Know When They’re Not Buying What You’re Selling

Rob  00:09

Alright, welcome, everybody. This is The Slow Pitch Podcast. And I should say hi to Lane Lane. How are you doing today?

Lane  00:17

I’m doing fantastic. How are you, Rob?

Rob  00:20

I’m doing well see. So every time we start, you’re always doing either, you know, great or fantastic. How do you do that? I

Lane  00:26

Well a lot of alcohol.

Rob  00:26

Okay.

V/O  00:32

You’re listening to The Slow Pitch Podcast, a podcast about selling less and closing more.

Rob  00:39

The one phrase that I always hear when people talk about sales is look for the buying signals. That’s really important. And you agree with that rightly?

Lane  00:46

Yeah, absolutely. That’s what the experts always tell you right.

Rob  00:49

I always tell you that. And I tend to agree with them. But here’s what I I kind of would like to flip that on its head. I feel like it’s more important to watch the I’m not going to buy signals than it is the actual buy signals.

Lane  01:02

Have you been drinking today, Rob?

Rob  01:03

Maybe, maybe. But I’m gonna, I’m going to tell you this one. This is an episode, where we’re going to talk about one of those non-buying signals ready?

Lane  01:12

Let’s do it.

Rob  01:13

Alright, let’s do it. So this episode is about the non buying signals, and one in particular. And I will say this that, Mr. Pete Coors, we’ve referenced you before in a previous episode, we want to make sure that you understand that we pick you up loud and clear your non buying signal by not calling us. There’s the first non buying signal is they don’t call you. Alright, so that’s probably the right way to go. But this is not what we’re gonna talk about today. What we’re going to talk about today is I had somebody the other day say, Listen, I am I happy to talk to you again. I know we’re gonna meet again, let’s set up a meeting for Friday. And I said, Okay, Friday, it is right. And then I said, Okay, so when I, when I schedule this, and, and I schedule this, I wrote in pen, is that okay? Or should I write a pencil? And they’re like, Oh, no, no pen is fine. Okay. All right. And then they said to me, would you would you do me a favor, though? Would you? Would you just call me that morning just to confirm the meeting?

Lane  02:13

What does that mean, call me to reconfirm in the morning?

Rob  02:17

Yeah, I thought the same thing. I was like, what does that mean? I don’t understand. So I was a little thrown aback. And it dawned on me that is a non buying signal. If you’re setting up a next meeting, and they say to you, hey, just confirm with me that morning, because I want to make sure that I’m ready and available. I thought we were writing this down and pen into I mean, when I said…

Lane  02:37

…that’s what he said, yeah,

Rob  02:38

…that’s what I say. I said, I’m writing this down in pen, or should I write in a pencil because it could change? He’s like, no write in a pen. And then these A few minutes later, it’s like, just called me that morning.

Lane  02:47

Yeah, you’re getting all these buy signals, and then suddenly you get a don’t I’m not buying signal.

Rob  02:50

Yeah, or a little bit of like, a, I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s an non-buying, but it’s a I’ve definitely an “I don’t know” for sure if I want to meet with you. What would you do?

Lane  02:59

I haven’t personally run into that. But I feel like you are going to turn around and go, maybe I shouldn’t be writing this in pen.

Rob  03:07

Well, that was my first initial thing was like, Well, let me get my pencil out. Right. And I but but instead I said to him, I said, I’m sorry, I’m I’m confused. We mean, call you in the morning. And he said, Well call me just I want to make sure that I’m available and something’s changed. And things change everyday here. I mean, are you busy everyday Lane?

Lane  03:23

Well, I think we’re all busy everyday. But if my calendar gets that backed up, I have no problem either going in into Outlook and clicking decline on a meeting. So this one gets an email saying I’m not gonna I’m not gonna be doing it.

