CC21-12-01 Why Interested Prospects Go Silent

Amy 0:00
I can go. So we are having, and again, this is the trade show world kind of being up in the air, but we're having people that are ready to go 100%. We're rocking and rolling, and then they fall off the face of the earth, and they ghost. They're just like ghosting us, and we can't get a hold of them. And it's been a couple in the past couple of weeks.

Ian Altman 0:20
So Amy, why do you think that is?

Amy 0:24
I don't know. They didn't like the cookies I sent them? No. I mean, I think it may be personal. They're just not even sure if they're going to be showing, and so they're just not answering because they're not sure themselves.

Ian Altman 0:39
So if you could, give me the context of, in one of the examples, of how people reached out to you, and then what those interactions were like before they went silent.

Amy 0:54
John might want to jump in. One of them found us, I think, or John, you connected with one, the one company, and we presented a couple options. They loved them. They presented them to the managers. They said absolutely. We're gonna move forward. We'll get with you next week with the art and get this started. And then another week and then another week.

Ian Altman 1:16
So by when do they need to have these tradeshow booths, and what happens if they don't get them by that date? Do you know the date by when they have to have these?

Amy 1:27
Yep.

Ian Altman 1:28
Okay. So you got info as to when they need to have them?

Amy 1:35
Yep, hard deadlines.

Ian Altman 1:37
Okay. And what happens if they don't if they don't get them?

Amy 1:42
I mean, it means they're not going to get it. We have hard deadlines, so they can't get it. Or they'll have to go somewhere else or not have anything at all.

Ian Altman 1:52
I understand that. So one of the things that the most oftentimes, what we find to be the most dangerous opportunities are the ones where, basically, someone calls in, and it sounds like a laydown. It's like, oh, we know, we want this stuff. We want your help. Can you give us a quote on this? Here's what we need. Give us some of your ideas. You give them the ideas. You present this proposal to them, and then they go silent. Is that kind of similar to what you went through?

Amy 2:21
Sometimes. Yep. Yep.

Ian Altman 2:23
Okay. And so, sometimes, Amy, what happens in that scenario is we get somebody who they're excited about, you know, they found somebody, but they may be talking to multiple vendors, and we don't necessarily have a sense of what the real catalyst is for them. And so one of the things that we, and you may have already done this, but I just want to suggest that for everyone's benefit is, when people call in, okay, so tell me about this show. What happens if you don't get it done by this time frame? What happens if this doesn't happen or that doesn't happen? Why is it something that you know you need by this time frame? So it's almost we're playing the role of skeptic, so they're convincing us. Because right now, when you follow up with them, what's the message you're sharing with them on your follow-up? What are you asking them today? When you're following up or John's following up, what is it that you guys are saying to them?

Amy 3:18
John, you got feedback on that?

Unknown 3:22
What client are you talking about?

Unknown Speaker 3:25
The booth for a Shot Show that went away. 5150

Unknown 3:33
So 5150 They're a manufacturer of Part Four firearms. Um, I connected with the guy through LinkedIn. He messaged me like the next day, saying, hey, we need to we need a booth design for the Shot Show. It's coming up in January. So we would have had to have everything done, designed, and produced, and shipped out, you know, within the next couple of weeks. He was 100% in. He got us all of his logos, his designs, everything. And then, in the last two weeks, I can't get a hold of them through email. We, you know, we gave him pricing, and he said everything looks good. And then we did designs, and you know everything. And now I can't hold of him. I just can't get ahold of them anymore through email. What?

Ian Altman 4:16
John, what are their alternatives? If you don't get them, if you don't give them your booth, what would they do instead?

Unknown 4:25
Get it from somebody else.

Ian Altman 4:27
Okay. But, I guess my question is this, did you ask them that question that says, Well, if you decide not to do this, what will you guys do?

Unknown 4:36
He said he was coming to us because he didn't like the guy they used previously.

Ian Altman 4:41
So when you follow up when you've followed up the last couple of weeks, what have been your messages to try and get him? What questions have you asked, or what's been the nature of your emails?

Unknown 4:55
I'm just trying to get a hold to touch base with the guy. His cell phone goes right to voicemail, and the emails have not been answered at all. Just basically just saying, hey, you know, we need to move forward with this. We'd like to finish your designs -- stuff like that. So, nothing. And I mean, we were calling and texting each other non-stop for a few weeks, and then it just stopped.

