Go to move for Stalled Clients
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Brooke Greening: You have to have a date. I was just saying this, you have to have a date or there is no love. That is how this is going to work.
you have to have a clear next step and you have to know if they're going to do it. If so, when date and time, and if not, why.
Momentum builds when you're talking to them, when you're face to face with them. And so if you start slowing things down and they're like, yes, I wanna be able to work with you, but then other things are happening and you can't actually get to them what they need. Then that starts to slow things down. As soon as you get off the phone, the momentum starts to slow down.
if you can put it in your sales process where they can sign and deliver on call two, do it.
How that works is I'm gonna send you a proposal, but we're gonna set up a time right now to be able to review it in person so we can go over any questions you have and just talk about the next steps of being able to move forward.
Scott Greening: Welcome to Sipping Matcha and helping you make more sales. I'm your host, Scott I'm also the resident matcha maker, and Brooke is sipping her matcha and about ready to drop some great sales knowledge on us. With her Ember Be the guide mug. Her matcha is at the Prime Prime Perfect temperature for sipping.
Brooke Greening: It is because when we're doing these podcasts, we have make sure that it doesn't get cold. So yes. Thank you. Here's, thank you, StoryBrand.
Scott Greening: Nothing worse than lukewarm matcha. all right. Here's the question from Annie from Jersey. Jersey. what's your go-to move when a deal stalls or a client is interested but not committing?
Brooke Greening: Oh, let's just all take a moment. And keep those deals and let them rest in peace. Sometimes we think everything is going fantastic and then it feels like it's almost crickets. And so it is a great question. It can happen pretty quickly where you feel like we had a good ques, we had a great conversation.
I knew what their problems were. We knew how to be able to help them. They said they were excited to work with me and then all of a sudden. There's just not a lot of communication going back and forth or sometimes at all. Like you've sent the contract, no one's responding. That does happen. So the very first piece that I want to give you is to be proactive.
A lot of times the reason things land in limbo is because we weren't entirely clear on that last conversation before everything went silent. And what I mean by that is you need to know two things. This is what I tell my clients all the time. First of all, your client needs to know, needs to know. What do they need to do to be able to move forward with you?
They have to know what they need to do, and then you need to know if they're going to do it. If so, when and if not, why? You have to have a date and time. You have to have a clear next step. I'll call you. Next week is not a clear next step. I'm gonna send you a proposal and see if you have questions, is not a clear next step.
You have to have a date. I was just saying this, you have to have a date or there is no love. That is how this is going to work. You can't have it be out there in limbo. So that's the very first piece. Were you gonna say something, Scott?
Scott Greening: I just, it worked out well for us. Right. You know, we, we eventually had a date then there was love,
Brooke Greening: then there was love, and it continues.
We need to keep dating so we can continue to keep loving. But that's the very first piece. So if you can just, if you are, if there's anything that you remember at all on this podcast, it is this, you have to have a clear next step and you have to know if they're going to do it. If so, when date and time, and if not, why.
That is how your follow-up is going to start. So then the second piece is if you've had that clear piece, then you're not kind of floundering and you don't have to send in like, Hey, just checking in and hey, just following up, because those are really vague and they can't really respond to that. But if you said you were sending the contract on Wednesday and it's Thursday, you can say, I sent that contract on Wednesday.
I know you said you wanted to be able to sign it. It's Thursday. And just wanna see when you're gonna be able to sign that or what we can do to be able to move forward. A quick direct response is what we're talking about. But the second piece is, so when it happens, like you think things are moving forward, you've given clear steps, but it still feels like it's crickets, the very first thing you wanna do is not panic.
Don't panic. Because even though it's a big deal to you, and even though this might be a really big contract for you, it might not necessarily be for them. Things can happen. I was in a situation. Recently where everything was going well, like I teach the service framework. Therefore, I tried to implement the service framework, service sales framework.
