An Ode to the Wandering Community of Prospects Who Are ‘Coming Back’ - And How To Overcome It

I like to think there’s a small community out there of people who have wandered off into the wilderness and gotten lost, dropped their phones and found themselves somewhere with no internet connection or electricity. They’re trying to figure out how they can find a map and navigate their way back to you. Perhaps it’s been months, but they’re still out there, walking endless kilometres every day, just to try and find you again. Maybe one day they will. I imagine them holding long community meetings, where they talk about how fantastic your product is, and lament over their inability to reach you again. “If we only had our phones with us, we could call back that salesperson and buy their product like we told them we would!”

I call this community the ‘Be Backers’.

Most likely, that’s not the case – which is good for this fantasy community because living without internet in this day and age is not something many desire. For sales professionals, though, it means that most of the people who tell you they’ll ‘be back’, actually have no intentions of coming back. Or, when they say they will come back to buy from you, they mean it – at the time. But then, they leave, and all the other things in life take over once again. The interaction they had with you, the great product you offered, becomes more and more of a distant memory until it fades away completely.

“I’ll come back later” is a phrase that most sales professionals don’t enjoy hearing. Alas, with the abundance of choice available in most every market place today, the need to make any decisions quickly is pretty low.

More than ever, sales professionals need to utilize the time they do have with any client, because let’s face it: attention is the scarcest resource around.

How to help a client avoid having to ‘come back’:

1.   Give them all the information they need in the first place

Product knowledge can not be underestimated here. Many people who want to come back later want to do so because they have some gaps to fill. Ensuring that they have all the right information is imperative: And making sure you know all the information is the precursor to that.

2.   Find out why

Discovering the reason behind not making a decision right now is the first step to overcoming this objection. We do things for a reason – ‘I’ll come back’ is not a reason in and of itself: It’s just the tip of the iceberg.

You may need to ask this in a few different ways before the real reason comes through. At the end of the day, if you don’t know why they want to come back later, you can’t help them to resolve that concern.

Some questions you might ask:

“Why’s that?”

“What is it that’s holding you back from moving forward now?”

“When would you be looking at coming back? What do you need to happen first?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What from your criteria is missing?”

“What further information do you need?”

The answers you receive might range anywhere from discussing with other relevant parties, looking into competitors, thinking about the cost, thinking about the product, or looking at reviews. Usually this is information that you can provide for the customer or coordinate to resolve at the time (for example, by calling that relevant party at the time).

3.   Build Urgency in a Professional Way

The days of the ‘buy or burn’ philosophy are gone: Consumers won’t appreciate a ‘buy it now or it’s gone’ approach, and rightly so.

That said, by building urgency you can help the client to stop procrastinating. This requires a reason to act now, and might include pointing out:

-      There aren’t many products left

-      There’s a promotion on

-      It will help to achieve the client’s goals faster

-      It will help to achieve a delivery/start date that the client wanted

-      Any other benefits to acting now rather than later

A couple of simple examples of this:

 “I can appreciate that you’re in no rush. That said, I would recommend that you move forward on this now, because with the package we have now the promotion means you’re saving $XYZ, and I wouldn’t want you to miss out on that. So would you like me to get the package arranged for you?”

“I appreciate that you’d like to come back later, and I want to make sure that you make the decision that’s right for you. I want you to be aware that because this is such a popular product at the moment, if you were to come back later we might have to look at a longer delivery process. You can avoid that if we get things moving now, so would you like to go ahead?”

4.   Break down the time wall

The reality is, humans procrastinate.  We don’t like to make hard decisions, and as a general rule we don’t like change (even though we might say we do). Sometimes being open about this and using a ‘never the best time’ close can help your customer to acknowledge that and take the plunge:

“I know this is a big decision to make, and many clients have come through and thought that the best thing to do is take more time to decide. What they’ve found, though, is that the information doesn’t change no matter how long they think about it. We know that the product will be great for your business, the price at the moment is fantastic, and we’re here now. So what do you say?”

Of course, the best approach to take will be the one that appeals to the individual in front of you. That means it really depends on the particular circumstances.

If, however, you find yourself constantly getting clients who say they’re going to come back, you need to think about what you’re doing to project that. It might mean you don’t show comprehensive product knowledge or display confidence. Maybe you use small phrases that send the message that the client should take a longer time to consider their decision.

Maybe one day we will find that small community of the Be-Backers and reap all the sales from it. In the meantime, though, give these ideas a try.

What do you do to overcome the “I’ll Be Back” objection?

Make Today The Day,

Sonia

This blog post was originally posted on my training website, Statusone.com.au, on Oct 21, 2017. I have since been moving some of my favourite blog posts from there over to here, as this is now my ‘content hub’ and I want you to have access to some of the cool stuff I’ve written about before. You can still check out the Status One site if you’re interested in corporate training if you want. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter below for updates and weekly exclusive content.