Going silent while someone is genuinely trying to make conversation certainly goes against social and societal norms.
However, this same behavior finds acceptance behind the safety of a keyboard. Be it on social media platforms or via emails, no response is perfectly acceptable.
And for businesses – this silence is very usual. Most of the time salespersons have an incredible initial interaction with a prospect … only for the buyer to drop from the face of the earth immediately afterwards. No matter what messaging the sales representative tries or which contact channel they use, the result is the same: radio silence.
There can be a number of reasons behind a prospect developing cold feet while he or she comes in contact with your business and instead of moving further in your sales funnel – drops out in between.
Before we discuss the ways to change the mind of a cold lead, it’s vital that we first get to know how we can identify a cold prospect.
Your qualified lead would always:
- Frequently visit your site
- Fill out forms
- Sign up for your newsletters
- Contact you for further questions
Despite taking above actions, there are chances that your lead may not actually do business with you and under such situations, a cold prospect would:
- Stop communicating with you
- Ask for more time to study the market
As soon as you identify that a prospect is losing interest in your business, you should:
Re-evaluate your follow-up strategy: Assess how the whole follow-up was done – maybe your way of communication wasn’t genuine enough to persuade the lead. Try for new communication channels. If earlier you had tried sending out mails, this time have a telephonic conversation and so forth.
Offer valuable benefits: While trying to persuade your cold lead, the major challenge is to build his or her trust in your brand. Give your lead something valuable as a benefit which could include a free e-book, or a free trial of your service or product. This can help in winning their trust and building your brand’s credibility.
Provide clear & concise information: Often leads turn away from your brand because of a lack of proper information. Ensure that your lead is provided with all possible information about your service or product.
You can’t force a customer to change their mind but you can certainly influence their decision- making process by helping them fully understand their issues and how your business has the right solution for it.