Sales Slump – The Pep Talk You Need Now!

Rob 0:08
Welcome back, everybody to The Slow Pitch. Today we are going to talk a little bit about hitting a slump, we all hit them. But usually there is a reason you’re hitting a slump. And you don’t even probably realize it’s happening until it’s too late. The job of this episode is to remind you what happened, and why you’re hitting the slump, things are not closing. In other words, if you have a situation where several of your leads have decided they’re going to push off their decision a little later, they’re not closing as quickly. Things have slowed down, you’re running into too many objections. This is meant to be a bit of a short episode, but it should be one that should help be helpful for you. If these scenarios come up for you, and are starting to come up, and they usually don’t, this is the time to listen to this episode. Let’s get started.

V/O 0:57
You’re listening to The Slow Pitch Podcast, a podcast about selling less and closing more.

Rob 1:04
Alright, there’s a few things that cause this. And a lot of times we don’t realize that we’re doing these things until it’s too late. So let’s give you a couple of different scenarios, let’s call it or situations where sales just start slowing down and aren’t happening.

Rob 1:20
Here’s the first thing deals are not closing. If your deals or your sales are not closing, I want you to think about what’s causing this. All right, there’s a few only a few things that are causing this. So you may be thinking to yourself, I already know what’s going on. They don’t have the money. They don’t have this they don’t have…

Rob 1:34
Okay, yeah, oh four all fine and good. But here’s what I want you to do think of this in a big picture standpoint, and then get into the nitty gritty as you get going. Okay, if deals are not closing, some of the causes could be the simple things.

Rob 1:45
One, not enough pain, you don’t have enough pain after your initial sales meeting, after your second sales meeting, after your third sales meeting. You don’t bring it back up enough. Basically, you’re not asking some questions. So this could be one of the causes, you might not be asking the questions like How much is this hurting them? In other words, have you helped them understand this is hurting them by this many dollars by not taking action?

Rob 2:13
If you haven’t asked that question, you’re gonna miss some opportunity here, because they may not think they need your service or your product. But if they understood how much it was going to cost or hurt them, they might make that decision a little faster. How does it hurt them? Does this cause them delays in their own work? Does this cause them problems in their own processes? Is there something that’s going to happen that if they don’t buy or your product or service, then it’s going to hurt them? Generally speaking in some other form rather than money?

Rob 2:42
The other question you might ask them is why now? So why are you looking now? Why is this something that’s important to you now? So if you have not asked that, in your historical meetings here, meetings in history, let’s call it why now? Are you asking or why now? Are these things important to you? Those are going to give you keys as to whether or not they’re serious or not.

Rob 3:06
When you ask them, why now? And they say, Well, I’m just looking, that means they’re not interested, they’re not ready, right? If they say, if you say why now and they say, well, because we have this, this, this, this happening. And this is the next step. And it has to be completed before we finish this next other three steps. Guess what? They’re serious, you know where it’s going to happen… It’s just matter of a timing thing. Right? Which then would become your next question.

Rob 3:28
Who else is another question might ask, who else might this impact? So in other words, who else in your team? Is this going to impact by making the decision to purchase or not purchase? Right? So basically, what you’re saying is, I need to understand, are there other people involved that are going to impact them as well by not making the purchase? And what happens if this does get fixed?

Rob 3:46
And again, this goes back to that first question, which is, how have you been, you know, how much is this going to hurt them financially? What happens if this does get fixed? So there’s a thing where there’s they’re going to have something happen that’s going to fix something in the future, be better in the future improve in the future? That’s the important question, too. So those, those are some questions if there’s not enough pain, and that’s what’s causing deals are not closing.

Rob 4:07
The other thing that can happen is because you have some issues going on where sales aren’t closing, you’re gonna come across as a little bit too eager. So remember what we talked about a while back, there’s a smell, there’s a stench on you. When you think you need that sale, they know that you need the sale. So they’re gonna like they can feel it, they just know and so they’re just like, not gonna buy because they feel like you’re desperate.

Rob 4:32
You can’t feel that way. You have to think of terms in terms of like, I have all the money in the world I need I don’t need any more money right now. But I feel like you are interested in that you need some you need my my goods, my services, my products, whatever that is, and because you need that, let’s talk if for no other reason. If we end up at the end of this conversation is not a go. That’s okay. I got plenty of other people to talk to right.

