Selling with Sandra - how to smash that glass ceiling

When to walk away from a Prospect

October 03, 2022 Sandra Carder Season 1 Episode 21
Selling with Sandra - how to smash that glass ceiling
When to walk away from a Prospect
Selling with Sandra - Top secrets revealed.
Exclusive access to premium content!
Starting at $10/month Subscribe
Show Notes Transcript

When should you walk away from a prospect?

 When does opportunity cost tip the scales so that any more time spent is time and money down the drain?

Excellent Time management is the element that separates the Super Star Sales people from the rest, but what if you are wasting time on dead-end prospects?

 From experience I know it’s very hard to walk away from a client when there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

In this Episode I tell you exactly when and how to walk away from both a bad prospect and a bad deal using the Reverse Selling Method

 This episode is brought to you by M2 Morninga.  www.m2moringa.com.au

Visit our website at www.milliondollaragent.live and email me at sandra@milliondollaragent.info


Support the show

For the juicy dirt on the industry - subscribe now for the cost of a cup of coffee and get all the low down on the day to day!

Check out our new website at http://only-commercial.com.au
Also visit http://sellingwithsandra.com

Would you like to get into Commercial Real Estate?
Contact me on 0418 2222 57
Or Email Sandra on sandra@only-commercial.com.au


Follow Sandra on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Linkedin
#sellingwithsandra
#onlycommercial #cre
#milliondollaragent

Hey, hey, are you in sales? And you want to know how to smash that glass ceiling? Do you want to make more money than you ever thought was possible? You're in the right place. My name's Sandra Carder. I've been in commercial real estate for over two decades and I know how to. Sell. I'm going to teach you the habits, the formulas, the tips, the tricks, and the tools that you will need to be a superstar salesperson in whatever field you're in.

So, sit back, relax, tune in and listen to my podcast Million Dollar Agent and let's smash some glass ceilings together. This episode is brought to you by M2 Moringa. Million-dollar agents it’s Sandra again, welcome to episode 21. In this episode, we're going to talk about walking away from a prospect because they're no good, whether they're not actually going to buy anything from you or whether it's going to end badly.

There's always a reason to step away from something that's going bad [00:01:00] or that is wasting your time. Time is super precious, and we've talked about that in the Time Management Podcast, so you need to be really careful about what you're doing with your time, and if you're wasting time on a prospect that's wasting your time, then it's a waste of time and money just all round.

You need to get really good at ripping off the band aid and getting rid of the guys that are giving. The absolute runaround and who were never really going to buy from you in the first place, or sometimes a deal is not worth doing because the person you're dealing with is going to be so problematic, and the aftermath from actually getting the deal across the line is not worth it because you cannot please everybody.

There are some people that you can never please, and if you go down that road, they're going to be problematic… they're going to complain, they're going to tell everyone, you did a terrible job… even if you did and even if you didn't, [00:02:00] it doesn't really matter because of that type of personality, you have to, you have to sniff them out early, if that makes sense.

And when you first start off in sales, it's really hard to walk away from a prospect, especially if they're telling you the right things, but action speak way louder than words. If you keep phoning somebody up and they say, “Oh yeah, I need to talk to my business partner”, or” I need to talk to my wife,” or “I need to talk to my husband,” or “I need to do something else.” There's a really good chance that this person is not going to buy anything from you, so you need to call it out.

You need to put them on the spot and work out whether they're wasting your time, because time is money. You should have got to the eight touch points. We go through this in episode 14. There are touch points that you need to do with a particular prospect as a follow up. And if you're getting to touchpoint number eight and you are feeling like they're just making the same excuses, it's time to walk away.

Don't keep going with the prospect. [00:03:00] By all means, put them in the database and make a flag to call them in the future because some people might not be ready. There's lots of different circumstances in people's lives as to why they don't make a decision. If you get a good gut feel about the person, you might think it's a three-month call. It might be a six-month call. It might be a 12-month call. But stop wasting your time today because today is where you're going to make the money. You need to cross them off and don't feel disheartened because it might have been a big deal. And you might be feeling like I really thought that was in the bag.

