Tip Number 1 – ‘Ringfence’ Your Existing Accounts

In order for you to stay ahead of the competition in 2012, the first thing you need to do is ‘ringfence’ your existing customers.  More and more companies are looking to replace lost revenue and profitability through acquiring new business – and some of the ‘new business’ your competitors are targeting will include your existing accounts!

As a lot of salespeople (and a lot of companies) have got complacent, they’ve tended to neglect existing accounts – and those are now the ones that have been taken by their competitors, or the ones most at risk.

What are your relationships like with your existing accounts?  What about the ones you haven’t spoken to for a while?  The ones you don’t get on as well with?  Would they tell you if a competitor had been in?  And if they did, would you retain the business at the same price, or would you have to ‘price match’ to keep it?…..

Tip Number 2 – Target Your Prospecting

The quality of your prospecting will be one of the biggest factors in how successful you are (or not) in 2012.  As the individual salesperson is asked to do more and more, it’s VITAL that the time you spend prospecting is time well-spent.

That means you knowing who is a good prospect for you.  Most people THINK they know.  But most times they don’t.  They’ll say things like ‘anyone who needs a new phone’, or ‘anyone who needs printing’, or ‘any small business’.  That’s a BIG sign that they haven’t really got a clue!

There will be certain specific criteria that make certain prospects more ideal for you than others.  If you don’t know what they are, you need to find out – and fast!  If you’re really not sure, take a look at your existing client base.  What was it that made them purchase at the moment they did?  What was it that made them buy from you or your company, rather than someone else?

Tip Number 3 – Increase Your Activity

Now, once you’ve targeted your prospecting, the next thing you need to do is crank up the ‘volume’.  If you’ve seen me or worked with me before, you’ll know I’m a big fan of a high level of activity – as long as that activity is good quality and is done with the right mindset of course!

One of the biggest reasons for this is that the deals you have in your ‘pipeline’, the more you can afford to lose!  If you only have just enough in your pipeline to hit your targets (or close to), then you’re always going to be struggling as you’ll be counting on every deal converting, and it’s devastating to you when any of them ‘drop out’.

Purely by increasing your activity, you increase your chances of success – and therefore increase the amount of money you can earn.  Who wouldn’t want to do that?!!

Tip Number 4 – Become A ‘Valued Resource’

Some of the best salespeople I know are a ‘valued resource’ for their clients.  They’re someone whose opinion their clients respect.  They’re someone their clients turn to first to get information about purchasing decisions – either now or in the future.  They’re someone that has a high level of credibility and clients trust their opinions and advice.

Not all salespeople are in this position however!  A lot of salespeople complain that their clients ignore their ‘advice’.  That they don’t listen.  That they don’t take their calls or see them when they ‘pop in’.  What bigger signs do you want that clients don’t see you as a valued resource?

In order to be seen as a valued resource, you have to earn it.  You have to give value first.  You have to get updated on industry trends, technological advancements and understand the impact that these could have on your client’s business.  You have to be able to hold a business conversation with the level of decision makers you’re meeting.  Invest the time to do things like this, and it will pay you back tenfold!

Tip Number 5 – Plan Your ‘Attack’

One of the best ways to get ahead of the competition in 2012 is to win some customers off them!  This is a great way of distracting them from their own ‘new business’ efforts, plus it’s a great motivational factor for you and your team when you successfully win business at your competitor’s expense!

In order to have the best chance of success, if you’re in field sales why not ‘map out’ competitors accounts in your territory?  Then create a call plan for getting into see them, and then focus on winning their business.

If you’re in internal sales, make notes on the prospects that are currently using your competition, then filter the data by competitors name.  Then you can create a phone campaign designed specifically to convert their customers to your customers instead!  Experience shows that dedicated and focused approaches like those above have a far better chance of success – and also put a big ‘dent’ in your competitor’s motivation at the same time!

 Tip Number 6 –Develop Consistent Motivation

We all know that motivation is important for a salesperson.  But it’s the salesperson’s ability to be CONSISTENTLY motivated that will help them stand out from the rest, and stay ahead of their competition in 2012.

This is something I talk about a lot when I’m working to improve motivation levels within a sales team.  In order to be motivated on a consistent basis, the salesperson has to take charge of their own motivation, rather than waiting for other people (or other things) to motivate or de-motivate them.

