Amy: There is nothing more frustrating than dealing with a lead that just won't close.
Find out what you should do with tire kickers and your sales process and how to deal with them the right way.
The first thing that I wanted to ask you about was this idea of tire kickers in sales, people who just don't seem to ever close the deal.
And I was wondering if you had any ideas or things that you do when you come across a prospect like this, who just won't move forward.
James: Yeah, it all comes back to asking really great questions about their intentions.
If a sales rep isn't asking good questions about the intention of the buyer, then they're not going to sniff it out and this person's going to waste their time.
Asking those questions out of the gate, like, "What are you trying to do?
What are your goals?
What are you trying to accomplish?
Give me some context of what you're trying to do."
This is sales 101, asking these extremely open-ended questions to get the person just to talk.
So, starting with a good question.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Why are we talking?
Being very straightforward and casual about it.
I'll lead almost every one of my calls with, "Catch me up.
Give me some context on what you're trying to do."
Especially for inbound sales, right?
You can't do that on outbound sales.
That's a really solid question to ask because it puts the talking on the other person.
So you can get a clear, really clear idea about their intentions.
And what the sales rep should do is ask that question and stop talking.
Even if there's an awkward silence, they should stop talking and they should just, stand there, listen, whatever it is.
I find sometimes that it's really helpful to like, have something in my hand and fidget with something while I'm just like literally waiting for them to talk.
And then we'll all they're talking, continue to do the same thing.
Like I don't want to talk.
So ask the good question and put it on them to talk.
They should give you enough context, a good sales rep should be able to sniff out if they're a tire kicker or not.
Right?
They're going be like, "Well, I'm just starting my search and it's preliminary."
And right there you're like, Oh yeah, this is a tire kicker.
And based on what they gather from asking that first question and letting them talk until they can't talk anymore don't say anything until they just spill their
guts they should have a pretty good sense of if they're a tire kicker or not.
And if they get a sense that they're a tire kicker, they should come out and address that straight on.
Don't call them a tire kicker.
But come out and say, "Hey, this sounds like it's pretty early.
It sounds like you're not ready for this project for a couple of months.
On this conversation right now, where can I add value to help you along in your decision down the road?"
Be candid and straightforward.
Like you don't want to waste your time as a sales rep.
You don't want to waste their time.
You don't want to get dragged into a 45 minute conversation where at the end they say, "Hey, we're not going to even think about this until 2022."
And you're like, Oh, um, you know, so, um, again, asking that first open-ended question, listening, if you get the sense they're a tire kicker, address it head on.
If you still don't have a sense after that first question, reiterate.
If it's just like going back and forth and it's wishy washing, they're asking questions, try and come up with another question, that's going to get to the point of their intentions.
Maybe along the lines of, "Okay.
It sounds like you've got some really good ideas and maybe some vision about what you want to do, but when do you actually want to put this into place?
Like, when you want actually implement and execute on what you're talking about?"
And that should give you the information that you need.
And again, get that information then say, "Hey, this sounds like a very preliminary project.
What can we do right now on this call to answer your questions and help you forward with this project?"
A lot of times with that question, a lot of them will kind of realize that the rambling, and just wasting your time and they'll be like, either,
"Oh, I don't really have anything.
I was just curious."
And at that point I would say, "Okay, great.
That's awesome.
Totally get that.
What's your email address?
[If you don't already have it] I'm going to send over just some resources that can help you digest what we can offer.
And then I'm gonna make a note on your account for nine months from now to ping you and see if you're ready."
And just get them off the phone.
Right?
Unless they have something very specific, "Hey, this is actually what I needed to gather right now to see if you're going to be a good fit.
And then we can talk nine months from now, if you can fit this criteria."
"Okay, great.
Let's get to that criteria right now.
Let's see if we're a good fit.
I'll tell you yes or no, and we'll move on with our life.
Amy: Hmm.
And what kind of content would you send them?
If you were going to send them like some sort of resource, what would you send them to help them decide?
James: I would typically send them like a really, really trimmed down demo.
Like we have our webinar recording that I would send over say, "Hey, like, let's look at a webinar recording.
It's 30 minutes.
It's going to give you a good idea of all the working parts of our system so that you can see if it fits into what you're trying to do and gives you an idea
of what the interface looks like, and if that's going to work for your team."
So it's just going to be that 30 minutes.
We'll also send over like our help article center and be like, "Hey, if there's like specific features you want to pick through, because you know your boss is going to be asking
about them, or you are curious about them because you are the boss, you can go through.
Here's our help articles center.
You can go and pick through those specific features that are important to you and decide if it's a good fit for you.
Amy: Cool.
Yeah, because that gives them all the information that they need and it doesn't waste your time doing a demo for someone that's not ready to buy.
James: Right.
And the other thing is you also want to realize if they're a high quality lead or not.
Really high quality leads typically are not going to waste your time.
They've got better things to do.
But if it's some person who says, yeah, we've got 10 reps on our team, I'm going to really kind of like pick it up as a sales rep and get the information that I need.
Like, "Is this really nine months down the road?
Is this being put off?
Why are you putting it off then?
Why don't we just get started?"
Like, I'm going to start asking more questions about why are you procrastinating?
This is a problem today.
And try and get the ball rolling.
I would say 30% of the time that's going to work.
70% of the time.
They're just going to say, "We're just not doing it this year, but I need to start putting this on my radar."
"Great.
That's fine."
Well then I'm definitely going to be following up, probably once a month after that.
So you want to again, qualify them on that call.
Are they tire kicking?
Figure that out.
If so, that's fine, but are they a qualified lead or not?
If they're not, get them the resources and the answers that they need.
If they are qualified, ask them additional questions to understand why they're not trying to act today.