Your customer tells you “I will get back to you”. Did they? What is your least favorite response from a prospect? For me its “I will get back”. Why? Because when a prospect says that 90% of the time they won’t, and you will never hear from them again. Does this sound familiar to you?
When a prospect says that to me, I just recognize it as a no, and then move on to the next prospect People don’t like playing the role of a bad guy. People like to leave room for themselves just in case they decide to go forward with the deal. Prospects are just like that.
Why do prospects say I will get back to you? In general, it’s about 3 things. The money, they don’t see the value, or they have no urgency. The money means that your product or services are too expensive for them. The prospect is not seeing the value that you provide means that they feel like the return on investment is not sufficient enough to go forward. No urgency means that the issue that they are experiencing is not urgent enough for them to act now or maybe they don’t see it as an issue at all.
How do you deal with it when the prospect responds back in this way. Do you just believe in their promise and pray that they will get back to you? There is no right answer to this. Who knows, they might just get back to you, telling you congratulations, let’s move forward with this deal. For me, I just recognize it as a no. Yes, there are exceptions but under normal circumstances, I recognize it as a no. To prevent this from happening I always try to be upfront with my prospect. I tell the prospect either through an email or a phone that the purpose of reaching out is to find out if we are going through with the deal or not. I tell the prospect that please don’t tell me “I will get back to you”. When people do that, they usually don’t get back. Therefore, please tell me if it is yes or no. It is perfectly fine if it is no. However, if it is a no, please do me a favor by telling me “why?”. Usually, when I say this, I turn an “I will get back to you” into a “no, because…”. I now know the reason behind the rejection, and I can adjust my product and services accordingly depending on my strategy. I feel like it is a much better approach than waiting for the prospect that never calls back or writes back.