They need to have compelling reasons for doing what they do.  In particular the ‘tougher’ parts of their role – like cold calling, canvassing, or the things they like doing the least!  Without a compelling reason, they’re less likely to get the results they need.

 Tip Number 7 –Sharpen Your Sales Skills

If you truly want to stay ahead of your competition in 2012, you’ll need to sharpen your sales skills.  This means getting up-to-date, relevant sales tips and advice form trusted sources.

If you get some internal training at your company, great!  If your company invests in bringing an external trainer or motivator to help you improve, even better!  If you’re one of those people that believes in investing in yourself (even if your company doesn’t) I take my hat off to you.

7 Ways To Stay Ahead Of Your Competition In 2012!

Tip Number 1 – ‘Ringfence’ Your Existing Accounts

In order for you to stay ahead of the competition in 2012, the first thing you need to do is ‘ringfence’ your existing customers.  More and more companies are looking to replace lost revenue and profitability through acquiring new business – and some of the ‘new business’ your competitors are targeting will include your existing accounts!

As a lot of salespeople (and a lot of companies) have got complacent, they’ve tended to neglect existing accounts – and those are now the ones that have been taken by their competitors, or the ones most at risk.

What are your relationships like with your existing accounts?  What about the ones you haven’t spoken to for a while?  The ones you don’t get on as well with?  Would they tell you if a competitor had been in?  And if they did, would you retain the business at the same price, or would you have to ‘price match’ to keep it?…..

Tip Number 2 – Target Your Prospecting

The quality of your prospecting will be one of the biggest factors in how successful you are (or not) in 2012.  As the individual salesperson is asked to do more and more, it’s VITAL that the time you spend prospecting is time well-spent.

That means you knowing who is a good prospect for you.  Most people THINK they know.  But most times they don’t.  They’ll say things like ‘anyone who needs a new phone’, or ‘anyone who needs printing’, or ‘any small business’.  That’s a BIG sign that they haven’t really got a clue!

There will be certain specific criteria that make certain prospects more ideal for you than others.  If you don’t know what they are, you need to find out – and fast!  If you’re really not sure, take a look at your existing client base.  What was it that made them purchase at the moment they did?  What was it that made them buy from you or your company, rather than someone else?

Tip Number 3 – Increase Your Activity

Now, once you’ve targeted your prospecting, the next thing you need to do is crank up the ‘volume’.  If you’ve seen me or worked with me before, you’ll know I’m a big fan of a high level of activity – as long as that activity is good quality and is done with the right mindset of course!

One of the biggest reasons for this is that the deals you have in your ‘pipeline’, the more you can afford to lose!  If you only have just enough in your pipeline to hit your targets (or close to), then you’re always going to be struggling as you’ll be counting on every deal converting, and it’s devastating to you when any of them ‘drop out’.

Purely by increasing your activity, you increase your chances of success – and therefore increase the amount of money you can earn.  Who wouldn’t want to do that?!!

Tip Number 4 – Become A ‘Valued Resource’

Some of the best salespeople I know are a ‘valued resource’ for their clients.  They’re someone whose opinion their clients respect.  They’re someone their clients turn to first to get information about purchasing decisions – either now or in the future.  They’re someone that has a high level of credibility and clients trust their opinions and advice.

Not all salespeople are in this position however!  A lot of salespeople complain that their clients ignore their ‘advice’.  That they don’t listen.  That they don’t take their calls or see them when they ‘pop in’.  What bigger signs do you want that clients don’t see you as a valued resource?

In order to be seen as a valued resource, you have to earn it.  You have to give value first.  You have to get updated on industry trends, technological advancements and understand the impact that these could have on your client’s business.  You have to be able to hold a business conversation with the level of decision makers you’re meeting.  Invest the time to do things like this, and it will pay you back tenfold!

Tip Number 5 – Plan Your ‘Attack’

One of the best ways to get ahead of the competition in 2012 is to win some customers off them!  This is a great way of distracting them from their own ‘new business’ efforts, plus it’s a great motivational factor for you and your team when you successfully win business at your competitor’s expense!

In order to have the best chance of success, if you’re in field sales why not ‘map out’ competitors accounts in your territory?  Then create a call plan for getting into see them, and then focus on winning their business.

