We’ve all been in this situation at one time or another: you feel like you have your prospect hooked with your stellar presentation and follow-ups, but for some reason they aren’t responding to you anymore. I recently read a post in the SalesDog blog that addressed this exact problem called “They’re Just Not That in to You” (and yes, I’ll admit it, I’ve seen the Hollywood movie too).
In any case, the blog post discusses what to do when a prospect starts to shut you out. Instead of losing hope, it advises you to try some new tactics that might help you get your foot back in the door. I can’t help but agree – it’s better to keep trying than to give up at the first sign of rejection.
One of the suggestions is to probe for a new decision maker or influencer.
Maybe the reason why your prospect isn’t responding is because you aren’t talking to the right person anymore. Maybe your contact has changed positions or left the company, and is no longer relevant.
Or maybe there’s someone else in the company who has a more influential hand in the decision making process that would be more than happy to meet with you. In order to find out the most relevant contact information, make sure you have a viable content information provider– preferably one that aggregates and sorts the most up-to-date information, so you can easily see all the information you’re looking for – saving you time and gaining you access to the right person and of course, closing that sale!
OneSource just launched a new product, iSell, that really covers the bases on what you describe above. One of it’s core features is a dynamic feed of trigger events – which include topics like executive changes – to help sales people keep on top of key changes that might affect their sales cycle and ensure they don’t miss a beat when a change takes place.
If your decision-maker moves on, iSell has some great features to help you uncover other key contacts in the organization. For example, you may want to contact other people in that function/level in the organization, reach out to a level higher in hopes of finding someone with budget, or look at your own LinkedIn network to find a new path into the company.