In all of my sales conversations, we went through every piece. We knew what was going on, we knew their problems. We had explicit and clear next steps, and then there was nothing and that was weird. And so I had a clear follow up language and then there was nothing. I could have been like, well, what in the world happened?
But I didn't panic, just continued to be gracious and continued to follow up in a strategic manner. And the end result was that they actually had a big family emergency and they weren't able to. They weren't able to communicate. A lot of times that will happen. Family emergencies can come in. Just things can come in in regards with if their kids are getting sick, something can happen in regards, if they had an unexpected business trip.
Whatever the case is, things come into play and even though we're really excited about the deal that's going to be going on, we're not at the very, very top of their priority list. So the first thing is don't panic, but then the second thing is you've had that date and time, so that's what you're gonna go back to.
You're going to have clear. Next steps in your follow up. Go ahead, Scott.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I was just gonna, I was just gonna say it's easy for all of us to think we think we're amazing. We think we can, like, we, not even, we think like we know we can help customers. We know like we're excited to get started and all of that.
And a lot of the times, like our timelines are not other people's timelines and. They don't always let us know, what their, what, when a family emergency something or a business, unexpected business thing happens and, and they've got mm-hmm. To change. And it doesn't mean they're not excited to work with you.
It just may mean oh, something happened. And calling Brooke to let her know was 20th. A little bit lower on the t. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, go ahead With what, what you were gonna say.
Brooke Greening: No, I just, it is incredibly true and it's good to remember, and this is a good thing to think about in your sales process.
Momentum builds when you're talking to them, when you're face to face with them. And so if you start slowing things down and they're like, yes, I wanna be able to work with you, but then other things are happening and you can't actually get to them what they need. Then that starts to slow things down. As soon as you get off the phone, the momentum starts to slow down.
Scott Greening: Hey, popping in real quick. It's Scott here from Building Momentum Resources, and if your sales conversations feel like a hamster wheel, lots of energy, not much forward motion, you'll want to check out something that Brooke has made just for you. It's the sales conversation assessment. It's a fast free tool that helps you figure out what's actually stalling your sales chats and how to fix it without guesswork or gimmicks. If you want more insight and less facepalm, head to buildingmomentum.info/assessment to give your strategy a little bit of a tuneup. Now back to the episode, because your next aha moment is probably just around the corner.
Brooke Greening: And so I was just talking to one of my clients just last week, and we worked through their sales process and it worked in regards to their proposal. They could have their contract connected to it. And so they're gonna be reviewing the proposal a little bit beforehand, and then they're meeting to review that.
So then at that time, if the decision makers are in the room and they're like, yes, this is what I wanna be able to do. Great. We have the contract and you've already been able to review it. Let's sign it right now and let's be able to continue to move forward. You wanna make it as easy as possible? Yes.
You need clear next steps. So if you said, I'm gonna send a proposal and we're gonna have a call, and they don't show up for the call, okay, now we're going back and we're saying, Hey, we were gonna meet on Wednesday. I understand maybe something happened. Help me know what you wanna do next. Like we're giving clear direction what's happening, but also make it as.
Completely easy as possible for them to be able to work with you so that it doesn't have to like linger on for weeks and weeks just because we're trying to get one little piece put together. So that would be the other thing, if you can put it in your sales process where they can sign and deliver on call two, do it.
If you can do it where they can sign and deliver on call one, do it.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I was just thinking that f for me and for, for someone that may not have as much sales experience or, or as much confidence or, or that type of thing in, in sales sometimes. We fear confession time. Okay. Sometimes I might fear, uh, the, the, the process and the specificity of those clear next steps because we think, well maybe there, if we leave it open-ended, there's, you're saying there's a chance like that the.
