Time-saver alert: knowing why your prospect wants to meet with you tells you whether it’s even worth your time to meet with them.

Remember, no matter how good of a salesperson you are, not every deal is closable. In fact, how many of your deals are closable depends in large part on the quality of leads delivered to you.

Prospects have many reasons for reaching out to you. They could be:

• Trying to get a price quote to start a price war with another vendor who does the same thing as you

• Seeing how much free information they can get out of you

• Attempting to convince their team they have the solution…without any real influence to do so

• Taking on a last-ditch effort to save their jobs, without the authority to make a decision

• Reaching out because they feel panicked by a workplace problem

• Actually wanting to buy from you because you have one of the best solutions for their problem

4 Signs of a Prospect That’ll Never Buy From You

So now that we’ve established that not every prospect’s going to buy from you, here’s what to look for in their behavior:

    1. They don’t answer tough questions directly. Good prospects want you to ask them tough questions. That builds trust in them that you know exactly how to solve their problem. If you get vague answers or rude or defensive behavior, you’ve found a prospect with no intent of buying.
    2. They don’t return any of your communications. A prospect who urgently needs a problem solved that you can fix acts fast. If they’re consistently evasive, they’re trying to get the power to beat your prices down. Or they simply don’t actually need what you sell.
    3. They keep putting you off. If you’ve gotten them to agree to meet, but they’ll do it after they get back from vacation, or when things calm down, or when this next project ends, or when…. They’re making excuses and don’t need what you do now.
    4. They request a proposal right away. You only send proposals when you have a rock-solid understanding of the prospect’s problem and how you can solve it. It should take at least one lengthy meeting, and perhaps a couple to establish this. If they request a proposal right away, relax, they’ll probably never sign it.

How to Find Out Why a Prospect Chose to Meet with You or Call You

It’s not super-hard to figure out why a prospect wants to meet with you. It should be one of the questions you ask when you first talk to them.

Simply say,”So, John, why’d you decide to contact us?” or, “So, John, what made you decide to contact us?”

When they answer the question, make a strong mental note of it, or even write down the gist of what they say.

If it meets one of the criteria for red flags you already read about, politely end the conversation. Get the prospect on your newsletter list because they’re not ready to buy from you anytime soon.

If you’re not positive, ask additional follow-up questions to gain an understanding of their problem, and you’ll get more clarity on what they said.

And then you’ll know whether to bring the relationship to an end, or continue pursuing it and closing the deal.

At worst, you’ll spend less time with sales suspects and more time with qualified prospects. Eventually, you’ll close more sales.

And then you can get more referrals and even better close rates because you spend most of your time talking to prospects that truly want and need to buy.

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