Why Can't I Close This Sale!

We've all been there. After countless calls, meetings and an endless amount of work, you just can’t get the customer to say “yes” and move forward.  There can be hundreds of theories and ideas as to why this happens more times than we care to admit.  Let’s put all the theories aside and get to a solution you can use right now to determine if the customer is serious.

The problem in these types of situations is as a salesperson, you’ve invested time and effort and the last thing you want to do is quit and walk away.  You are thinking, “The prospect could be very close to saying  ‘yes.’”  It’s either your pride that doesn’t allow you to walk away or it’s the fear of another week with no sales under your belt.

The answer is in being able to determine if the prospect is truly a prospect or nothing more than a suspect in disguise.  I know the number one solution is to get the customer involved in the buying process.  That’s right – get them involved. If they’re not willing to be involved, then they’re just using you either for information or because they are afraid to tell you “no.”  You can get them involved by asking them to do something for you after you’ve left. If a customer is truly interested, they’ll do something for you. If they’re not interested, they won’t.  It’s that simple.

Next time a customer stalls out on you, ask them as a next step to review something for you. It might be a report you’re going to email to them or it might be something on a website. The key is to see if they will provide some input to you.  This simple activity is one of the best ways to measure how serious a prospect is in doing business with you.  Someone who is serious will do what you ask them to; someone who is not won’t.  Their response to what you ask them to do will not only give you a sense of their level of commitment, but also may give them a quick “out” to indeed tell you they are not interested.  Either way, it allows you to move forward.  Either they are a serious prospect or it’s time to drop them and move on.

Another great tool to measure the seriousness of a prospect is to ask them to share with you some proprietary information.  It might be a question you ask regarding the strategic focus of their business or how their sales are for this month.  It can be almost anything, but when you ask them a question that requires them to reveal something that is not known outside the company, you will quickly determine if the customer has confidence in you.  Since confidence is what customers are really buying, then a key to knowing if a sale is going to occur is if they will share with you something of proprietary nature.

Keep in mind that neither of these two techniques is 100% foolproof in determining if a customer is serious. This method was  found  to be the most time efficient method to separate prospects from suspects. In the end, the only sales you’re going to close are going to be with prospects who show interest in what you’re providing and confidence in how you’re providing it.

Plan the Time to Time the Plan

There are many people and businesses out there mistaking time tracking for time management. They keep track to a fault of everything they do, for weeks or even months. And then they stop doing it because they haven’t realized any positive changes. But keeping track of how you spend your time isn’t time management.

Time management is about making changes to the way you spend your time. For effective time management, you have to apply a time management system that will help you see where changes can and should be made.

The first step of time management is to analyze how you actually spend your time so you can determine what changes you want to make.

This is where many people’s attempts at time management fail. They look at a specific day in their Day-Timer or Outlook calendar or on their Palm which is packed with activities from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and don’t know what to do with it. So they fall back on the tried and true techniques and eliminate a few events and prioritize others. But they haven’t really managed anything; they’ve just rearranged it. All the perceived problems and frustrations of the day’s activities are still there – and at the end of their day they’re still frazzled and frustrated.

Manage Your Time with Time Management Categories

How do you actually manage time? The secret is in the categories. Look at your calendar for tomorrow. It’s probably already full of events and activities that you’re hoping to accomplish. As you work or afterward, you’ll be filling in the blank spaces.

Now look at the list and categorize it. How much time during your working day did you actually spend?

1) Putting out fires. An unexpected phone call.  A report that’s necessary for a meeting that should have been printed yesterday. A missing file that should be on your desk. How much of your day was actually spent in crisis mode? For most people, this is a negative category that drains their energy and interferes with their productivity.

2) Dealing with interruptions. Phone calls and people dropping by your office will probably top the list when you’re assigning events to this category. Once again, for most people, this is a negative category because it interferes with (and sometimes kills) productivity.

3) Doing planned tasks. This is the most positive use of time during your work day. You are in control and accomplishing what you intended to accomplish. Planned tasks can include phone calls, meetings with staff, even answering email – if these are tasks that you have put on your agenda.

4) Working uninterrupted. You may not be working on a task you had planned to do, but you are getting to accomplish something, and for most people, this is a very productive, positive work mode.

