Handling Buyer’s Remorse

One of the most frustrating things in sales is when you sign up a client and get the dreaded “I’ve changed my mind” phone call the next day. After all the time you spent with them and the flawless presentation you gave, to no avail. You blame the prospect and spend the afternoon complaining to other sales reps.

Here’s the solution! It is handling buyer’s remorse before it handles you. If a client has agreed to buy my product or service, I say this, “Before we part today, I want to make sure that you are completely satisfied with our meeting and really want to move forward with this. Sometimes, a couple days go by and people change their minds. I just want to make sure that is not the case here.”

After I say that, I just shut up and listen. This is when the client speaks up and justifies to you how happy they are about the product or service. Get them to assure you that they have made up their mind, and you just got a client.

Higher Authority Angle

My company loaned one of our contractors several thousand dollars recently. He was going through some tough times so we helped him out. Several weeks later after he closed on an equity line, we expected to get paid back promptly. After a couple weeks, our renovation manager that communicates with the contractor kept getting the “check book for the equity line hasn’t come in yet so I can’t pay you” excuse. I told our renovation manager to let me call the contractor and see what I could do. This is where the higher authority angle came in.

I called our contractor and told him how familiar I was with equity lines. I let him know that if he simply placed a couple calls, he could access the money somehow without having to wait for a checkbook to come in the mail. I also told him that we expected to get paid by Friday (it was Wednesday at the time).

When a higher authority figure enters a situation, the person with whom you have to deal with will generally get a feeling of importance. They feel more appreciated. They become disarmed and will agree to a reasonable outcome to whatever problem you may be having.

When you come across a terribly difficult person to deal with, do the best you can, cut your losses, and move on.

"Close the File" Technique

If you are in sales, you have most likely had some kind of experience that correlates to the following scenario:

You're in a sales appointment. Your putting on your dog and pony show. The prospect is positive, and you think you've got the sale in the bag. You finish your presentation with a grin of accomplishment and low and behold the client says, "I'm going to think it over. I'll get back to you next week." And now the game begins.

You follow up with them, and they ask you to follow up with them in a month. This pattern repeats itself until finally, the "potential client" just doesn't call back. You spend more time thinking about how great that appointment went and continue to leave unreturned messages.

All the while, you're the busy guy who justifies how good of a salesman he is by the number of "Maybes" he is following up with.

Next time you get a "Let me think it over" just say, "I appreciate your time so far. It doesn't look like we are going to be a fit. I am going to go ahead and close the file. Thanks though!"

You have just saved yourself from a state of prolonged self delusion. The tire kickers have been unmasked, and the procrastinators have been put on the spot. You have taken back control. Make sure you are playing by your rules, not by theirs!