What should small business owners do when potential prospects give us excuses?

Ashley, the owner of a regional software company, makes several calls a week to new potential prospects to request a meeting and demonstrate her company’s product. She gets lots of voice mails, speaks to lots of gatekeepers and sends a lot of emails with no response.

Every once in a while – statically five out of 100 – she will reach a potential prospect live. When she does, she is so excited that she doesn’t even recognize the excuse.

6 Sales Excuses, Revealed

There are several excuses that a prospect will give you or members of your sales team. Interestingly enough, you will likely not see them as excuses and believe them.

Here are several examples that are almost always an excuse and not the truth. Let’s look at them one at a time:

1. The Excuse: “Why don’t you send me or email me something?”

The Translation: “It’s easier to ignore you through email.” If a prospect were truly interested, he or she would take at least a few minutes and talk to you right then, just to determine if there is a need.

2. The Excuse: “I’m in a meeting.”

The translation: “I have no time to talk and I’m hoping this illusion of interruption will get you off of the phone quickly.” I love this one! So, you are in an actual meeting in your office, you don’t know who’s calling, but you pick up the phone anyway? Seriously? Salespeople fall for this one all of the time! At this point, the salesperson keeps calling, but the prospect now knows the phone number through caller ID and will just avoid the call.

3. The Excuse: “We don’t have a budget at this time.”

The translation: “I just don’t see the benefit, and having no money will make you go away, at least for a while.” Money is an interesting thing. People will find money for what they determine will bring them value. We often blow this one by trying to quickly show how our product will save them or make them money. The response: Yeah, right! (It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not; you can’t shove your idea of value down a throat on a phone call.)

4. The Excuse: “Call me after our third quarter ends.”

The translation: “Wow! I just put you off for at least a few months.” Salespeople like this one because it gives them something they can follow up on – at least in their mind. This is where follow-up, in my opinion, becomes stalking. The salesperson keeps calling when this date arrives, and the prospect will not even remember she told you to call, let alone meant it when she said it.

5. The Excuse: “We’re good right now, but you can check back.”

The translation: See the previous translation. I say gee, thank you so much for allowing me to check back! You must really like me or be interested, etc. (Yeah, right.)

6. The Excuse: “I’ll think it over and let you know.”

The translation: “I have no intention of reaching back out to you, but I asked for the next move to be done by me.” This is no move, but many people happily agree and wait and wait. What’s funny is they would rather take any of these excuses than hear whatever the real truth is – most commonly, “No.”

When you get comfortable with asking right up front for a “No” as an option, you wouldn’t waste so much time, energy and lost control of the sales process.

Greta Schulz is a sales consultant for businesses and entrepreneurs. For more tips and tools, or to ask her a question, go to Facebook.com/schulzbusiness or email Greta.

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