Rob  03:36

Sometimes they’ll even say and this doesn’t happen very often, either. what they’ll do is they’ll say, send me a meeting invite. And then okay, but we’re confirming this now, I don’t need to send a meeting invite you, you got your own calendar, I got my calendar. I don’t know why you need me to. I’m not your secretary. Right. So. So when they say that to me, I said, Well, I’ll tell you what, I’d be happy to send you the invite but I mess things up a lot. And particularly with that kind of thing, like this Outlook, I can’t figure Outlook out… it’s crazy. Do you have your calendar out? And they never go? No, because they know they looked at their calendar, because they know they’re either available or not available, right? And sometimes they say no, but what I do is, would you mind pulling that out real quick, all right. And then I make them put it in themselves, because then I know at least it’s in their calendar, right? The other thing to do, sometimes what you can do is still send the invite. And so it’s fun to send an invite to somebody because guess what? It’s going to populate on their calendar, even if, right?

Lane  04:24

And that’s why I like sending those. Yes…

Rob  04:26

Yeah. So I like to do that too. Because when I know that we’ve scheduled this, we’ve set this up as a specific time and day, it’s going to show up on our calendar. Now. They may just ignore it and let it sit there. But if they delete it, don’t you find out about that? I think so…If they decline…

Lane  04:38

No… If they decline it, yes. Well, you can,

Rob  04:43

You can decline but not send anything right. So

Rob  04:45

Yeah, so it’s not always foolproof, but it does give you a little bit of an edge. I’ve even done it where I’ve said, you know, we’re gonna call and talk on this particular time of day if I don’t hear from you, I’ll call you at this time. And then I just pop it on their calendar. So I say and the title of it is Rob will call you if he hasn’t heard anything by today at this time, and it shows up on their calendar and they’re gonna go, oh, Rob’s gonna call me, okay? Because they’ll see it. I know they will. And, when I call, they go, “hey, I knew you were gonna call.” So that’s the benefit of doing that. But the non buying signal of call me beforehand, that is a good sign or a good good signal that you need to address that and talk about it and go through those questions. So the questions I would ask would be, I’m confused, because I am..Are we meeting or not meeting? Right. Lane, you just asked me to put you on the calendar and then give you a call that morning. I’m confused. Why? What am I calling? What am I calling you for?

Lane  04:45

Yep, yep.

Lane  05:37

Well, I’m I’m busy in case things change.

Rob  05:39

Yeah, I know, me too. I know, I understand that. So if I, what happens if I’m, I’m, I’m tied up at that moment, and I can’t call you or meet with you that time. Do you want me to call you?

Lane  05:50

Why don’t you just send me an email?

Rob  05:51

Okay, I can send you an email. When I’ve done that people sometimes miss it. So I don’t want to I don’t want to assume anything here. But listen, I get this… We’ve gone through a lot. And I’ve gotten to know you a little bit here. I know. I don’t know you I know you don’t know your business very well, when I’ve gotten that kind of a response of you know, call me ahead of time. That doesn’t sound like you’re ready to really go to that next step. I feel like that’s a really nice way of saying, “I really don’t want to meet with you.” I am really not interested. Is that? Is that what’s happening?

Lane  06:22

It sure sounds like.

Rob  06:23

Okay, yeah. And they’ll tell you, they’ll tell you if they really don’t want to. And you can laugh, you guys. I thought oh, that’s all right. Listen, I know like I told you before, ah, no skin off my back. I really appreciate you telling me that because that takes takes a lot to say that. And, and so if there’s anything that we can do for you in the future, I would love to know, but before I hang up, or before we part ways or whatever it is. Can I ask you one other question?

Rob  06:48

Sure.

Rob  06:49

Is there any one particular thing just so that I learned from this experience that I feel like there’s something that I did to screw this up?

Lane  06:56

Well…

Rob  06:57

Lay it on thick Lane…

Lane  06:59

Well, Rob, I’m not a fan of your unibrow man.

Rob  07:03

I thought I shaved that this morning.

Lane  07:06

It’s just too distracting. I just I just stare I don’t know what to do.

Rob  07:11

I get that a lot, Lane. I get that a lot. I totally understand it was in fact. It makes me uncomfortable. When I look at it.