If you’re in internal sales, make notes on the prospects that are currently using your competition, then filter the data by competitors name.  Then you can create a phone campaign designed specifically to convert their customers to your customers instead!  Experience shows that dedicated and focused approaches like those above have a far better chance of success – and also put a big ‘dent’ in your competitor’s motivation at the same time!

 Tip Number 6 –Develop Consistent Motivation

We all know that motivation is important for a salesperson.  But it’s the salesperson’s ability to be CONSISTENTLY motivated that will help them stand out from the rest, and stay ahead of their competition in 2012.

This is something I talk about a lot when I’m working to improve motivation levels within a sales team.  In order to be motivated on a consistent basis, the salesperson has to take charge of their own motivation, rather than waiting for other people (or other things) to motivate or de-motivate them.

They need to have compelling reasons for doing what they do.  In particular the ‘tougher’ parts of their role – like cold calling, canvassing, or the things they like doing the least!  Without a compelling reason, they’re less likely to get the results they need.

 Tip Number 7 –Sharpen Your Sales Skills

If you truly want to stay ahead of your competition in 2012, you’ll need to sharpen your sales skills.  This means getting up-to-date, relevant sales tips and advice form trusted sources.

If you get some internal training at your company, great!  If your company invests in bringing an external trainer or motivator to help you improve, even better!  If you’re one of those people that believes in investing in yourself (even if your company doesn’t) I take my hat off to you.

Can Your Product be ever Be ‘Too Expensive?’

 Sales Tip Number 1 – People’s Beliefs ARE Reality – To THEM!

The problem I see here is that I think you CAN be too expensive!! One of my favourite sayings when it comes to sales (and pricing in particular) is that ‘people’s beliefs ARE reality – to them!’.

What I mean by that in this example is that if someone says ‘that’s too expensive‘ it may be that in the moment they DO consider you too expensive – as long as it’s not a negotiation tactic to bring your price down of course!

Now of course there will be some context behind them saying that. They might think it’s too expensive compared to their budget. They might think it’s too expensive compared to what they’ve paid in the past. They might think it’s too expensive compared to what they were expecting to pay.

However, unless you deal with the fact that right now, they consider you too expensive – it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to win this deal, and bring them on board as a customer. Fail to change their belief (and therefore THEIR reality), and you’ll fail to pick up their business!

 Sales Tip Number 2 – It’s Not Their Fault – It’s Yours!

If someone says to you that you’re ‘too expensive’, make sure you don’t dismiss them (and the sales opportunity) too quickly! As an ex-sales director, I often used to hear my team come back from new business appointments with excuses like ‘they weren’t ready to buy‘, ‘they didn’t have the budget‘, and ‘our price was too rich for them‘.

My response was usually something like ‘Ahh, so you failed to deal with their price concern then?‘ 

My belief is that the majority of the time, a price concern (or price objection) is normally the salesperson’s fault, not the prospect’s.

- It might be that…. the prospect doesn’t see enough value in your offering to think it worthwhile paying the price you asked for – YOUR FAULT for not positioning your value to them correctly!

- It might be that…. the prospect doesn’t have the budget to pay the price you want – YOUR FAULT for not finding that out, or speaking to the person who can make a NEW budget!

- It might be that…. the prospect has bought a similar product/service in the past and not paid anything like the price you want to charge them now – YOUR FAULT for not finding out their buying history and positioning correctly against it!

- It might be that…. the prospect won’t get enough value from your offering, in order to generate enough ROI to justify the purchase – YOUR FAULT for not qualifying the Sales Opportunity well enough in the first place!

How many of the above are you and your team guilty of right now? Stop putting the ‘blame’ for price concerns on the client, and see what you and your team could do to handle them better!

 Sales Tip Number 3 – Find Out – Or Set – Their Expectations

One of the biggest reasons people get price objections, is that the price they want to charge isn’t what the prospect was expecting to pay!

This often occurs when the salesperson fails to find out, manage, or on some occasions – set – the price expectations of the prospect.

In the old days, Sales Managers used to lecture their reps ‘make sure you get the customer’s budget BEFORE talking about price!‘

Whilst back then that was pretty solid sales advice, these days people don’t always have budgets. They don’t always have cash available right now. But they ALWAYS have price expectations – and if you don’t find out what they are, re-set them if necessary – or even set them in some circumstances – then you’re always going to struggle with objections to your price!

How well do you and your team set prospects’ price expectations currently?