But again, it's the rollercoaster ride, isn't it? Don't celebrate, ever celebrate a deal until the deal's done. So go through the prospects and collect them. Keep working on getting more prospects. Don't just have one egg in your basket and focus on that prospect and then run them to the ground. You need to have 20 eggs in the basket because 19 of them are probably going to be a bit rotten and there's going to be one good egg in there and you [00:04:00] need to work out quickly which egg you need to sit on.

So many cliches today, and I do apologize. Anyway, there is a methodology, it's called reverse selling method. So that's when you start to get a feel for a prospect that they're not really going to do anything and you actually put them on the spot and call out their bs. This comes from the Sandler Sales Method.

If you Google Sandler sales, they have a website where they do a whole bunch of sales training and you can do it online. They're based in America. They're like the guru of sales, for just general sales, not for commercial real estate or anything like that. 

 

But they do have a lot of tips on there but the reverse selling method is it goes a little something like this:

So, the prospect gives you an excuse and the prospect says, “Oh, you know what? I really like it, but um, I'm just a bit busy today.” or “can you call me back another time?” Or something like that. And it's just [00:05:00] some sort of fluffy excuse. You say something along the lines of, “well, you keep telling me this every time we're speaking…” and typically when somebody behaves like this or speaks to me like this, it generally means that they're not really that interested in proceeding.

Would that be a fair assumption? Now you have to pick your victim with this methodology because you can really offend somebody by saying this. But if you've got to touch point number eight and you're fairly confident that you can have a kind of an open discussion about what's going to happen next with the prospect.

This is a really good way to put them on the spot. And I do this with my projects as well, and I have a project, and this will blow your mind. It's in year four now. We have gone on and on and on. We're doing leases, we're doing selling the blocks, we’re doing all sorts of things with it, but it's still going.

It hasn't started construction yet, but sometimes you just have to put your [00:06:00] clients on the spot a little and put them under a bit of pressure and say, Hey, you know what? Well, should I make an assumption this project is dead now or are we going to keep going with it? And often they'll start to like, especially if you're not getting any attention and things are not happening quickly enough and you need answers for offers or whatever, then putting them on the spot, it certainly gets people's attention.

And a lot of people aren't used to that because the sales, I know hard sales is dead, and I've spoken about that and how you have to be friendly, but don't be a pushover and you need to be assertive. You don't need to be aggressive, but assertiveness can get you quite far cause people will respect that.

If you do put them on the spot and say, “Hey, you know what, I've heard this before and I think you have an a lend to me,” but say it in a nice way, you're probably going to get a, “you know what you're right. Right now's not a good time. This isn't going to happen. Can you call me back in six months’ time anyway?”

And [00:07:00] then you can just move on from that prospect and it's, you're not wasting any more time and you can get on with your day, get on with your business, get onto the guys that are actually going to matter. What typically happens in the era of the iPhone and the smartphone is that because people can see who you are now when you're calling them, like I'm old school, so I've come from headsets to iPhones, is they just stop answering your call and you might think they could be busy.

But if you ring that prospect, um, say four times, and they're not picking the call up, you've spoken to them enough times that they know who you are. That's a dead prospect, stop stalking them, stop ringing them like a crazy person and just put a line through it and you can even do what I've done and send them the text.

And this is the reverse selling method as well, where you send them a text and go, I've tried to make contact with you. I assume you're not interested in whatever I'm selling. [00:08:00] Hope you have a day, let me know if I can be of any service in the future. This person may have had a really good reason why they're not picking up the phone by the fourth phone call, and once you've sent this message, you're going to find out pretty quick that they were genuinely interested. They just have been under the pump. They might have family matters going on. They might be on holiday or they might be in the middle of a project that is taking up all their time anyway. It's a good way to flush this out if they don't respond, they were not interested and they might just say thank you and then move on.

Get onto the next prospect. Definitely work on the guys that are going to matter. Let's talk about the toxic client that is going to do the deal, but it's not worth doing the deal anyway because you are going to end up with more grief. There are personalities out there and you can't control who you're dealing with.