Lane  07:18

It should.

Rob  07:19

Oh, there are days. I you know what I’ve done. I’ve removed all the mirrors in my house. I can say that with a straight face. Because I know that when I’m in a sales situation, I have to be serious because but but in reality my brain I am laughing like crazy. So listen, I guess whenever I got to make you understand that listen, this is funny, and I get it and or make you think that yes, those are serious. And my unibrow is very uncomfortable. But here’s one thing you should know that when I wear my glasses, it’s hard to see. There’s so there’s that, but alright, so alright, so maybe it Okay, you gave a unibrow as an example. I like it. I like it. I like it. It gives us something to laugh about. But there must be something else.

Lane  08:03

Yeah, I think your price is just a little too high.

Rob  08:05

Yeah, I get that. And I and I, I wish there was something I can do with that. Alright, so it sounds like it’s a total no-go. Right. All right. One other question before I leave? Because I saw you shake your head. Yes. The other question is, is that, you know, I get a lot of business from clients all the time that refer me other people. I know, we have not done any business. But you obviously see how my style and my process is, I want to make sure that we do things the right way. I want to make sure that I asked all the questions, I need to make sure that I asked like you feel comfortable that I can do the job. But more importantly, that I understand what you’re looking for what you need. I don’t know, I can’t think of any other way to ask this, but, I don’t suppose there’s anybody that you know, that might be in the same situation, whether it’s somebody that’s in your style business, or your vendors or anybody else that could use some of our services. And so what I just did was what

Lane  08:55

Yeah, it just seems like you’re trying to gauge how comfortable they are with with with you and your business? And if they’d give you that referral.

Rob  09:02

Yeah. And I think, yeah, it’s both. It’s like, will they give me a referral? Because you know, what, nine times out of 10 they don’t. But, that one time they give me a referral. Sometimes it’s really good. You know, it can be $100,000 referral, or it could be a $5 one, I don’t know. And that’s one thing I have to figure out, right. But, but if I don’t ask, it’s zero, no matter, no matter what, you’re gonna be zero. Yeah. So I have to ask, and believe it or not, sometimes they will think oh, no, you know, there’s somebody that actually we just didn’t have a conversation doing that. And but most of the time, they don’t, but it plants the seed so that after you hang up, they will, when they see something like that, or a scenario like that, they may refer you and I’ve had people refer me that didn’t do business with me, because of the conversations we had. So I don’t know if that helps, but it’s an interesting but on buying signal  when they say please call me before our next meeting to confirm, because while they’re while they’re busy, all of us are busy. We’re all busy. We’re running around 100 miles an hour, every day just trying to get things done, right.

Lane  10:04

Yep.

Rob  10:04

So are we so are they everybody’s doing that? And so by them asking you, they’re kind of putting you off and nothing wrong with calling you on it. I I’m a firm believer of I’d rather have you know where I stand and I’d rather have you explain to me where you stand or show me where you stand. And I’ll I’ll push you until I know where you stand. Or I’ll push you to know that you’re standing where I don’t want you to stand, which is a no and that’s okay. I’ll take it because I don’t I don’t need to do any more with you until you’re ready. And we leave it that way, which is I could use a referral if you have one. And don’t, don’t be afraid to call me if you have any questions in the future. You want to talk about it. Because it does both things. It lets them feel comfortable with you. And they know no skin off their back. They’re not going to give you pressure next time they talk to me. It’s not going to be one of those high pressure sales situations where you have to make you feel like you bought right and so does that help.

Rob  10:06

That helps.

Rob  10:31

We’ll have to talk about some other non buying signals someday.

Lane  10:56

I’m counting on it.

Rob  10:58

Hey, next time. Let’s bring up my unibrow.

V/O  11:03

Thank you for listening to The Slow Pitch. Do you have a question about sales? Call or text your question at (608) 708-SLOW. That’s (608) 708-7569 or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com. Slow Down and Close More.