WEBVTT

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Everybody has pain for things that excite
them that they want to do. Problem

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is, if there's a lot enough
impact to that, they're not going to

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do it. You're listening to the
Audible Ready Podcast, the show that helps

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you and your teams sell more faster. We'll feature sales leaders sharing their best

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insights on how to create a sales
engine that helps you fuel repeatable revenue growth,

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presented by the team at Force Management, a leader in B to B

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sales effectiveness. Let's get started.
Hello, and welcome to the Audible Ready

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Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel Klatt Miller. Today we are tackling that topic of

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what you do when your customer goes
dark when they ghost to you. Joining

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me for the conversation today is Force
Management facilitator Diana Shelley. Hi. Diana,

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Hi there, Rachel, thanks for
having me back. Great. We're

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excited to have you. Excited to
talk about this topic today because I know

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it plagues all salespeople like we've all
had this happen, right, So before

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we talk it to some about some
action steps of things that we can do

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when this happens to us. Let's
start with going through some common reasons why

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customers go dark. Well, I
think it's so painful when all of a

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sudden we have this, especially when
we're engaging with the customer and then all

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of a sudden it stops. It
becomes a silence. When we find out

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solves ghosted. Many times, the
first thing that's happened is the buyer just

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either the pain hasn't been great enough
to cause an impact to get off go

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they and they don't see the urgency
anymore, like that's something I need to

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do, but it's not as important
as I thought. And that can happen

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for many reasons. Priorities shifted behind
the scenes, or the problem they thought

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was the problem wasn't the real problem. They may not even have an answer

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for us, and at that point
we might just be dealing with the wrong

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person. And so they haven't gotten
a yes internally, but they're not really

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close enough to the pain, and
so you've almost gotten shuffled around behind the

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scenes without knowing it. The other
thing that could be happening is the competition

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is starting to get their attention,
or if their status quo or they're trying

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to build something internally, those initiatives
are becoming more and more important, like

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oh, let's go ahead and build
to save some money. We haven't proved

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our value. So it all goes
back to did we ship with the pain?

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Did we get to the impact of
the pain? Yeah, So let's

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go through some of the things that
might be going on, and while we

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do our due diligence figuring out why
they went dark, let's start with some

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things that we can be looking at. Now. First, you just mentioned

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did we do enough with the business
pain? Yeah? So I always say

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no pain, no impact, no
deal, because everybody has pain or things

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that excite them that they want to
do. The problem is if there's not

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enough impact to that, they're not
going to do it. And if you

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think about it, even for us
going into the weekend, we think there's

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things we want to do and things
we probably have to do, but our

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list is probably bigger than what's going
to actually happen. So the things that

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are going to get us off go
are the things that excite us the most,

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and those opportunities or the things that
are causing that much more of an

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issue at home that we have to
actually deal with. And it's the same

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in our customer organizations. Yeah.
I mean that's critically important because if there

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is enough pain, you're going to
be a priority, right. But along

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with that quantified pain, you also
want to make sure that you're talking to

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the right people, that you're aligned
with the stakeholder who cares about the pain.

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Because you mentioned like no business or
no problem, no business or phrase

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you use, but it could be
like not my problem, not my business.

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Right. Absolutely, many times we
wait too late to engage what I

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call the economic buyer, or that
person that has the ability to say no,

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would others say yes or yes when
others say no. They have the

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ability to move money around as they
see urgency, but we wait too late

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to get involved with them. And
by the time we get involved with them,

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they usually have turned it over to
a team of trusted advisors to start

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working it, and we're trying to
get involved with them, wondering why they're

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not responding. Is we've waited till
later in the cell cycle we have been

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those people sooner find out qualify is
their pain is their impact? And then

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to your point, we have to
make sure we're actually speaking the right language

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with that person or we're going to
get delegated down right, and they just

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might not see you just might not
be relevant anymore, and that's why they're

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not engaging with you. You mentioned
this next one up at the top.

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The other factor right here might be
the competitors, your differentiation and your customers

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understanding of it. And what happens
is if we think about it, we

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have a customer, think about them
being in the middle, and think about

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us being on the right side of
their ear telling them all the things that

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we do differently and what makes us
better. But they've got the competitor on

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the left side of the ear telling
them the exact same things. So who

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they believe and if they get confused, then sometimes they think it's just the

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whole thing's too complex, and they'll
go dark on us because they're like,

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that's overwhelming. I don't have the
time, many our resources to even handle

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that, and I don't feel like
going through it. So it's key that

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we articulate what we do aligning with
the impact of what they're soft for.

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And this isn't all fifty things we
do, we're all ten things we do.

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This is what did they care the
most about that had impact. Now,

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how do we align that solution with
them in a way that makes sense

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for them so that we actually can
start to knock off the competitor. Yeah,

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good point, good thing. And
then there's also like the competing alternatives

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within the company. If your customer
isn't engaging with you, your solution just

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might not be the priority. It's
very true. We have to find out.

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We always assume we do some discovery
in the beginning, and then we

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forget about it later on. And
what happens, to your point, Rachel,

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is all the competing priorities have changed
and shifted, and we haven't asked

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anything else. Anything changed since we
last spoke. And so while they might

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have been on board at one point, someone else just joined the organization with

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a great idea or dollars shifted around
within the organization. We weren't with the

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economic buyer. We were told we
got a technical win or a win,

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but then someone else came along and
said, no, I don't think so,

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and the budget was stolen. And
now they go dark because they just

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don't have time to call us back
or there's really no reason to. Yeah,

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those are some great things for us
to think through as salespeople. If

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somebody is ghosting us or not engaging, take a step back and really think

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about Okay, what might be going
on here based on your earlier discovery,

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based on reasons. We know customers
go dark. So if you feel like

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you might know what the reasons are, what are your action steps to get

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this newly framed information in front of
the customer to highlight what you might need

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to highlight with them. Well,
I think many times we focus on who

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might have left the organization that might
have been working on our deal with us,

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and the problem is whether they're left
or whether they're still there and they

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were promoted, they're going to be
focused on their next role because that's what

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they're being tasked with at the time. We need to be focusing many times

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on who's joined the organization because once
someone's joined, it's our chance to educate

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them and get them up to speed
on what the problem was we were solving

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for and the impact and how it
may pertain to them, instead of letting

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Google get them up to speed.
But we don't focus on the new person.

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But the new person is actually the
risk because they may have the bright

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idea and if they know nothing about
us, they then talk the economic vibray

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to going with our idea. They
were, especially at the executive level,

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they were hired for a reason.
We have to pay attention to that because

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they usually get carte blanche what they
want for about eight nine months. I

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call it the huntingmoon period. So
we've got to get in there and get

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in there quick. Yeah, those
are some great action steps. We actually

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have another podcast with the Diana where
she talks about what happens when there's leadership

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changes in your account, like how
do you maneuver that? What do you

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do? Also some great tips in
that conversation. I'll go ahead and link

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it in the show notes. Some
great things to think about in this current

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situation, Diana as we plan our
strategy to re engage customers. Wrap it

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up for us with the main takeaway
you want people to have from this podcast

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episode. Well, Rinchie, you
said it earlier too sometimes and you didn't

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say it this way, but I
know you were going with sometimes we have

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to take a step back to take
a step forward, and so you mentioned

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we got to go back. Can
reassess what was the pain? Did I

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get to the right person with the
pain, did I articulate a large enough

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impact for them to take action,
and did I attach myself to the biggest

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business problem not twelve business problems,
because while they may tell us they have

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twelve, generally they only had enough
time, money, and resources to do

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one or two. Did we get
to those? And sometimes when we're being

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ghosted, we have to have the
hard conversation to find out right why that's

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happening, whether it's via email or
whether it's via phone, And we have

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to be more direct to find out
are we still in the deal, have

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they already moved on? If so, we might need to qualify out or

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what is shipped? We've got to
make it. I call it making it

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okay for them to be not okay
and telling us really where we are so

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that I know do I continue moving
forward with this or do I need to

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go ahead and move on to something
else. Yeah, sometimes those difficult questions

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are those straight questions help you maximize
your time and you shouldn't be afraid to

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ask them. Very true, Very
true. I think bottom line is they

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have the problem and if we've qualified
it enough, they need to fix it,

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whether they choose us or not.
So are we saying what we need

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to to connect that we can actually
solve their business and their technical problem.

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And lastly, I would say,
if you've sent something, say something.

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So if you're sensing there's a change, if you're sensing they're not all in

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whatever it is that you might be
sensing, you need to say something and

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figure it out rather than just continuing
marching along. Otherwise you'll find yourself soon

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ghosted. Awesome, that's it.
That's it. Thank you, Diana,

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You're very welcome. Thanks for having
me all right, and thank you to

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all of you for listening to the
Audible Ready Sales podcast. Don't forget to

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check out the links and the show
notes. Have a great day. At

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Force Management, we're focused on transforming
sales organizations into elite teams. Our proven

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methodologies deliver programs that build company alignment
and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your

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teams the ability to execute the growth
strategy at the point of sale. Our

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strength is our experience. The proof
is in our results. Let's get started.

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Visit us at forestmanagement dot com.
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