Dealing with Unresponsive Clients & Prospects

Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

When dealing with unresponsive clients and prospects, we have to make sure that we’re doing everything on our end to be as responsive as possible. If somebody takes a week to get back to me, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take a week to get back to them. Because if I start to fall into the trap that they’ve laid out, then that’s not good for anybody.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing unresponsive clients and prospects. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Once again, great topic here. I think all of us are guilty — anyone who’s involved in sales — of thinking, this client is going to turn into something, but really, if we looked at it, should we be spending time on somebody else instead of trying to push people through who are not ready or not able to do so.

David: Yeah. And I think, as you said, everyone in sales deals with this, and that’s when you’re dealing with prospects, right? That’s when you’re dealing with people who have not yet spent money with you. This is even harder for some people when you’re dealing with clients, people who have spent money with you and who are not getting back to you with the information that you need in order to do the job that they paid you to do.

Jay: Yeah, I actually have a client right now that is driving me crazy, because we’re in the tax business and they were like “we need to get this done because we have an extension.” And so at some moments they’re like pressing me like this is so important. And then they’ll ghost me for like three or four days.

So right now I’m in the ghost period. I’ve emailed them, I’ve called them and I’m like, where did they go? And I just know like tomorrow they’re going to be, “Hey, we need to get this done.” It’s driving me crazy, David.

David: Yeah. And again, you are not alone. I think everyone in business deals with this, and every time it happens, we’re like, why is this happening? I don’t get it.

And that’s why I think it’s important for us to take the time and sort of examine this and try to determine, okay, what are the reasons behind it?

If it’s a client, why are they not getting back to me with the information? So in a situation that you just described, maybe they don’t have access to it as quickly as they thought.

Obviously, they’re just probably distracted with other things. They’re working on other projects. They know it needs to be done, but they’re not able to do it as quickly as they’d like.

Every excuse in the book, some of them valid, some of them not. But when we are tasked with getting things done on somebody else’s behalf, and then they refuse to live up to their side of the bargain. That’s when we start to run into trouble.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that I’m guilty of as we talk about this, is feeling like if I put any pressure on the client, it’s going to like affect our relationship or something like that.

So I treat people with kid gloves. And I really kind of find out, no, if I’m, I don’t know if stern is the right word, but at least,

David: Maybe firm?

Jay: Yeah, firm maybe is a better term.

David: Yeah, because I think there is a difference between stern and firm. Firm is basically like…

Jay: They sound the same.

David: Yeah, exactly. Listen, I’m trying to help you here and I need this in order to move forward.

And in most businesses, when you’re interacting with someone, particularly in a service business, it comes up a lot. So the rapport obviously is key. We have to be able to have the rapport with people to be able to say, “listen, this is what I need. Otherwise I can’t move forward on it,” and have them be able to come back and say, “yes, listen, I understand. I’ll get this taken care of for you.”

But it doesn’t always flow like that. And that’s why I think if we start to look at what are the reasons for it, we may be able to have better ammunition in terms of dealing with it.

For some people, and I think this goes more to the prospecting aspect of it than for clients, there’s a fear aspect.

I’m afraid of doing this. I’m afraid of taking the next step. I’m afraid of moving forward. And it could be with a client as well. I’m afraid that once I do this, then there’s going to be something else you’re going to need that I’m not going to have. And I’m afraid I don’t have the time or I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to pull it off.

So there’s a fear element that enters it into sometimes. Is that what you’ve noticed as well?

Jay: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And in one of the other things that I’m experiencing right now, talking about current clients is like, they’re not responsive and they’re slow. And then at the end, it’s like, they’re blaming me.

So it’s like, they think that somehow it was my product or my service. And so, there is a danger in not being firm, in not helping them along, that the product won’t satisfy them in the end and you have to guard against that.

David: Yeah, and I think part of that is reminding them along the way that when you’re waiting for them, reminding them that, “hey, if we want to make this deadline, you know, please get back to me and let me know where you stand on this.”

Because even if they say, “okay, it’s going to take me 48 hours to get this to you,” then at least you know, and you’re not sitting there going, “where is this stuff,” and wasting your own mental energy and your own time not knowing what they’re doing.

I think communication is so key when we’ve got a business relationship with someone.

And every single time I’ve had a problem with a business relationship, it always boiled down to communication. Somebody stopped communicating. Or they were really slow in communicating, or they communicated in sentence fragments instead of actual responses.

I remember having a relationship years ago, we were doing business with a really large customer in New York. And I would send out an email that was maybe a paragraph long with several different questions.