Rob 4:55
The cause of that may be that you’re too eager is because you don’t have enough leads in your pipeline, I had this happen to me a while back where I had not enough stuff in my pipeline. And I felt like I was getting eager. And I said, Well, no time to fill the pipeline. And I started going after making some phone calls, having meetings, doing different things, asking for referrals, all the things, and guess what pipeline is now full again. And so now there’s a lot of stuff happening. And now if one doesn’t close, guess what, it’s okay, I got plenty of other things to work on.

Rob 5:22
And maybe it’s not enough quality leads. So that’s again, you may become a little bit eager. If you don’t have enough good quality leads, I want you to take a look at your list of your leads, go through every one of them. Is this a high quality or low quality?

Rob 5:35
I like to I like to weight them a little bit, I like to say, alright, are are they engaging? In other words, do they engage with me appropriately, if I reach out to they respond, if I reach out, nobody responds, and it’s been that way for three months, guess what they’re interested. And then it’s time to close it out with an email, right. But if they’re interested, they’re high, so you’re making them one to 10. If one is low and high as a 10, then you know that, okay, they’re really they’re engaging with me, then you’re going to 8, 9, 10, whatever those might be.

Rob 6:04
And on the flip side of that is the big enough dollar amount for me to be able to continue to pursue. So if the dollar amounts low, it’s a 1, if it’s high, it’s 10.

Rob 6:13
Now multiply those two numbers together. And that’s when you get this as a good quality lead. Think of it this way, if you have an eight and the size of the sale, and they’re also engaging with me, so they’re also an eight or a nine, let’s take two eights, that’s 64, right.

Rob 6:27
But if I have somebody that the dollar amount is very, very, very low, that might be a two and an eight, because they’re still engaging, because they’re, you know, they want the product or service. So that’s 16, which one should I pursue? Now, you probably do that mentally. But by putting a number assigned to it in your CRM system, you suddenly can very quickly visually see, this is one more important than the other one. And I should nurture that one better.

Rob 6:53
So if you become a little bit too eager, take a look at the quality of your leads, by ranking them that way, and then start looking at the lower number ones. And do you need to really pursue those, get rid of those, because by pursuing those, you’re wasting your time when you should be working on bringing in other higher quality leads, that will pay off and be worth your time.

Rob 7:12
So that doesn’t mean you go after the big, big dollar ones only. But that just means make it a little bit more than what it is. And by doing that, you’re going to end up with a better quality pipeline to work through. And you’ll feel better for that.

Rob 7:25
And that goes back to have you qualified them properly. When you think about deals not closing, are they really qualified to buy? Should they even be qualified to talk to you should they even be talking to you really was what it comes down to? Right.

Rob 7:37
So the other thing that can that can hit your situation where if you have a sales slump is could be you’re basically what I’m coming down to here is the pipeline, right? You don’t have enough leads. So remember, the activities that you do are the things that drive the results. So if you’re not going out and networking, you’re not making the phone calls, you’re not connecting, you’re not doing differently things on LinkedIn, asking for referrals, all the basic things that you know, do the things that you’re supposed to do to get you the results that you need. That’s going to be a problem.

Rob 8:04
And so you need to evaluate very quickly did I do the things I’m supposed to be doing today? Or did I waste too much time, I currently and have continued to have a calendar in my office. And at the finish of each day, I have a checklist as I go through the day. But as the finish I go through the day, I either get a red or a green, I do that to myself.

Rob 8:22
A red means I did not do everything I was supposed to. And you know what, it’s okay to have red days, you can have a red day here and there, it’s okay, you’ve got to do other things. Sometimes you got to enter books, stuff, you got to you got to take notes on things, you got to attend different things that you have no choice to do, right. But then there’s other things that you have to do and you should be doing, that’s when you get a green and you should have more greens than red.

Rob 8:42
If you’re having more greens than red, you’ll get sales eventually, if you have no greens and a lot of reds, you’re not gonna get any sales.

Rob 8:49
Action drives results.

