• You won’t feel compelled to continue talking after asking the question if you force yourself to pause. People don’t always immediately answer, and pausing gives them the opportunity to think a bit.
• The number and length of responses will increase. People feel more comfortable when you give them
  time to frame their answers, which will likely be more comprehensive.
• The amount of unsolicited information will increase. By not jumping in immediately after they’ve answered, they’re given a little time to contemplate what they’ve just said, which may prompt additional comments.
• You’ll have more time to understand what they’ve said. Since you know you’re going to pause, you can spend
  all of your listening time focused on the message, not on what you will say next.
• You’ll have more time to formulate your next comment. You can use your pause time to develop your next question or statement, which will be more meaningful, since you’ll possess more relevant information.

Words of wisdom for this week.

“Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.” Emerson

So, what’s the set-up?

I guarantee that you have been set up at least once in your career and I’ll bet you’re getting set up more frequently and don’t even recognize it anymore.

The set-up is when a client or prospect has no intentions of buying from you now or in the near future, but leads you down that lonesome discouraging sales path for any number of reasons or agendas – mostly personal on their part.

Here are a few examples.

1) Your prospect is willing to see you after you inform them of your services and or products. You ask a variety of probing questions and their answers seem logical and that they have a need and a desire to do business (the set up continues). After giving your presentation, various features and benefits, the prospect asks you for a written proposal.

You go to work and due the due diligence in order to provide this. You then meet with them and discuss your proposal and they tell you that they will need to consider it. You ask what their decision process is and they tell you a few weeks.

You call after the allotted time and get a stall. You call again in another week and get another stall. You call yet again and they are in a meeting and you leave a message. They don’t return your call. Get the picture?

Finally you learn that they have decided to renew their contract with their current vendor. Their intention all along? Using you just to test the market and the integrity of their current vendor? Happens all the time. You wasted time, energy and resources for what? The set-up.

2) Your prospect says they are very interested in your products and services. They like what they see and they are going to make a decision soon. They ask you to send additional materials, examples, samples, brochures. You comply. You follow-up and they ask for more evidence, materials etc. You comply.

This process goes on for weeks and you keep complying. Why? I haven’t got a clue.

What can you do to prevent getting caught by the set-up? There hundreds of these scenarios but they usually end the same – the set-up, wasted time, effort, energy, materials and lot’s and lot’s of false hope.

Consider for a moment. When do you think many of these prospects set you up; when you made your first appointment with them, after your initial meeting, after they hear your price or terms, after they talk with references . . . who knows. The question is when did they decide they were not going to do business with you and set you up for whatever reason – after your presentation? After your first follow-up?

All I can tell you is when you get enough of these and finally decide that your time is more valuable than just giving it away on empty promises, you will finally change your approach.

The answer is discovering the prospect’s real intention early in the sales process and the only way to do that is ask enough of the right questions and not proceed one more step down this path until you are confident they are being honest and open about their needs, wants, answers to your questions.

I’ll guarantee if you look back at the times you were set up it’s because you didn’t ask enough of the right questions or you believed some of their answers even though they were suspect.

About The Author:

Tim Connor, CSP World renowned Speaker, Trainer and best selling author of 67 titles, Box 397, Davidson, N.C. 28036 USA, 704-895-1230 (voice) - 704-895-1231 (fax) - tim@timconnor.com (email) - www.timconnor.com (Website)