Avoid Getting Ghosted
She’s not returning my calls or emails
How many of you have had a contact ghost you? Everyone! You know the story. You’re running an opportunity, your contact is telling you all the right things, you’re making progress and you feel good about winning the deal. And then bang, all of a sudden, she won’t return your calls and emails.
Damn! That was the deal you were counting on. Now you have to run, tail between your legs, to your manager to tell her the deal doesn’t look good, and worst of all you don’t know why. It’s infuriating!
Misaligned expectations
Believe it or not, buyers are not out to get you. More often than not, ghosting occurs because of misaligned expectations. Remember the movie Dumb and Dumber? Jim Carrey says; so you’re telling me there’s a chance – After the girl of his dreams has just told him he has a one in a million shot! She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying there is zero chance, so says something very similar but not as definitive. He interprets this to mean that there is actually a chance. A silly example perhaps, but you get the point. Buyers say maybe – we hear likely – they mean unlikely.
Rule of momentum
One way to test if you’re on track is to ensure there is momentum (measured by meetings and calls). Generally speaking, momentum is a good thing. After all, our most precious asset in life is time, so if your contact is giving you theirs, it is a good sign. Sales 101 dictates that after every call or meeting, a seller should book the next step or action. It kills me to hear sellers rush this part of a call. So often the next step is loose and delivers no value to the buyer;
OK, so how about I call you next week to see how you’re getting on?
Does Wednesday work?
How about 10 am?
Sound familiar? Likelihood of getting ghosted? High! Because although they said; yeah sure, mentally, they didn’t actually agree or commit to it.
Tip – make the next action mutually agreed upon
I call this MANA – a Mutually Agreed upon Next Action. Here is how it works; When you are booking the next action remember that you are asking someone to give you their most precious asset (their time), so there has to be something in it for them. As part of your meeting prep think about a few scenarios for how the meeting could go. Then consider two or three potential next actions that you would want and that makes sense. Here’s the tricky bit. For them to agree, there MUST be something in it for THEM. Also, be proactive and make the suggestion. DO NOT ask what they want to do next. Doing so diminishes your authority in that moment and hands all the power to them. It also forces them to think – which at the end of the meeting they don’t want to do. You are the expert. You’ve done this many times before. Give them confidence that you know what you’re doing. Take control. You must be authentic, but perhaps something like this;
- Based on what I have heard here today, and given what we see our most successful customers do, might I suggest _____________ (the action you want)
- So that we can _____________ (achieve something)
- Which will allow you to _____________ (what’s in it for them)
Once agreed upon, make sure you send a calendar invite clearly explaining the above.
- Invite title – State what you are going to be doing (for ex; demo, financial discussion, technical deep dive, etc.)
- Body text – clearly state the objective (so we can _____________) and then what’s in it for them (so you can _____________)
Remember, you may have done great in the meeting, but as soon as it was over, they went back to their day-job and got busy. Your next action is likely to be days or weeks away, so the calendar invite needs to be something that jolts their memory, bringing them back (mentally) into that moment when things were going so well.