You're just going to end up meeting these people, and you've going to go with your gut instinct. [00:09:00] if you have a really bad feeling about somebody when you meet them, you need to be in touch with your intuition and step away because even if the deal gets done, you'll have this feeling in the pit of your stomach and I can read people a mile away and it's probably from doing this for such a long time that I've seen it all before and I've heard it all before.

And when you're dealing with a client that is being difficult in the beginning, you're going to have problems at the end. If you keep driving the deal and it's just you're getting heap of resistance and it's either a tenant or a buyer or even a vendor or whatever you're dealing with, whatever you are selling you, you just feeling that, that feeling in the pity of your stomach that it's not right, go with it.

Because there's going to be situations where you just end up putting [00:10:00] out more fires than you need to, so walk away from a bad deal. Do not push that deal through. I'm trying to think of an example I can give you. It's just I've seen it all again and again. Okay, so here's an example of something going a bit pear shaped and having a gut feel about something.

And I've, this has happened to me a few times. But I learned my lesson really quick. So just so you're doing an inspection for rental property and the tenant turns up and they're driving a very expensive motor vehicle and they get out of the car and there's just something about them that says associated with different organizations that they probably shouldn't be or they probably really wouldn't want them in as a tenant.

You know, they want to pay six months or 12 months upfront and they want to pay cash. The landlord's delighted. They think fantastic. You get this tenant into the building, you think [00:11:00] a deal's a deal? I'll just get the deal done. But when you met them and when you have a feeling about the deal and your gut feeling is this is going to end badly walk away. 

Because I tell you what's going to happen if you do that deal, tenant's going to move in when the rent's due to be paid. They're not going to pay it, number one. And number two, you're going to have trouble getting rid of the tenant and things can get a bit nasty. And your landlord's going to get stuck with a problem that could escalate to all sorts of different places.

You don't want to say anything because I've seen this happen and I've actually met tenants that when paper label would be fabulous, but my gut feel, my eyes, my senses. My gut feel says, do not do that deal because your landlord's going to have a headache later and the property might have been empty for six months.

It's still a bad idea, so go with your gut. walk [00:12:00] away because it's just not worth it. And it might not be even something like that. It might be even a reverse of that, where the landlord's going to be problematic. You've made a landlord and they just seem over the top, high maintenance, everything's problematic.

And you think, oh, just get the a tenant and it'll be fine. Once you put that tenant in, what do you think is going to happen with a personality like that, It's going to just keep going. The deal's never going to be done because there's always going to be something wrong, and there's just people out there you cannot please, and I've tried, believe me, and I just know sometimes you need to walk away.

Walk away for your own sanity, your own peace of mind and your own success, because really, A bad deal is going to be so time consuming and so draining and so disheartening for your career that you want to avoid [00:13:00] situations that you probably had a feeling they were going to end up that way, and if you don't trust your gut, it's going to happen.

And then you'll start to hate what you're doing, and we don't want you to do that. I want you to absolutely love sales because sales is a fabulous lifestyle. It's a fabulous career, and you can make a lot of money. Clearly that's why you're listening to my podcast because you listen and learn from my mistakes.

Don't do the deal for the sake of the deal. Don't chase the prospects that are going to end badly and don't taste the prospects that dead ends Anyway, so that's about it. That's a wrap really for episode. 21. So what's the key? Don't keep wasting your time with prospects. Reverse sell. Flush them out. Put them on the spot.

Find out their agenda. Move on. Don't do bad deals, walk away, walk away from bad deals, as well as bad prospects because it's just time consuming and time is money. So, yeah. That's it. That's it. That's a [00:14:00] wrap. Thank you so much for listening to episode 21. I really appreciate it. You have no idea. I'm so grateful that you're here and I'm hoping that you are picking up a few tips, and if you've been around in the industry for a long time, I know some of you are listening.

I love your feedback. Thank you so much for calling me and giving me encouragement to keep going with it and you probably know way more than I do, sometimes it's good to just reinforce this stuff. So that's it for episode 21. My name's Sandra Carder. I'm a commercial real estate agent. You can find me on the Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn under Sandra Carder commercial agent.

Keep selling hard. Walk away from a bad deal or a bad prospect and smash that. Ceiling