Rob 8:51
And a layer on top of that is your attitude. If you have a good attitude, meaning you have the right attitude frame of reference, you know that you can do the work, you know that you can do the sale, you have confidence in what you understand will have what they need from you, you will get better results.

Rob 9:06
The other question I would ask from Your pipeline standpoint, and where I say you don’t have enough leads possibly is how many cold calls are you doing? Now, sometimes cold calls aren’t that great to do, right? They don’t give you a lot of results. But here’s the thing. When you start doing a few of those, you start to realize I’m doing the activities I should be doing. And that’s more important than doing nothing and worrying right?

Rob 9:30
So you’re better off doing something than nothing. And if you haven’t done any cold calls in a while, I might recommend that as soon as you finish this episode, you set your headphones down, so to speak, and you make some phone calls, find three possible calls that you could have as potential clients and just call them just pick up the phone call right now.

Rob 9:50
If you if you literally went grab your phone, dial the phone number, hit send and go and didn’t think you’re stuck. You gotta you got to talk to him now. So just do it. Go Go call three people. That’s it. that you’ve never spoken to and just call them it makes a difference in your mindset.

Rob 10:03
Oh, I know what you’re thinking. I can’t call right. I don’t have my list ready? I don’t have my list. Well, guess what? It’s your pipeline, make a list of 10 right now spend no more than one hour making the list, set a timer, identify why you’re calling their possible pains, create three questions that they have a way that they can say no to. Disqualify them right away.

Rob 10:23
When they don’t say no, you now have a lead. That’s as simple as it is.

Rob 10:27
Decision stalling could be another thing that’s causing some of the sales, slowdown or slump, they just take for ever. So here’s the question I would ask you, did you really have all the decision makers at the table? I’ll bet you are missing somebody in their company, their organization that they did not tell you about? So circle back.

Rob 10:49
If somebody’s taking a lot of time circle back here. Are you waiting on another decision from somebody before you can make this decision? Because I forgot to ask you that, right? Those are the kinds of things you need to find out? Do you have somebody on the inside that’s guiding you? Well, if they’re guiding you, and they’re stalling, they’re probably waiting, if there’s a problem with somebody else to ask them some questions, or are they really not guiding you? And they’re just making you feel that way? That’s a possibility.

Rob 11:12
You need to find out whether or not that’s the case or not? Again, I go back to pain. What did I say about pain earlier? How does it help them? How does it hurt them? How much is it costing them? Why is this important? Now, who else might did this impact? What happens if it gets fixed? All those questions, go back and ask those questions.

Rob 11:31
Again, if you can get that meeting again. You know, I’m sorry, we missed some things here. I thought maybe I understood it. But you know, it doesn’t sound like you’re you guys are ready to make any sort of buying decisions here right now. So maybe it’s maybe it’s something I didn’t understand. You mentioned this, is that true? Yes, that’s true. Okay. Well, I you know, how much is that? It’s not gonna cause you a problem if you don’t fix that, because I thought that was an issue, but maybe it’s not.

Rob 11:54
No you know what, it’s not an issue anymore. Okay. Now, you know, right, you’re gonna eliminate people in your pipeline, very quickly by doing that, which is what you want. Because the more room there is in your pipeline, the more new stuff that can get into it, it’s really important that you have a clearer understanding of what’s going to happen next. That’s the other piece.

Rob 12:10
So decision stalling usually happens, because they’re stalling on their end. And that’s not true. What’s happening is as you expected them to make a decision. But you didn’t clarify that with them. So here’s a good example.

Rob 12:23
I had somebody that I was talking to who said they were working on something with a project with a client, and the clock, The clock on that was three months. And so they worked on it for three months. And as they neared the end of the third month, they said to me, you know, I’m just gonna send them an email that basically says, I want to continue to work with you, I really enjoyed doing this work. You know, let me know if you want to continue.

Rob 12:46
And I said, why would you say that, like, you need to, first of all, you need to pick up the phone, you need to talk to the person, because that’s you. It’s a relationship, it’s not anything else. And you when you pick up that phone, and you do that making that phone call, basically, what you’re going to say is, hey, I don’t suppose there’s going to be any reason why you’d want to continue to work together.

Rob 13:04
And guess what, what does that do? That gives them out to say, “No, I don’t think there is any way.” Okay, that’s what I thought it makes you save face, you don’t have to worry about looking like an idiot. Right.