5) Uninterrupted downtime. Those times during the work day that is used to re-energize and regroup. Lunch or a mid-morning break may count IF they’re uninterrupted. If you’re lucky enough to work with a company that offers on-site work-out facilities or nap rooms that would count, too. Everyone needs a certain amount of uninterrupted downtime built into their day to be productive during their work time.

A Week of Your Past Is the Key to The Future

Now that you understand the time management categories, it’s time to use them to analyze your “typical” work week. Using whatever calendar system you use for listing appointments and activities in your daily life, go back and select a recent typical week. Go through the entries of each working day and categorize them according to the time management categories above. Keeping a running total at the bottom of each day will make it easy to see just how you’ve spent your working time each day.

Now you have the data you need to make changes to the way you spend your time at work. Are you spending too much time putting out fires? Then you need to make the organizational or physical changes to prevent or defer these constant crises. Clean up and reorganize your desk, for example, so you can find the files you need easily, and establish a routine of putting the files you need for the next day out on your desk before you leave for the day. Not getting enough uninterrupted downtime during your working day? Then you need to build it in. For instance, stop eating lunch at your desk and physically leave the building for your stipulated lunch time.

By applying my work categories of time management, and making the changes you need to make to spend more of your time during your working day in the positive categories and less time in the negative categories, you’ll truly be able to effectively manage your time at work – and accomplish the true goal of time management, to feel better.

MapWide Scam Alert!

Update: MapWide and Dr. Said run a scam operation and should be avoided by all businesses.


MapDentist Inc., a marketing and technology company that empowers businesses with smaller advertising budgets to maximize their online presence, has found that interest in local Internet search has skyrocketed, particularly among first-time Web advertisers. MapDentist which is popularly known as MapWide.com, has created a unique and streamlined “vertical” search engine that caters to consumers who want to find a business within their specified locality.

Why is local search so significant to these businesses? Local search uses localized Internet marketing to pair a customer with a nearby business. When a company places an ad online, people from all over the globe can find it. However, what many customers really are looking for is a local business to meet their needs. Search results are now more refined, and with the right targeting, can deliver that walk-in business along with online patronage. For the advertising dollar, a local business would be well served by prominent placement in a powerful local search engine such as MapWide. As research has shown, paper based advertising is close to extinction. 78% of local consumers now rely on local searches to find a business.

What is unique about Mapwide’s advertising model is the valued added features subscribers are entitled to. For about the price of a yellow pages thumbnail ad per month, businesses can purchase a year’s worth of space. Ads include; a prominent page one graphic, personalized blog and chat room features, coupon placement, and other well thought out features. One key element that is very unique to this model involves the businesses ability to log into their subscription and change any element, including regenerating coupons.

"We've helped many of smaller advertisers get online to date and the single common denominator is that they've keyed in on local search," said Dr. Said, CEO and founder of MapWide. "This is not a nascent trend any longer -- local search is what consumers now demand and only businesses found by these search engines will be in the list of choices.

An informal survey of MapWide clients who are first-time advertisers found that local search topped the list of marketing goals, ahead of Yellow Page Ads and Direct Mail. After three months, MapWide clients reported an increase in localized business leads as a result of targeted campaign management, and these in turn are resulting in a significant number of conversions.

According to Dr. Said, "MapWide has proprietary technology to geographically target Internet marketing to keep it local and to separate traffic so that customers in a specific area are directed to local businesses." In addition, the company has partnered with top local directories, destination sites and search engines to provide its customers with the best traffic possible.

MapWide’s local search marketing efforts can range from pinpoint campaigns for national companies tied into an event or promotion in a specific locale, to geolocation targeting for smaller private sector firms. Mapdentist Inc. is a marketing-driven technology company that empowers businesses with smaller advertising budgets to maximize their online presence. MapWide’s solutions provide these businesses with the same opportunities as those of larger concerns through the use of advanced reporting tools; dynamic campaign management; a unique optimization engine; personalized customer support; and an advertising network tailored to local and national markets. MapWide’s technology is now being used to manage hundreds of thousands of keywords and campaigns with outstanding results. The privately held company is based in Tustin, CA.

The fact that Gary Mirkin, the former President of Inc. Magazine, is now MapWide’s President, tells the industry that MapWide is becoming a formidable force. Recent investments, coupled with innovative technology has given rise to what could be the next prominent search engine. In regards to vertical searches on a local level, MapWide has already created something so unique that major players are aligning themselves in what is sure to be a major innovation in the way consumers finds local businesses.

Author: Chris Borowski