The 3 Reasons Your Prospects Don’t Buy Your Stuff

There are 3 major reasons why prospects who are happy to listen to you pitch your product or service – but don’t end up buying your stuff.

After you’ve dismissed all the prospects who genuinely couldn’t afford what you were offering – followed by the ones who didn’t believe you could solve their specific needs – then you are left with the most common reason of them all – and it’s the easiest one to fix (if you’re willing to acknowledge the cause).

You see, after we’ve cleared out the first two, what you’ve got left is the prospects who didn’t buy off you because you just didn’t care enough – and even if you think you did, the prospect didn’t feel it.

And if the prospect’s perception is reality – then reality says

You didn’t care enough.

If selling is a transference of feelings (and it is) – then, how much you care about solving my problem – and how much you care about it actually working after you’ve left the room and spent my commission – will be having a huge effect on your success rate.

At Lucrum House we’re passionate about this part of the sales process (it’s the E in Selling with EASE; Earn the Right) – mostly because it’s the right thing to do – but also because it has a dramatic effect on so many salespeople missing their target.

The “Win / Win” Mentality

If you’ve read Stephen Coveys “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” you’ll know that habit number four is “Think Win / Win”.

In a sales situation, it’s where we achieve our targets and goals while intentionally helping our prospects achieve their targets and goals with the aid of our business solution.

As Zig Ziglar said;

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

However, in my experience, the most common alternative to Win/Win is what I like to refer to as;

“I’ve got to Win / I Hope You – Whatever”.

It’s not that people necessarily want their customer to lose (or even that customers want their suppliers to go out of business) – it’s just that whether the person on the other side of the table wins or loses doesn’t matter as much as getting the WIN that they want.

I think in everyday sales life it translates out like this;

“I’m going to Win / And You? Actually, I hadn’t really considered whether you might win or not, or even if this product is right for you. Not that I wish you any harm! I’m not a bad person! I’m just a bit busy and my boss is on my back to find three more prospects just like you – and boy, if you had my debts, you’d be really pushing for this sale.”

But is “Win / Win” Really A Viable Option?

In the 7 Habits, Covey offers a few other alternatives;

Win / Lose

You Win / Customer Loses.

It doesn’t take a sales genius to realise this isn’t really a long term plan. One day you’re just going to run out of customers (or go to prison).

Lose / Win

You Lose / Customer Wins.

Ooops, there goes the business!

Lose / Lose

You Lose / Customer Loses

I’ll let you work out what’s wrong with that picture.

Listen, if you walk in and genuinely care about helping me achieve my hopes, dreams, targets, goals, ideal bank balance or public status – then I might have the conversation with you that I’m not having with everyone else and possibly give you my business.

And do you know why?

Because the others don’t care enough – in fact, precious few people ever care enough about anything.