Ian Altman 5:15
Yeah. So keep in mind, a few things could have happened. One is life could have happened. There could have been some tragedy in his family. There could have been something that went on with the business. The show could have been canceled. You know, with a new variant, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, we're not going to go to the event. Whatever. Any of those things are certainly possible. The key right now is that by you not hearing from them, we don't want to make it sound like, hey, we're just calling to check in to see if you made a decision yet. Hey, we just want to make sure that you get this deal executed because that's all about us. And so the slight variation we want to have is, hey, when we spoke, you mentioned you had this trade show, and you had this date, and it sounded like that was really important to you. I want to make sure we haven't dropped the ball. If you've decided to go in another direction, please let me know that. If this is still a priority, we'd need to move really quickly if we're gonna have a shot at getting this done. So please let me know either way because I want to make sure we haven't dropped the ball. So that way, what you're doing is you're saying, hey, I want to make sure we didn't drop the ball on this because it sounded like it was really important to you. So that our interest is not in the sale. Our interest is in getting them what they said they needed. What they convinced you at the time was really important. So a lot of when we go through the Same Side Quadrants, the idea is that early on, we're going to ask people questions to get them to convince us why this is so important. It sounds like you got to a lot of that. But part of it is getting from them, so let's say that you just, you know, that this doesn't get done. You have a booth, right? You have something that you can show up at the trade show with? Yes. So is that the end of the world? And what we want to hear from them is, oh, yeah, if we do that, it's going to cost us a ton of business. Okay, so now, your alternative is something that's going to cost you a ton of business. Then I get to follow up and say, you mentioned that if you didn't have this, it would cost you a bunch of business. I want to make sure we haven't dropped the ball. If you've decided to go another direction, totally fine. Let us know that because when our clients tell us they have a deadline, we take that really seriously. And that says you are following up for their reasons, not for our reasons and in you're more likely to get a response. You can also have a little empathy and say, look, between the holidays, I know we had a lot of dialogue going on, and then all of a sudden, we didn't hear from you. Um, the first thought that went through my head is, oh, my God, hopefully, there wasn't any kind of catastrophe or issue or health issue with anyone in your family. You know, certainly, if that's the case, let us know how we can help. I hope you're okay. So like, you're showing that it's not, you're not calling about the sale. You have a genuine interest in them and the business issues that they raised. That make sense?

Unknown 8:17
Yeah, it does.

Ian Altman 7:59
I mean, it's just, it's one of those things, because our knee-jerk reaction is, you jerk, we busted our tail, we did all this work, and now you're not returning my phone calls. Because when we, what we see through our lens, that's what's going on. I did all this work for you, and now you're not even giving me the courtesy of returning my phone call. You're a jerk. The reality is that we don't want to eliminate the opportunity that there could be something that he's got genuine interest. And God forbid, the guy was in an auto accident or someone whose family all of a sudden was an accident, and we're like, indignant that they haven't gotten back to us and he's dealing with a family crisis. Then we look like jerks. So, if we reach out with interest about them personally and their business objectives and say, Hey, we want to make sure we didn't drop the ball. If you decide to go another direction, just let us know that because we take these deadlines really seriously. We want to make sure we hadn't dropped the ball because it sounded like this was important. More often than not, you'll get a response within a day. Even from somebody you haven't heard from in a while. If it's, hey, I want to touch base with you on this thing to see where we're at because, you know, we really need to get this order in, you're probably not getting the response from someone. All we're trying to do is get to the truth. So if, in fact, they want to move on this stuff, I guess he is going to have to pay expedite fees, and you may not even be able to get it done in time, but he's got to get this thing done in the next day or so.

Unknown 9:22
How many attempts would you make at someone? Like if they're, if you can't, if they don't respond to that last email you send them, do you just try them again, or do you just leave them be?

Ian Altman 9:22
So if they don't respond to that last email, then I would probably send, if you're communicating via text also, I'd send a text that says, hey, I want to make sure you're okay. I sent you an email. If this is no longer a priority, let me know. I want to make sure we haven't dropped the ball. If you do it that way, if you don't get a response, then I would say that something probably happened personally, and you'll find out later that he or someone in his family is in a hospital or whatever it is. When you do it that way, I've had one time last 13 years where someone didn't get a response to an email like that. So you could be the second, but probably not.

The last email I sent them gave them the deadline for getting this moving, and there was no response.

But what did it say?

I don't know. I'd have to go back and find the email.

