They Changed Their Minds

What You Need to Know

You might be able to persuade any prospect to make a purchase.
Sandy Schussel has an idea for making the persuasion process simpler.
His idea: Worker harder to find prospects who need and want what you sell.

At the end of a two-hour long “fact finding” meeting, advisor Marianne told her seemingly enthusiastic prospects that she would be researching a couple of things and then putting together a plan for them, and set a follow-up appointment with them.

They were a young professional couple with young children.

Their plan would specifically include some much-needed life insurance that needed to be priced.

There was no doubt in Marianne’s mind that the mission was going forward!

But, a few days later, just before Marianne’s scheduled return with her proposal, the couple called to tell her they had decided to hold off on doing anything.

“I needed that sale,” Marianne complained to me during our coaching session.

“And that’s probably why you lost it,” I responded.

Our need is the ugliest thing we can show prospective clients.

If they believe that your need to make money is more important than their need for your services, they’ll back away as fast as they can.

Retaining you to help them or buying what you’re offering must be their idea, not yours.

Even when — especially when — you need the “yes”, make sure that your prospects sense only your devotion to bringing them the best and most appropriate service.

I also discussed with Marianne the need to build trust in that first meeting.

Did she ask enough questions? Did she get a commitment from them about doing the preliminary work?

Here are some suggestions that might reduce the number of prospects who change their minds.

1. Ask more and better questions.

“Situational” fact questions are essential for you in order to enable you to do your work, but they have relatively low value to a prospective client who already knows his or her own situation.