One of the more difficult aspects of sales is knowing when to walk away from a prospect. Additionally, for most salespeople, this gets more and more difficult as more time goes on and more effort goes into the sale. It is fairly easy to do this early on in the process. On the initial call when you first start gathering information you can get a pretty good feel for whether or not you have a market for the risk or if the prospect is the type of client your agency wants. At this time it is very easy to move on when you project the chance of success to be low and you haven’t invested much time into the process.
As time goes on, the chance of success doesn’t necessarily increase as you follow your sales process. However, because we start to invest more, our projection of this chance of success for some reason increases. This is because we convince ourselves that our effort must pay off in the end.
The first step in battling this issue is to establish a consistent sales process that objectively determines when it is time to move on from a client. There are only a certain number of follow-ups and excuses a client can give before we have to admit the effort has been wasted. This can be difficult to do.
The second step in helping us move on from a client is by having a great Breakup Email. At some point we are going to leave a final voicemail and a final email. Not only will the messages on these final two contacts help to increase our odds at turning around a potential lost business but seeing some success from these messages helps us overcome the fear of moving on from a client that otherwise would’ve bought.
The final voicemail should state that it is the last time that you are calling. I recommend doing this somewhat subtly by simply using the phrase “one last time”. I’m not going to push the fact that I’ve tried them x number of times in the past or that I’m upset they aren’t returning the call. “Hi Prospect, sorry I keep missing you. I’m just trying you one last time here to discuss finalizing your new auto and home policy. Please give me a call…”
The true power in the break-up lies in the break-up email. Email allows us to create a message that can drive home our point without the caller having to listen to a voicemail. If it is well structured, it encourages the client to read on. It has to be short enough to get the point across while still driving home the fact that you are no longer going to be following up. For most people, their daily life is what prevents them from moving forward with something that will be beneficial to them. It is the “I’m too busy to help myself” thought process. If they feel like the other person is going to continue to contact them, they can convince themselves they will get to it later. Once they feel like the ball has come to rest in their court, they have to make a decision.
Hubspot offers up 4 solutions, but my favorite one is below. This is the one that I use (tweaked slightly to be written to an insurance prospect) so some of you may have seen it and some may see it in the future!
‘I’ve tried to reach you a few times with no luck. Typically when I don’t hear back from someone it is one of two things.
1) You aren’t interested.
2) You are interested but have not had a chance to reach back out to me.
I’m going to close my file on you today. If you are in the first category, I thank you for your time. Please do not ever hesitate to reach out to me if I can be of assistance in the future.
If you are in the second category, just shoot me a quick email and let me know a good time to reach you and I will contact you then.
Thanks and have a great day!
It’s really as simple as making sure they understand they must take an action in order to move forward. For those that weren’t interested we are giving them a final note that we won’t be bothering them anymore and encouraging them to contact us in the future. For those that are interested but are “too busy”, we are helping them take the steps needed to get the policy bound!