And I, I can trick myself into maybe being more optimistic, uh, than I should be. Mm-hmm. Out of a fear. And I know at various points we've talked about and you've coached people, get to the know, right? Like if
Brooke Greening: Yes,
Scott Greening: if it's coming, you wanna know as fast as, as possible with that.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm. Yes and no is not bad. No, doesn't mean forever. Just no means this is not the right time. No may mean forever. No. May be like, Nope, this is not a good fit, and that's okay. Then our goal is to give them, okay, what resources can we provide you? Who else can we introduce you to to be able to help solve their problems?
And that's a different, that's a different podcast, but no is a good thing. The piece of like, oh, hey, that sounds really interested. It sounds like you would be a great person to work with. That is not a yes. It's not a no, but it's not a yes. And so you can't go off of that. You have to know, you have to get off of that first call knowing are we moving forward or are we not?
If we're just saying things like, Hey, I'm gonna talk to you next week. No one has any idea what's happening at that point. So you have to have a note. You have to say, you have to know your sales process. So just as an example, mine is I'm, hey, because they're usually always asking for a proposal. If they're not joining my lab, then I'll say, yeah, I'm, I'm happy to do that.
How that works is I'm gonna send you a proposal, but we're gonna set up a time right now to be able to review it in person so we can go over any questions you have and just talk about the next steps of being able to move forward. I am giving them the ability to say yes or no. So we're gonna get off that call and I'm gonna know, are we moving forward or are we not?
I. Because then they're gonna say either, okay, yeah, that sounds good, and we're gonna set up a time. Or they're going to say, oh yeah, that's not gonna quite work 'cause I have to talk to so and so. Or I actually, you know, I'm not gonna be doing this in the next couple of months anyways. I just wanted to get an idea.
Those are all good things for us to be able to know, and then that's how we have our intentional follow-up after that. But you have to have an answer. You have to know, is it yes or is it no to our next step.
Scott Greening: Yeah, so for Annie from Jersey the secret sauce to ghosting is the clear next steps because it reduce, there's still people that are gonna just flake and not respond.
And you're gonna to wonder why. But if you have a, yeah, I dealt with
Brooke Greening: that last week and I was very, very clear what.
Scott Greening: If you have a clear next step, it forces both of you. It may force someone like me who's maybe scared of the answer to like, oh yeah, I have to get on the phone with that person because we, we said this was gonna be the decision point and we're gonna talk.
And then if there's a, a clear next step, like, Hey, the, this program's gonna start, or the deliver like. That next step, like, Hey, we, we need to know the decision so that we can move forward at this date and time with, with whatever that next step is. And then all the other people that, that just ghost you and that, as business owners, like, we don't care at all.
It doesn't give us any anxiety. They just float off and we just sip our matcha and it's great.
Brooke Greening: No, that's not true. I think. It is important to recognize how much energy those potential clients take from us when it's like we're in limbo land, where we felt like. We're moving things forward and now they're not because now we start thinking, did they not like our offer?
Are we too expensive? Like we start to get in our head about all the things as of why we just assume all the reasons why they're not choosing to move forward with us. That's why we don't wanna do that. That doesn't serve you and that doesn't serve them. So you have to get to an answer. On every call.
That way you don't spend months, and I'm not exaggerating, weeks, months, and also working hard on a proposal or whatever the case is, and you don't have any idea where the, what they're doing, they're not responding. That takes way too much energy from you. You don't have to do sales that way at all. You can help them come to a decision and you know what it is on the first call.
And it's not that they're saying, yes, we're gonna give you money right now, but you know, okay, we're moving to the next step.
Scott Greening: All right. Thank you, Annie from Jersey. We're going to be working on a Ghostbusters tie in so we can play the theme song with this episode, and, uh, have our, our very first podcast sponsor for that.
That, that'd be great. But we appreciate the question we appreciate you submitting it. If you would like to do submit a question, you can always do that at buildingmomentum.info/matcha. And if you found this valuable, we'd love it. If you give us a review, if you would share this with others, if you'd comment and let us know what you're thinking.
And we'll say goodbye to all those ghosts together and we'll say bye to you today.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