And they would come back by answering part of the first thing I asked, and none of the rest of it. And when you see a pattern like this, it very often indicates a problem. And that’s where we have to then go back to our people and say, “listen, I want to get this done for you, but in order to do this, I need A, B, and C. Can you provide that to me?”

And they either will or they won’t.

Jay: Yeah. one of the other things that I see happening is if they’re not responsive, I kind of become less responsive, that’s a mistake. I think that even if they’re not communicating, we need to be communicating.

So I’m still sending them emails. I’m still letting them know that I’m working on their project or whatever else, so that they feel like they’re getting service, even though the breakdown is on their end.

David: Yeah, and I think you’re exactly right. You need to maintain that communication and it’s tempting not to, to say, “okay, we’ll leave it to them if they’re not going to do it.”

Jay: Yeah.

David: But that’s not what we’re being paid for. In some instances we are being paid to continue to nurture that relationship and to continue to ask for the things that we need in order to be able to help them.

Because. If we do get to the point where things don’t get done that need to get done, then obviously it’s going to be a reflection on us.

So we have to make sure that we’re doing everything on our end to be as responsive as possible. if somebody takes a week to get back to me, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take a week to get back to them.

I’ll still try to get back to them within an hour or two, or as quickly as possible, because if I start to fall into the trap that they’ve laid out, then that’s not good for anybody.

Jay: Yeah. One of the things that we’ve learned, talking about communication, is setting the expectation up front with the customer.

So, right after they sign up, or even before they sign up, we’re like, “okay, here’s what’s going to happen.” Then they sign up and they get an email. “Here are the steps that we’re going to go through. Here’s what I need you to do, and here’s what I’m going to do.”

That way when they’re falling down or whatever, you can remind them, “Hey, remember we talked about this? I really need this to provide the product or meet your deadline.”

And that way it’s much easier to remind somebody than to kind let them know halfway through, you know what, we need to make changes here.

David: Yeah, and that’s great. The fact that you’re laying it out in advance, letting them know what you need and when you need it in advance, because that’s something that you can then keep pointing back to.

Jay: Yes.

David: You know, another thing that I think we fall into, another trap that we fall into sometimes is we’re used to one particular method of communication.

So if it’s email, we just keep sending email after email. Or if it’s telephone, we leave message after message. And I think in some situations it’s better to mix that up a bit.

We talk a lot about the MVPs of Marketing and Sales. What’s the message, which combination of marketing vehicles am I going to use to communicate the message? And then who are the people or prospects we need to reach?

Well, in this case, it’s the V aspect of it. Which marketing vehicle are we using to reach them? Because if they’re not responding to email, then maybe we leave a voicemail message. If they’re not responding to voicemail message, then if we’re connected with them in social media, maybe we message them via social media, right?

There are different ways that we can potentially get to them so that we can get a response. If they have an assistant, we can try to reach the person’s assistant and ask them to give us a call back. Right? So it’s three different methods of communication that may result in getting a response.

Jay: Yeah. And we kind of talked about this in the last podcast to kind of keeping track, keeping notes, cause you may have different people on your staff who will interact with that person in different ways or through the process.

So putting in your CRM or in your notes, “Hey, this person is better reached by text. This person is better reached by phone.”

I find more and more text is what everybody wants, but you can’t use text for long form communication or attachments or things like that. And I think it also depends on their technical skills, right?

They may not be using certain types of communication because they’re our generation, right? You know, who knows?

David: Yeah, exactly. And you hit the nail on the head because basically if you’re sending email and they’re not responding, you can then follow up with a text and say, “did you get the email I sent you yesterday at 2. 42 pm,” right?

Jay: Mm hmm.

David: And then they can respond to that. They’ll be more likely to do that. So you’re able to use these different elements in combination, to be able to get the result.

We talked a lot in terms of what clients need to do when we’re trying to communicate with them and they’re ghosting us. When it comes to prospects, maybe we should save that for a whole other episode.

Jay: Yeah.

David: it’s big, huge when it comes to prospecting, because so often you can have a great conversation with someone and then they go radio silent on you. And where do you go from there?

In fact, yeah, let’s do that. Let’s save that for another one.

Jay: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I was just thinking, if we’re not keeping track of how we’re communicating with them, we may be frustrating them, right? Because I’m trying to get a hold of them one way and they’re expecting another way.

So listening, processing, keeping track, very important. David, how do people find out more?

David: You can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team. If you’re struggling with this, where you’re having trouble getting clients to respond, we’ve got different methods that we use to stir the pot a bit, get the response back that you’re looking for and keep you engaged in the conversation because that’s the only way that sales move forward.

It’s the only way that business moves forward. So TopSecrets.com/call.

Jay: All right. Fantastic, David. Thank you so much.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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