Number 4 – Qualify Harder Early In The Process

Another reason I find that salespeople come up against price objections is that often they’re sat in front of (or speaking to) the wrong people! People that may not have the money to be able to pay the price the salesperson wants to charge, or have the authority (and ability) to find extra money if necessary!

This is usually caused by a failure to qualify well enough (or hard enough) earlier in the process! Then often results in the salesperson spending lots of their precious time dealing with people that aren’t able to buy what they offer at the price they want to charge!

Often this leads to the salesperson becoming frustrated, having to ‘walk away’ from deals, or heavily ‘discounting’ just to win the business – none of which are good outcomes for the salesperson!

Open as in water, the fluid necessary for life

Open" is a great thing. Everyone likes it. Unfortunately, nobody agrees what open is. There are many meanings, but in general, I think "open" must be the opposite of "closed". In the world of abstract things like software, protocols and society, closed is secret, hidden, or locked.

"Closed" limits our mobility, prevents discovery, and discourages new connections. Imagine being in a building where all of the doors are locked or guarded, and it's difficult to move from room to room or leave. A closed world is one where people are forced to stay in their place, sometimes because of physical constraints, but more commonly because they simply don't know where else to go. A closed world is giant prison.

In an open world, people are able to see more clearly, and more easily explore new ideas and possibilities. An open world is more fluid -- people and ideas easily flow over boundaries and other borders. This openness is what makes the Internet so powerful. The Internet is melting the world, but in a good way.

Open standards and open source software are important for making technology open and available to everyone, but it's important to remember that open goes beyond tech. Wikipedia makes knowledge open to everyone. Blogs and YouTube make broadcasting and mass communication open to everyone -- news and events that would have been suppressed in the past are now reaching the whole world.

These things have been discussed to death, but there's another "open" that still seems a little frivolous: our lives. We like to joke (or complain) about people who share every boring detail of their lives and thoughts on Facebook or Twitter, but they may be doing something important.

Most of our happiness and productivity comes from the everyday details of our lives: the people we live and work with, the books we read, the hikes we take, the parties we attend, etc. But how do we choose these things? How do we know what to do, and how do know if we'll like it? The obvious answer is that we do and like whatever the TV tells us to do and like. I'm not certain that's the best answer though.

By sharing more of our own thoughts and lives with the world, we contribute to the global pool of "how to live", and over time we also get contributions back from the world. Think of it as "open source living". This has certainly been my experience with my blog and FriendFeed. Not only do people occasionally say that it has helped them, but I've also met interesting new people and gotten a lot of good leads on new ideas. These are typically small things, but our lives are woven from the small details of everyday living. For example, I saw a good TED talk on "The science of motivation", shared it on FriendFeed, and in the comments Laura Norvig suggested a book called Unconditional Parenting, which turns out to be very good.

The next step is for people to open more of their current activities and plans. This is often referred to as "real-time", but since real-time is also a technical term, we often focus too much on the technical aspect of it. The "real-time" that matters is the human part -- what I'm doing and thinking right now, and my ability to communicate that to the world, right now. We see some of this on Facebook, FriendFeed, and Twitter, and also location-aware apps such as Foursquare, but it's still fairly primitive and fringe. When this activity reaches critical mass, it should be very interesting for society. It dramatically alters the time and growth coefficients in group formation. It enables a much higher degree of serendipity and ad hoc socializing.

The basic pattern of openness is that better access to information and better systems lead to better decisions and better living. This general principal is broadly accepted, but we're just now discovering that it also applies to the minutiae of our lives.

Sharing your boring thoughts and activities may seem narcissistic and self-absorbed at first (I'm still kind of embarrassed about having a blog), but there is virtue and benefit in it. Naturally there will be challenges and fear along the way, but in the long term we're contributing to a more open, fluid society, where people are more able to find happy, productive lives. It also encourages us to be more accepting of others. Everyone is flawed, and the more we see that we aren't alone, the less we need to fear that truth.

People can not truly live and thrive in a prison -- we require freedom and mobility. This may explain my incomprehensible analogy, "Open as in water, the fluid necessary for life".

Go forth and share.

8 Questions You Need the Answer to Before you Can Close the Deal

Closing the deal doesn’t have to be hard. It starts with building a solid relationship with the people who will make the decision, clearly understanding their needs, matching your offering to their needs to show them the fit, providing your offering for a fair price and asking for the business. (Not to over simplify, I know there are demos, trials, proposals and other things that need to happen in some cases.)

