How to Keep Prospects From Canceling

For a lot of small business owners, one of the challenges in how to sell services is actually how to keep valuable prospects from slipping through your fingers.

As a small business coach, I've worked with business owners who tell me they find themselves chasing after prospects. It's rather exhausting and quite unpleasant to say the least, right?

The chasing happens because we fear the prospect will cancel a meeting or will be a no-show. Or we're chasing because they were a no-show.

Here are a few suggestions for greatly reducing or eliminating this experience with prospects:

Check your pressure gauge

What I mean by this is that is, if we're not careful, we unintentionally introduce a level of pressure or uncomfortable persuasion into our sales conversations with people. A prospect can easily sense the pressure and they lapse into not telling the truth about whether they are interested or not. So they say they're interested and set the appointment to not disappoint you or simply to get out of feeling cornered. That's a key reason people come up with "objections" as well - they're feeling pressured or cornered.

This is the reason I always say ditch the intent to sell. Simply have a conversation to discover whether there's a mutual fit. Don't assume the sale prematurely. When you go into the conversation with the intent to sell, you then have an ulterior motive to "make the sale." Often simple things like your tone of voice and your choice of words raises the red flag with a prospect that you're after the sale.

Your prospect can sense that you are more interested in making the sale than being genuinely interested in solving their problems and meeting their needs. So check your own pressure gauge to see whether your intentions in the conversation may be fueling the "flight response" in your prospect.

Ask the right questions

When you're in a conversation with a prospect, there are some key questions you can ask to uncover

* If they truly are your ideal client

* If they're even ready to make a decision right now

* If what you offer is a good match for their needs and their budget

Be sure you're asking open-ended questions vs yes/no questions. If your conversation doesn't reveal those key bits of information, you may be assuming the person is ready to move forward when they're not. This then makes the chances of cancellation or no-show much higher.

Share your value (vs your products/services)

When we talk to prospects, there's quite a bit of temptation to dive right into a pitch or description of what we sell. We spend time detailing our different services, prices, packages, etc. It's important to realize this is secondary to why the prospect contacted you.

Sure, they may say they want to hear about your services, but that's not really what they're looking for. They're looking for solutions to a problem, an experience, a transformation, to realize their vision for something, to get relief, to meet a burning desire, etc.

The more you're able to describe what you do in a way that resonates with what they're truly seeking, the more they value what you have to offer; and the chances that they'll cancel is greatly reduced.

Set up the meeting effectively

In setting up the meeting, I'd first ask you to consider this: did the prospect request the meeting or was it more that they felt pressured and said yes? That's a good thing to evaluate. Instead of saying "Why don't we set up an appointment to..." try something like "Do you think it would make sense, at this point, for us to connect and..." The latter makes it their decision and it also gives them an opportunity to be truthful about whether they'd actually like to meet. It's best to know the truth than to have them say yes then disappear on you.

Also, rather than just agreeing on the meeting, agree on the commitment to the meeting as well. Say something like, "Allison, I know that we're both pretty busy people and I do respect your time. I'm committed to setting aside this time specifically for you. I've set aside 60 minutes in my calendar on Tuesday for us to.... If you're unable to make it at that time, would you call me by TIME to let me know?"

This sets the tone for mutual respect of each other's time. You're saying that you respect their time and you're also implying that you expect them to respect your time as well; this reduces the chance of a no-show or cancellation.


Author: Allison Babb

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And now I'd like to offer you the FREE one-hour audio seminar for solo entrepreneurs on "How to Create a Steady Stream of Clients For Your Solo Business" at: http://www.moreclientsaudio.com Allison Babb is an author, speaker and Small Business Coach to solo entrepreneurs at: http://www.GreatSmallBusinessAdvice.com

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