When A Prospect Goes Dark

There is nothing more frustrating to a business owner than when a client or prospective sale goes dark. This was the subject of a recent breakfast meeting I had with a friend who was experiencing the dark side with a client on a prospective sale that he felt was a no-brainer. He had been a client for a while and knew the client appreciated the work he was doing for him. He was billing him regularly for his time. It got to the point where he thought it would be better to put him on a monthly retainer given the level of the hourly billing activity. He presented the prospective solution to the client. The response? None. What now?

This lead me to write about what business owners should do when this happens. It is one of the most annoying side of sales especially when you think the prospective sale is going so well. Well, at least you think it is.

Envision this. Your last conversation was killer, you both agreed that your solution made sense. The prospect said they needed to: share it with their team, run the numbers, look at another solution, run it past IT, work with HR, make a recommendation or any other next step.

You’re on it. You move the call to the next stage in the pipeline, you make a note in the CRM and set a new activity. Good stuff, the deal is moving along. Or is it?

Fast forward two weeks. The activity reminder pops up. You call the client, no answer. No sweat. You schedule a call for two days later. Two days later, you call again, no answer. You leave another message. OK, no worries, it’s all good. You schedule a call for two more days later and in the interim you send an email. Two more days pass, no response. Now this is getting serious.

You think to yourself, something’s wrong. The doubt creeps in, you’re freaked about how to explain it. You were counting on this deal. You’re getting desperate, sending emails and leaving messages saying you’re just “following” up. Oh crap! You’ve just become that pesky sales person who’s “just following up.” Have you ever followed up with a person to just say you're following up? You’re screwed… you’ve lost control of the sale and in you’re in desperation mode.

Two things happen when business owners find themselves in desperation mode. One, they almost always lose the deal. They’ve lost control of the sale and it spirals away from them. Two, and even more detrimental, they spend way too much time chasing the deal and it’s never going to close. In an effort to save the deal, you spend valuable selling time chasing a lost prospect.

If a prospect goes dark you have to get them back and the best way to get them back into the fold is to hold them accountable and challenge them. Here’s my favorite phrase to get a prospect jump started again:

“I’m confused, you said you... (insert issues prospect said they wanted to fix, their last commitment, the impact of not changing, etc.). Has something changed?”

When a prospect goes dark the best thing you can do is put it back on the prospect. If they said they liked your solution and need to share it with the team, then you need to call them out on it and ask what happened. When a prospect says “yes” they want to buy your solution because they are losing thousands of dollars in unnecessary expenses… and then go dark. You need to parrot that back to them and say:

I’m confused, you said you’re losing thousands of dollars in unnecessary expenses and felt our solution was perfect. We agreed to reconvene two weeks after you spoke with your team and shared it with the CEO. We have not heard from you. Has something changed?

When a prospect goes dark, something is going on behind the scenes. There could be new information, new goals, new solutions, financial set backs, new players, or it could be they are simply busy. Regardless, when a prospect goes dark, the best thing a person can do is go back to what their prospect originally said and committed to and hold them accountable to it.

Prospects who go dark aren’t evil, they are just overwhelmed. There is almost always a real, legitimate reason and it’s your job to figure it out. The best way to get them to respond and figure it out is to hold them accountable to what they said and what they committed to. Anything short of that isn’t selling, it’s waffling around and that’s not going to get you the sale.

Prospects are people and, for the most part, they know they owe you a call. They know they made a commitment and the longer it goes without response, the more they feel bad about it and in an odd twist, the less likely they will be to call. So, it’s your job to lay it at their feet and open the door by simply saying:

I’m confused, you said . . .

This simple phrase invites prospects to explain where they are, and more importantly, address the “gap.” That is the gap between what they said and their actions. As people we hate inconsistencies, gaps and inaccuracies. So, when you say I’m confused, you said… the prospect is compelled to address the gap and this is exactly what you want them to do.

This entire approach rests on the premise you actually have engaged the prospect well enough early in the sales process so you understand what their problem is, why they are looking at your solution, what the next step is, where you are in the sales cycle and what they are doing in between calls. If you can’t answer those questions, nothing can save you. In that case, take the deal out of the pipeline and start over.

So what happened to my friend’s situation with his client? I had him reflect on the last few months and then I asked him:

Would you say that the amount the client has been invoiced for and paid over the last few months be higher or lower then the monthly retainer?

He said the retainer amount was higher. There in could be the root of the problem. Why would he pay more on a retainer then what he is currently paying hourly? I advised him to review the proposal and re-approach the client. Demonstrate to him, with client examples where you have saved them money, why the level of service would be higher and could save him money in future based on the added value and anticipated additional services covered by the retainer.

If you know what the customer’s motivation is. If you know why they are looking to buy. If you know what the next step is and it’s because they told you… good make them own it. That’s how you get them out of the blackhole.

When prospect goes dark, accountability is the light. It's important to always be “In the light” refining your sales skills and incorporating lessons from all your sales experiences, good or bad. It's all in the game of Keeping Life Current.