Rob 13:12
Second, by asking that question. They may go, you know, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe we could continue because I really liked what you were doing with this, this and this. Okay, tell me more. Why did you like that part? What was good about it? What was bad about it? All those things.

Rob 13:24
Now you’re engaged in a real sales conversation, again, to renew and it’s a lot easier to renew than it is to find a brand new, right. So make sure you have a clear understanding of what’s happening next. Don’t be wishy washy in your questions or leaving things at the end of your meeting.

Rob 13:39
Your job is at the end of a meeting or a conversation. Hey, I’m sorry, I thought I understood something here. But what what’s next? What do we do next? Like Are we just is that it? Is that the end of our conversation? Are we going to connect again next week? Or we’re going to connect next month, six months, eight months? 10 years? I don’t know what is it? Like? Ask the question. They’ll tell you.

Rob 13:58
And sometimes they laugh when they when you ask them that. But sometimes they don’t. They just like yeah, no, that’s good point, we should schedule that. And so they will schedule a date in the future. I had a situation where they said we cannot do this now because we don’t have the budget setup for it. But our budget starts on October 1. And so on July 1, we start setting the budget. And what I would like to do is talk to you in July, and this was back in February.

Rob 14:19
And I said well, what happens in July, okay, but they set the budget, okay? We get into July. And now we’re going to talk about budgets and different things that they want to do. Now we’re having that conversation, but we’re going to bring pain into that conversation. So I understand what they’re looking for and why they’re doing it, how much it’s gonna cost them by not doing it.

Rob 14:35
And then by having the budget conversation, they know what they need to allocate. And when they allocate the right amount, you know that when it comes time, you’re going to get the job because they have the budget budget set aside for it. That’s the key right? So you’ve got to know what your next steps are.

Rob 14:50
Because if I did not ask about the July situation, I would have been wondering why did they not tell me what was going on? Why are we not? If I did not ask I would have been waiting it to another person July, they would have called me out of the blue. And I would not have known that. Now I know it’s on my calendar, it’s on their calendar, I send them a calendar invite so that it’s on their calendar. And there’s no question.

Rob 15:07
The other thing that comes up sometimes when deals are stalling, is, do I keep calling, or should I just stop calling. And here’s the thing, you got to remember, a lot of potential buyers still need a lot of connecting time I call it, which what that basically means is touch points. So if you have a touch point in the beginning, where they have an initial conversation, and then it’s another conversation, and then it’s another conversation.

Rob 15:30
Sometimes different conversations, or different emails or messaging, different ways of communicating with each other, it may take 7 to 10 times to before they even make any sort of decisions. So don’t worry about calling too much, the more times you connect, the more likely they are going to work with you.

Rob 15:45
The other thing that you have to consider whether or not you stop calling, keep calling or not, is learning or understanding their DISC profile. So in your notes, you know, we talked about the the ranking system, you should also have a piece in there for your their DISC profile.

Rob 15:59
And so you need to know, are they a dominant personality? Are they an influencer? Are they a steady person? Are they a compliant person, so the dominant person is going to be a driver, they’re going to move fast, they want the bottom line, it’s not as big as a group of people as you think they’re more task focused, right? Those types of people.

Rob 16:16
In fact, there was a situation where we had to send an email as a company to somebody for some decisions on some things. But it was like the person writing it didn’t wasn’t a deep personality. And so he wanted to write out this long note and blah, blah, blah. And I said, No, no, no, this person’s a D, here’s what you need to say, this is what we’re going to do. Is that, okay, that’s all he needed to say.

Rob 16:34
And all of a sudden, because he had sent two emails before and never got a response from that person. And this time, he sent that that email that I told him to send them, and he got an a response within 15 minutes, because it was an easy, quick answer, he could give it he could make a decision and move on. That’s what that person needed.

Rob 16:50
And it’s really important that you communicate to the people, as you call as you email as you communicate, how to communicate the way that they want to be communicated with. Remember, dominants are quick people, they want to make decisions quick, they don’t need bullet points and all this stuff, right.

