her the order.”
Additional tips: “In this case, I do wonder if Ms. Gray offering to collect and buy back all of the old shirts for a credit on a future order would have been a wise idea. Leaving the old shirts that did not hold up well with the customer will be a constant reminder of how they wasted money,” Ginghold says. “Though Ms. Gray counseled against the purchase nonetheless, why leave anything behind that brings back bad memories?”
They’re Seeing Someone Else
Most salespeople know the story: A potential buyer shows interest in their company’s promotional items, but they’re also purportedly satisfied with their current distributor.
In those cases, Ryan Sauers, president of Sauers Communications (asi/319273) and chief marketing officer of the consulting firm Sauers Group, will do whatever it takes to get his foot in the door. “One of the things I try to do is say, ‘Look, just give us an opportunity on the small stuff. Let us prove ourselves. We’re not going to make much on the order, but let us show you what it’s like to do business with us,’” he says. “It’s an investment that, if it pays off, will get you the big stuff.”
Sauers, whose company is in Georgia, had a prospective client in Orlando, FL, that he had been chasing for four years. He had made plenty of pitches and provided a lot of free advice to the woman in charge. “I’ve quoted 80 million things for them, and she just kept not giving me the work,” he says. “We’d get down to the eleventh hour on projects over and over, and we wouldn’t get it.”
After losing out in his attempt to get his foot in the door with small and medium orders, Sauers decided that enough was enough, and he really went for it. “We were going for this big, annual project. It was part of a $50,000 project,” he says.
Items included executive gifts and awards, such as glassware, leather binders and pen-and-pencil mounted desk sets. “They were buying six months’ worth of gifts for about six different events,” Sauers says.
He made his initial pitch for the program, to no avail. That’s when he began to feel like he was being teased. “We were doing some regional work for some of their sister companies, but she would always stay with her incumbent, even though she liked me and liked what we’re about, and called our references,” he says.
On two occasions, he was in the client’s town on an unrelated business matter, and decided to stop by for some in-person persuasion. “One time, I got lost and couldn’t find the place,” he says. “The second time, I went down there and I got a parking ticket in front of her building because I was one inch over the white line or something.”
After the second trip, Sauers tried to convince the prospect during a phone conversation that if she didn’t buy from him this time, he’d have to cut his losses. “I just stopped and said, ‘Listen, I don’t know anybody who’s ever pushed you to this point. I continue to bring information to the table that you wouldn’t have otherwise. You’ve never given me one job,’” he says.
Sauers continued to put his foot down. “I said, ‘Is there anybody that’s put in the time with you, including getting a parking ticket in front of your office, that’s this serious about your work?’” he says. “I used the humor of the parking ticket. I said, ‘I paid my dues and I worked hard for this. Has anyone else done this?’”
At that point, Sauers finally got the job. His persistence – along with a little humor – got him over the hump. It looks like he’ll secure a similar order for this year, as well.
Expert’s take: “I counsel clients regularly about making prospects liars or buyers,” Gingold says. “Ryan Sauers did this.”
Additional tips: Gingold cautions against spending so much time chasing one client that you might miss other opportunities. You’ve got to weigh whether the net profit of the order pays for all of the business development time and costs and if there are enough future orders on the horizon to justify the time and expense involved.
Shane Dale is a freelance writer based in AZ.
I Object
Small-business consultant Scott Gingold lists common stall tactics, and provides responses sales reps can use to combat each of them:
Buyer: “We’re still evaluating all of the proposals.”
Response: “I totally understand. What can I do today to help you? In other words, you have all of these proposals, but there are only a certain number of hours in a day, and there is still a pile of work to be done. So, how can I make your life easier?"
Buyer: “We’re awaiting project funding.”
Response: “Thank you for updating me on this. Is there a timetable? If so, perhaps we can go ahead now and schedule your order. This way, there is no chance of a price increase from the manufacturer.”
Buyer: “My boss hasn’t signed off on any of the proposals as of yet.”
Response: “Your boss sounds like my boss! How about one day later this week or next week, I come in around lunchtime, bring some sandwiches, and the three of us button this one down?”
Buyer: “We have a team assembled to review the offers received.”
Response: “I just did a presentation for a 16-person team last week. It was not a sales pitch, but more of an education and two-way exchange that made the team feel comfortable placing an order with me on the spot. Can we schedule a team meeting?”
Buyer: “I’ve been tasked with a more pressing project, so this one has to go on the back burner.”
Response: “Wow, I totally know how that goes. For me, I find it easier to clean up old or pending stuff before moving on to something new. Please, let me help you get this one off of your to-do pile and handle it for you.”
Buyer: “We received far more responses for pricing than we expected.”
Response: “Sounds like the last time I went to an all-you-can-eat buffet: Everyone heads to the buffet line, but most folks are disappointed with the so-so selections. I understand that there are a lot of door-knockers, but quality and knowledgeable representatives like me with solid companies behind us are a whole different story.”