So my point is if it's, Hey, this a deadline if we're gonna get this done, so you got to get this order back to us. So if you read it, and you think yourself, well, they could be thinking that this is about that the focus is on the sale, then they may not get back to you, because that's following-up for our reasons, not their reasons. If we say, Look, this stuff's important. I want to make sure we hadn't dropped the ball. I want to make sure if this is no longer a priority, that we don't focus time and effort on it because we don't want to be focusing on stuff that isn't important to you. And for whatever reason, if you decide to go another direction, that's fine. We just want to make sure that we're not that we haven't neglected a follow-up, that our email didn't end up in spam or something like that, and that we're not serving your needs. If you decide to go another direction, totally fine. So now your text message becomes, I want to make sure our message didn't end up in your spam folder because it sounded like it was important. Since I haven't heard back, I want to make sure we haven't dropped the ball. Now it's like, think about it, if it was someone that Amy was totally trying to blow off, but they send that kind of message, she would probably get back to him and be like, yeah, it's not you, we just decided to go another direction. Thanks. And it's not gonna be a 40-minute phone call. It's gonna be a 40-second phone call, but she'd at least give him the time of day, even if it was a vendor she didn't want to deal with. But if the vendor was saying, Hey, Amy, I just want to check in and see where you're at on this deal, she's not going to get back to him because it's like, yeah, I'm not doing the deal with you. So I don't want to have that conversation. As soon as you say, Gee, I feel like maybe we dropped the ball and we haven't done X, Y, and Z, and we want to make sure we've done this, but if you've gone another direction, it's totally okay. Unless the person is a sociopath, they're gonna get back to you and say, oh, yeah, hey, sorry, it wasn't you. Yeah, I dropped the ball, and we decided not to do this right now. Or something came up personally, and we didn't do it. I will tell you that with clients, I've got many stories over the years of someone who was pissed off because someone didn't get back to them, only to find out that they've been in the hospital with their child for the last three weeks and you're like, Man, I'm glad I didn't send the snarky note.

Amy 12:27
Yeah. Thanks, Ian.

Ian Altman 12:30
Does that give you some, and do you see the kind of the subtle differences of one is, I'm focused on the deal and the sale, and the other is I'm focused on did we drop the ball? That difference is what's going to make them receptive versus not receptive.

I just texted him right now.

Okay. What so what was the text? Now I've got to know. I've got to know what the text was.`

Unknown 12:59
Alright. Keith, we haven't heard from you in a while. I've been trying to get in touch. The deadline is approaching for the show coming up in January. I just want to make sure we didn't drop the ball on anything. Hope all is well. Let me know.

Ian Altman 13:11
Okay. So even there.

I didn't sent it yet. I'm writing it so I can stop.

So don't send it yet. Because what we want to say is, what's the guy's name? What was the first name? Keith? A Hey, Keith. When we last spoke, you had this deadline. It sounded important. I wanted to make sure I hadn't dropped the ball because it sounded important. If you decide to go another direction, please let me know. If you'd still like our help, we need to move pretty quickly. Please let me know either way.

Unknown 13:48
Done.

Ian Altman 13:50
Okay. So that's the idea. And then just let me know what kind of response. It would be kind of cool if he gets back to you before this session is over.

Unknown 13:58
I'll let you know.

Ian Altman 13:59
And if not, well, it won't be as good of a story, but if he gets back during the session, that'll be magic.

Unknown 14:05
All right. Thank you.

Ian Altman 14:06
So Hey, John. They didn't get back to you did they?

Unknown 14:10
Yeah, he did. And it's kind of perfect timing for what you're saying too. I guess what we didn't do is get the business partner involved in this because he just said thanks for following up. I've been crazy busy. My partner found a booth for us for a certain amount of money, so we bought it, so he went ahead and bought it on Monday. Last Monday. So I said okay, no problem. I'll see you at the shows. We're gonna be at the show. I'll stop by and say hi. He said absolutely. Really looking forward to meeting you. That's the end of it.

Ian Altman 14:37
Okay. Okay. So the good news is A. we came up with something and got a response in, what was it, five minutes? Something like that, John?

Yeah, a few minutes.

Yeah, a few minutes. Okay. So we've been trying to reach them for weeks. We crafted a little bit differently, and now, we got a response in a few minutes. Our goal was to get to the truth, so even though we don't like that answer, because we would prefer they bought it from us, at least now we're not going to waste time pursuing it. And the question that you could have from now is, look, if, you know, if you still want to include something that's catchy from a graphic standpoint, you know, are the graphics going to captivate the people? Now you've got the booth. Is the design exactly what you hoped for, or do you want to try and get something that's going to attract more people?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai