How to Respond to Neutral or Negative (No) Responses in Your Direct Outreach Sales Campaigns

How to Respond to Neutral or Negative (No) Responses in Your Direct Outreach Sales Campaigns

Everything you’ve done up until this point was to get the attention of your perfect future client, whose challenge you can solve very effectively, and you’ve created interest within them to have a conversation with you. At this stage some people might be neutral not wanting to say yes and not wanting to say no. Others might be a straight up NO! By acknowledging that there isn’t an overwhelming level of interest at this stage, we can approach the conversation in a way that doesn’t require big commitments from your prospect, thereby allowing us to move this relationship forward one step at a time. We can’t ask or expect to be given a lot of time at this stage, nor can we expect them to make a buying decision of any kind right now. The goal here is simply to verify that your preliminary research was correct, that they are the best contact you should be speaking with, and that they have a problem that you can solve. The prospect doesn’t have to know that they need your help at this stage, as long as they are willing to get into dialogue with you, as the need can be revealed during conversation.

Neutral Responses:

Neutral responses typically come in forms of questions. You see things like, “Do you do X?” or “Do you have Y?” This happens when a prospect has interest, but they are not fully committing to a YES. This may be because they have some reservations, or your exact offering doesn’t match what they’re looking for. Since these responses are closer to YES than they are to NO, the best course of action is to quickly pick up the phone and call them. What I love about neutral responses is that the prospect already has something in mind that would work for them. For example, in our prospecting campaigns, sometimes we’re asked if we would be willing to get paid after they see results. This isn’t a YES or positive response, because they don’t want to bother having a sales conversation about anything that would require them to lay out money. But this isn’t a NO or negative response, because they do have interest in the offering. In fact, they already laid out what they’re looking for.

Lead Generation Companies

The goal is always to move the response to a phone conversation wherever possible. In the example above, we do occasionally allow the right prospects to work on a performance basis, but this is definitely not the norm. In order to determine if they’re qualified for the program, we must have a more in-depth conversation in person or over the phone. This wouldn’t be something negotiated over email. But, since I can’t sell as effectively over email as I can in a live conversation, wouldn’t I want to have an in-depth conversation with every prospect? Think about it. Even if I can tell that a prospect wouldn’t be a fi t for our performance-based pricing model, wouldn’t I want the opportunity to understand why they’re asking for this in the first place? Maybe they’re scared we won’t perform and I can give them as many references as they needed to feel more comfortable.

Maybe they’re worried that they don’t have the budget because they’re assuming our fees are higher than they really are. If I were to just answer their question and tell them NO before having the opportunity to speak with them, we both may be missing a great opportunity. Therefore, if your answer to their question automatically disqualifies you or them, find a way to have the discussion over the telephone so the both of you can find a way to make it work.

Negative (or ‘NO’) Reponses:

Just like any objection, they come in different forms. You may get the simple, “Unsubscribe,” or, “Not interested” messages, or the prospect could give more detail explaining the issue they have like, “We’re under contract until the end of the year”. So be aware that not every NO means no. Sometimes they just mean, “Not now”. At the end of this book there’s a great chapter on how to overcome objections, but for now the question is, what to do when we get negative or NO responses? The answer depends on how many leads you have versus how many you need. If you have a big potential market and your team is small, then you can target enough prospects that you don’t have to even worry about the NOs you get. On the other hand, if you’d like to generate the highest volume of meetings or your market is small, and you need to convert the most leads possible, then I recommend picking up the phone and reaching out to the prospect.

Even though this person is starting with a NO, you’re already at a higher advantage than if you were to call this person cold. They already know who you are, now they’ve heard of your company, and they know what the call is about. This is your starting point. You’re going into the call with a mini-relationship that has been built. Many times, you even know what their issue is which gives you time to prepare for your response. These are luxuries that you do not get with cold calling. This is another reason we never want our first contact with a prospect to be a call.

Contact us at MindStorm if you would like a sample turn-around phone script to help you with this process. We also offer sales training in New York at our location or we will come to your location to go over this and your whole sales process as well.

Source:- How to Respond to Neutral or Negative (No) Responses in Your Direct Outreach Sales Campaigns