Rob 17:03
Influencers don’t mind a little fluff, they still want to see the basics of what you’re trying to get across. But their social, their people driven, they’re tough to focus sometimes. But they are more people focused. So you might have something that’s like, Hey, how’s it going, I hope everything’s going okay for you lately. You know, I know you went on vacation not too long ago, hope you had a good time. And then get to your point, it makes that connection happen.

Rob 17:26
The steady people, they’re team and family oriented, they’re long decision timelines, but they’re also people focused. So in your email, or in your conversations with them, you might be talking about their team and their family, and what what they’re working on now how their team is performing on certain pieces, whatever that might be. So that you can really get them to feel comfortable with you. And they focus on the team.

Rob 17:46
By the way, when you’re talking to an S, sometimes it helps if they have a D personality working from their person is probably flipped, frustrated. But when you bring that D person into the meeting with you, they can start making some decisions for that s a little bit faster. So they may be somebody that you can get referred over to and still get some decisions made.

Rob 18:04
And then the C, the compliant person, their detail their facts, figures, data driven their task focus, you’ve got to have your messaging, whether it’s calls, emails, any communication that you have with them, it’s gonna have to be a little bit more detail, it’s gonna be a little more drawn out more information, here’s facts, figures, here’s some data behind it, here’s why we decided to do it that way. Those are the things that you need to make sure you’re communicating correctly with those people.

Rob 18:25
When you do that, and you communicate with those people in their style, you will start to move them towards your sale faster.

Rob 18:34
But I gotta tell you, the top reasons you had a slump, you’re not doing the activities, you’re not eliminating leads, that’s your job, by the way, is finding and getting rid of deals, your job is to get rid of potential clients. Because the more you get rid of, the more the fact that the ones that are remaining are the ones that are actually going to do the work with you, right.

Rob 18:52
So you start eliminating people, you become more exclusive, but the people also who you are going to be working with, they want to be there because they’ve been pursuing you more than you’re pursuing them.

Rob 19:01
Your job is to eliminate the crap, the sooner you figure that out, the better you’ll become. Next, fill the pipeline. Don’t fill a pipeline with crap, fill it with people who have high rankings of decent dollar amount worth your time, it doesn’t mean that they have to be the highest, but also the ones that are engaging and the ones that want to be having the conversation with you.

Rob 19:21
Here’s the last point I would make. We’ve all been there. Don’t feel bad. My goal in this episode was to basically put my arm around you and kick in the butt and realize, you know what, you’re not doing the things you’re supposed to be doing. But you can still do it. It’s okay.

Rob 19:34
Everybody has a slump. I have a slump. Everybody has a slump at some point in time or another because you know what? It’s just like driving down a long road. You get tired after a while and you have to stop, have a quick bite to eat. Take a little rest and then refocus. And when you refocus. You’re focused on all of the right things.

Rob 19:52
If what I just shared with you helps, and you find yourself talking to somebody else who had the same situation. Share this with them. Sure. with them and say, Hey, this is something that might be helpful for you. But more importantly, earmark this one, bookmark it, make it so that if you ever have this issue come up for you again, you can come back to it and listen to it again.

Rob 20:10
Because believe me, when I put this one together, it was because I had hit a slump. And I was like, why is this happening? And I started to list out all the things, I started talking about it to myself and thinking, this is the things I need to Oh, yeah. And they started doing it. And guess what the slopes gone. And that’s the way it works, right?

Rob 20:26
You have to do the activities, and the nuances of them all is going to be the critical components. They’re all related. So do all of these pieces, and you’ll start to have it it doesn’t matter if your timeline is long on your sale, it’s going to take longer to get back to it. That’s okay. They’re gonna be close.

Rob 20:44
They’re gonna long sales, that’s okay. But it’s the sooner you’re going to get those things done, the sooner you can reach that sale. Alright, don’t forget, share the episode if you know somebody that needs his help. But until next time, slow down and close.

V/O 20:57
Thank you for listening to The Slow Pitch. Slow Down and Close More.

Rob 21:16
Thanks as always, for listening today. If you’d like this podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate it. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at The Slow Pitch. We were mixed today as always by Johnny Polakis. And we were produced by High Gravity Studios. Music credits and other notes are in the show notes section on TheSlowPitch.com And we’ll be back with another episode soon.