Successful Sales Strategies - Helping Customers to Just Say No

“Hi, this is Heidi. Is he in?,” I ask the person answering the phone at my client’s office. “No, he’s busy with clients.” So I tell the staffer to have my client call me about the order that is quickly reaching the point where it becomes a rush project. Two days go by. A week goes by. I go through the same litany again with the client’s staff the following week. Two days go by. Another week goes by. See a pattern here? You probably do. Any salesperson who has been in the field of selling for more than a year or so can relate to the scenario.

Now, let me add another layer of complication. I have known the client for more than 10 years. We have become good friends. Not the coming-over-to-my-house-for-barbecue type friends, but professional friends and we enjoy meeting. Because I believe that people like to do business with their friends, I actively try to build friendships, over cool professional relationships, with my clients. It is a strategy that has served me well. So to experience the brush-off behavior described above is abnormal in this context. Then, well after the fact, I learn that the project was ditched totally.

So why did I get the client’s brush-off behavior? Though most of my clients are quite upfront when a project falls through, others have difficulty. Here are some possible explanations, both of which are personality issues:

Afraid of Jeopardizing the Friendship by Saying “No” – Some people feel that if they say no to someone, even salespeople, that the friendship will take an irreversible turn for the worst. Though there are some pretty thin-skinned salespeople in the world, most of us have been through losing a sale, sometimes lots of sales. It just goes with the territory. These insecure clients really have nothing to fear.

Need to Save Face – Sometimes the dodge of the friendly salesperson is a way for the client to save face with the salesperson. These clients don’t want to say that they weren’t able to get buy-in to their idea or proposal from their company. So it’s easier to not say anything at all and hope the salesperson will give up.

These folks are wasting your time, energy, and productive selling time with other higher potential clients. So what should you do?

If You’ve Followed Up, Give it Up – If you have done your due diligence as a salesperson and followed up appropriately for your type of business, give it up! You are not only annoying yourself, you’re annoying them, too. These types of leads sometimes have a way of resurfacing down the road.

Make It Safe to Say “No” – Sometimes you need to rattle their cage and, by doing so, make it safe for them to say “no.” It might be something as simple as politely telling them that you feel that forward progress on this project is stalled and suggest putting on the back burner. Assure them that if the project does get resurrected later, you will be glad to assist. Chances are they will be internally heaving a sigh of relief that they won’t be hearing from you for a while or have to explain their dilemma to their “friend” the salesperson.

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