You have t0 do the hard work but I promise you, if you do it closing will be easier and I also promise that closing will be hard to do if you don’t have the answer to the following 8 questions.

What is your budget?
Who else besides yourself will be involved in making the decision?
What is the best way to include everyone involved in the decision making process?
What is your timeline for implementation?
What is your timeline for making a decision?
How will our solution meet your needs?
What other solutions have you considered?
On what factors will you make your decision?
Many times salespeople tell me they are having trouble closing a deal. I ask them to tell me the situation and the answers to those questions. Typically, they can’t answer all of them but they were ready to close. Once they go back and ask those questions they are usually able to move the sale forward or at least understand why the sale is stalled.

Make it part of your sales call planning to ask these questions at the appropriate times and confirm the answers. If you do, closing will be much easier

WHY IS YOUR NEW SALESPERSON NOT SELLING ANYTHING

You did a search, found great sales candidates, put them through a rigorous screening process, and hired the best one. Now you expect them to get out there and sell, right? The fact is,their sales performance is awful, way below your expectations. How long should it take a new salesperson to ramp up to full speed? Shouldn’t they already know how to sell? Did I hire the wrong person?

Assuming you have an adequate sales process and good lead generation, there are three basic things that get in the way of a new salesperson’s success.

Your expectations
Lack of needed sales skills for the new position
Inadequate training period
The biggest mistake we make is setting unrealistic expectations, by putting the salesperson out in the field (or on the phone) too soon, without adequate support. This is a very costly mistake. We want them to produce sales immediately, and it costs money if they don’t. But it costs more money if we don’t train them properly and it takes them longer to ramp up and they may get discouraged and leave, we fire them, or worse yet, we keep them even though they are performing poorly. To get the desired results, put training into your budget and on your schedule and don’t expect anything of the new salesperson the first three weeks other than that they follow the training schedule and ask good questions.

If prospecting is a requirement of the job, don’t assume that your new hires are good at it — or even know how to do it. We hire people and expect them to know all aspects of sales responsibilities, when in fact they may have been very successful in their old job at account management but not at prospecting. Or they may have been great at prospecting and generated lots of leads but didn’t close enough of them. Or maybe they didn’t cover the details well enough and made it to closing but didn’t get repeat business because they hadn’t educated the customer or followed through sufficiently.

Hiring right is imperative but it never makes up for lack of training or insufficient training. You need to design a new-hire training program for all your new salespeople. You owe it to them and your organization. Aside from the typical orientation and HR overview, you probably give your new salespeople product training. This is not enough. Here is the new-hire training program I recommend. You need to invest three to four weeks in initial training. There are no shortcuts. I recommend the following five components.

Learning about the company
Learning the departments, people and roles
Learning the product/service
Learning the job
Learning needed sales skills
The first few days on the job, the salesperson should be scheduled to spend time learning about the company, the history, the company vision for the future as well as alliances and partnerships, policies and procedures and any other important facts, attitudes and values. They should also become intimately familiar with the Web site and all of the recent press releases and the investor relations section.

As part of this learning they should visit every department in the company in person if possible and on the phone where distance is a problem. They need to learn who the key people are in each department and their role. A list should be ready for the salesperson with all of the contact info and a “who to call when” section. The department personnel should have an approved list of information that they go through with the new salespeople to tell them about their department, their role and how they interact with sales.

Examine the product/service training you provide. Does it cover everything? It is in-depth enough or is it too detailed? Does it need to be broken up into smaller chunks? As part of the product training the new salesperson should have the opportunity to use the product or talk to satisfied customers who use the product. They should also have the opportunity to see first hand the product production or development and shadow the people who do that. If there is delivery and installation, the salesperson should ride along to learn that aspect as well.

In my opinion the best way to learn a job is to start by shadowing. Choose carefully from your most successful salespeople and make a schedule. Each of your successful salespeople do things differently so make sure the new salesperson gets to shadow at least three. Make sure you choose successful, experienced salespeople with positive attitudes.

Unfortunately, some very successful salespeople have negative attitudes. You know who they are. Don’t choose them! Train your experienced, successful salespeople so they know what to do and say to be helpful to the new salespeople while they are shadowing. Make sure the new person gets to see a variety of activity and has time to ask questions.

