Getting the answer…

I’m sure you’ve experienced this:

You’ve had the meeting and prepared the proposal

You have sent the proposal and discussed it

… but your client won’t make up their mind

You try calling…

You leave messages…

But still you get no reply…

Now what?

First of all, 2 things you should NOT do:

Ignore the situation

If you do this you will, over time, end up with more and more ‘loose ends’ clogging up your business – they need dealing with.

Assume the worst

Believe it or not, just because someone isn’t responding doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t interested. If you assume this is the case you will be missing out on potential business.

How to deal…

This is my tip for dealing with this situation. I have used it (in various guises) for many years and it really does work.

First of all it is reasonable to assume that if you have left messages asking far a response, your client will have received these – so they know you are trying to get in touch. I started off using  a fax – yes it was that long ago.

Take a look here, it is pretty self explanatory:

You simply fax the form to your client then, job done! You have ‘passed the responsibility’ to them. If they choose not to reply then so be it – it is fair to delete them from your prospect list, but – and this is the good bit – in my experience you often do get a reply and that reply is regularly quite positive. Even if they aren’t ready to do business now, you have a good, established contact for the future.

Getting up to date:

Nowadays, faxes are so last year! The same process can work using e-mail but don’t try to be clever and embed a tick-box form into you e-mail, this can play havoc with Spam filters.

If it is a client who you know reasonalbly well, I find a simple, two word e-mail can do the trick:

Any News?