Ben Wright shares a three-question framework to unstall deals when prospects say "I'm still thinking about it." Ask what's missing from the proposal, if they'd proceed once addressed, and what next step they want. Wright claims this moves roughly one-third of stalled deals forward.
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When a customer says to you, I'm still thinking about it, there are absolutely ways that you can get that deal done, or at the very least move it forward and not need to walk away and wait for them to get back to you. Welcome to Trade Sales Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction, and industry leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so that you can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years, I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses, and generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. It's the absolute dread of any salesperson. You do all the work, you get out to a customer site, you quote them, you engage with them, you think you've ticked everything off, and then the customer says, "Leave it with me, I'll think about it." If there is any greater way to take the wind out of your sails as a salesperson, I don't know. And certainly across my experience in sales, I've had it happen so many times, but thankfully I get it less and less these days because there absolutely are ways where you can get deals moving when a customer says, I'm still thinking about it. We're gonna go through 3 questions today that you can ask your customers to help unlock these deals. Now what I will say off the cuff is that these will make a difference. They won't magically move every single deal forward, but if they can move 1 in 3 forward, then it's an absolute winner. So if 1 out of every 3 customers that you speak to say, I'm still thinking about it, and you roll with these 3 questions and then 1 out of those 3 move the deal forward, wow, that is a terrific result. They're quick to ask, right? They're very non-confrontational. They're nowhere near hard closers. And every trade leader that I work with is able to roll these into their repertoire and ask them. So let's get into them. We're gonna make today really short and punchy so that you can take these questions and go and roll them out in your business. So first question I see trade leaders really ask effectively who nail the ability to keep their customers moving forward is what's missing. So when a customer says, I'm still thinking about it, it's to roll back with a question that says, hey, I really want to make sure I do the right thing by you. Can you talk me through what's missing? Is there anything you think that I haven't got right? Is there anything else you would like to have seen included in the quote? Is there something that's holding you back around working with us? Asking these questions in a way that works for you really impactfully. The way that I ask it is really clear, and that's to say, is there anything you think I haven't covered in my quote? Is there anything you think I haven't covered in my proposal? I'd love to hear what it is now because I'll absolutely fix it if I can. So that's the first question. I've seen that a number of times move deals forward because the customer moves from leave it with me to actually, you know what, I will share what's missing. I will tell you what is resulting in me still needing to think about it because generally a customer is still thinking about it because A, they either haven't had time or B, they're not sure what they want to do, right? Which makes sense when someone says I'm still thinking about it. So if we can remove any uncertainty from our customers' minds by answering that question, right, what's missing, or having them answer that question, what's missing, that will help us step that deal forward because the next question that can flow from there is, okay, if I address these, if I fix these, if I added something else in, or if I change these things for you, right, where would that leave us? So if I was able to, so if the customer is happy to share what is missing or what they're not sure about, I would say, okay, great. Right. If I was able to fix this, if I was able to move this down the track, if I was able to make changes on it, are you open to moving the deal forward? Are you open to deciding to work with us? Are you open to stepping forward? Are you open to getting started? Is my favorite, right? So for me, when it comes to asking these questions, I'm running down a line along the lines of, is there anything missing? Is there anything I haven't quite got right? And we workshop that back and forth with the customer, moving straight into, okay, got it. If I can fix these, does that put you in a position where you're happy to get started? Like, for me, I really like asking these in soft ways, and I think trade leaders, certainly across the groups that we work with, they really like asking them in soft manners as well. I don't know too many trade salespeople that like going in for the kill with the hard close, because often, and in fact more often than not, if you go in too hard, the deal burns, right? The customer steps back and they really want to start thinking about it then. But so question number 1 is all about what's missing. Number 2 is If I can change these, you know, are you open to getting started? And the third one, right, when you've actually gone and not only found out what's missing but you've addressed what's missing, is to then say, what would you like to do next? That is by far the hardest one, because once you ask that, hey Mr. Customer, what would you like to do next? The most important thing from there is silence. To stop, let the customer think, and choose their own adventure from there. Every single trade business that we work with, that's the question that I recommend they ask to try and get deals moving forward, right? It's a great way to uncover if there's anything else getting in the way, because if a customer says, hey, I still need to think about it, it allows you to go back to the start and say, okay, great. Covered all of these areas, right? I'm here. I want to help you. I want to do everything I can. We talk about the negotiation strategies from episode 225, right? Which was last week. Time, power, and knowledge. Go listen to it if you haven't already. But for me, it then allows us to Again, start that cycle of, okay, great, what's missing, what's getting in the way? And often what we'll end up then getting to is things like, I need to talk to my customer. And there's a whole lot of other questions that flow through from that. But I think the most important thing for today to talk about is that when we get a, hey, I need to think about it from customers, how we can keep that deal or how we can unblock that deal to get it moving forward again. So the key takeaway from today, the deal's stuck, a customer says, I need to think about it, right? How can we unblock that and what can we expect when we unblock it? Well, my expectation is that you can get about 1 in 3 deals moving forward again when you ask 3 questions. What's missing, right? If I can fix it or if I can address it, are you willing to look at keeping things moving forward? And what do you want to do next? 3 questions that if you get right will absolutely help you unblock deals. And that's my ask out of today is you take those 3 questions. Hopefully you've written them down on your phone or on a bit of paper, right? And you get out and ask them in your next deal. It will take you a number of times of asking them to make them a habit. We talk a lot around progress over perfection. In fact, episode 224 was very much around mindset and how we can put some best practices into how we operate to move deals forward. But today, if we can get those 3 questions right, I would expect you would start to see deals moving forward. Now, if you're someone that is frustrated spending hours of wasted time on sales quotes and you keep losing them, well, the reality is that if you don't change something now, you're going to continue to get those same really frustrating results. Over and over again, which is going to roll into you working long hours or longer hours than you should on sales. And at the end of the day, not enough money in the bank account to show for it. So I've got a free quoting quiz that will pinpoint exactly why you're not winning more jobs and more importantly, what you need to do to quickly grow your sales by 20 to 25% or more. So click on the free quiz link in the show notes. You can get started now. It takes you less than a minute. That's it for today. Please keep thinking about how you can be 1% better each and every day because it will make all the difference.