Demonstration followed by discussion is the way in which most adults learn best. Next they need to do the demonstrated task with an observer followed by feedback and discussion with that observer. The last piece is doing the task on their own with no observer followed by discussion with their previous observer. Once the salesperson has shadowed several salespeople, it is time for the manager to step in. You should ride with the person to visit clients and prospects. Before each visit, discuss with the salesperson what their approach will be, observe them and take a few notes for feedback and discussion after each meeting. Once you feel secure in the salesperson’s ability, leave them on their own to perform sales calls independently, but be sure to have a follow-up discussion each week about the results of those meetings.

After evaluating your new salesperson’s skills, you will need to bridge any gaps in their skill set. If you have a good snapshot of all the skills a successful salesperson at your company needs this will be fairly easy. Make sure they have good prospecting, discovery, education and closing skills. If not, send them to a sales course in person or online or have them read a great book on sales that covers the needed skills and then have a discussion about it. Roleplaying the needed skills with the salesperson is also helpful.

Don’t expect salespeople to have all the needed skills. They may not have had any formal training. If salespeople like a certain aspect of selling, they may be better at it than in others. For example, they might be great at prospecting, but not know how to ask good questions, and even if they do, they may need to learn the right questions to ask to sell your product or service.

A caution: Good salespeople will tend to become impatient. They’ll want to jump right in and start selling. That’s a good thing but you will need to continuously reassure them that this training process will make them more successful in the long run.

What is the MOST important thing you've learned about closing the opportunity once you know what will help them and how?

Closing shouldn’t be hard, it is just another part of the sales cycle. Closing the deal only becomes hard when the prospect is not ready to buy. Why do salespeople think prospects are ready to buy when they are not? How do the salespeople get all the way to the end of the sales cycle with a prospect and not know whether or not the deal will close? It is because the salesperson has moved forward in the sales cycle and the prospect has not.
In these circumstances the salesperson may be thinking:
“I’ve done everything I can, given you all the information I have, answered all of your questions and provided for all of your requests. Why won’t you buy now?”
The prospect may be thinking one of the following:
“I am not ready to buy so I don’t know why you expect me to.”
“You have overwhelmed me with information that I now have to explain to the others involved in the purchase and they are all too busy.”
“This was a priority for others in my company so I rushed to get everything they needed and now it is on the back burner and I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Although I understand your product’s bells and whistles I still don’t really know if your product is the best solution for my needs.”
“Our priorities have changed and I don’t have time to call you back or I feel bad so I don’t want to call and tell you our decision.”
Effective closing starts with getting commitment. Commitments need to be made in each step of the sales cycle by the prospect as well as the salesperson. Typically, salespeople don’t think about getting the prospect to commit until the end at closing time. Salespeople are very good at making commitments and giving information to their prospects. They know everything about the product or service they sell and are enthusiastic to share that knowledge. They feel their solution is the best and of course the prospect should choose it. We want our salespeople to feel this way and the reality is that the prospect may not. We want our salespeople to get good at getting commitments and information from the prospects. This should be easy if the salesperson is seen as a problem solver and not someone who is pushing their product or service whether it fits or not.
When approaching a prospect, salespeople need to start by asking questions to understand the situation and determine if their solution is a good fit. Once they have done that they should share only the information that shows how the product fits and educate the prospect in any areas needed. If the interest continues they should ask for a commitment from the prospect.
Answering questions like the ones below, making introductions, reading or reviewing material for the next conversation, scheduling another meeting or trying a product and rating it are examples of commitments a prospect could make. Come up with commitments that are appropriate for each step in the sales cycle. In order to move a sale to the close good questions need to be asked in the beginning. Here are some examples:
• What is your budget?
• Who else besides yourself will be involved in making the decision?
• What is the best way to include everyone involved in the decision making process?
• What is your timeline for implementation?
• What is your timeline for making a decision?
• How will our solution meet your needs?
• What other solutions have you considered?
• When should I get back to you to learn of your decision?
If the prospect won’t answer the questions or make any commitments it is a signal that the sale is not moving forward. Either find out why or go work on some prospects that are ready to buy. Follow up with that prospect in a couple of months when things may have changed. And even if they have purchased from someone else, follow up and see how that worked because it may not have. Closing the deal is really about getting commitment and the final commitment is making the purchase.