When Your B2B Prospects Aren’t Willing to Wait

It’s often a question that vexes everyone during Valentines: Should I get out or wait it out? Some believe in true love going with destiny. Others believe in making destiny happen.

That sounds like B2B prospecting in ways you might not have guessed. For example, can you stay in business long enough to hold off a particular sales appointment until you’re ready? What if those B2B prospects aren’t willing to wait for you?

A situation like this is likely to happen when either your lead generator or your sales rep suffers from information paralysis. You end up getting so much information about a prospect, you suddenly don’t know where to begin. Alternatively, you end up with conclusions declaring a prospect to be unqualified and need for more nurturing. You think they have the time for that when they still have the liberty to choose a competitor?

Behavior like this might sound crazy or unprofessional on the prospect’s end but in reality, it could be quite the opposite. So, what are your options?

• Make yourself the only real choice – Using your nurturing process, you need to already convince the prospect that you’re worth it all (the delays, the inconvenient schedule, that long road trip to the convention center etc). Because really, when you’ve outclassed the competition that well, this is a great way to win using your core business.

• Simply give in – Sometimes the signs are already pointing you to take a step into the sales meeting. Don’t be afraid to ignore some of your smaller marketing scruples and just let them meet your sales rep already. So long as you’ve covered all the basics (such as budgets, timeframe, authority etc) and maybe a little extra insider info on the company, don’t be afraid of any imagined risk.

• Make the waiting more bearable – This can go hand-in-hand in making yourself the only real choice. If a prospect no longer feels inconvenienced or fearful about missing opportunities, then the wait becomes more bearable. A simpler way to put this is that you’re buying for time. (Make sure though that you don’t spend more than you can gain from a sale.)

Whatever option you take, the end result is really the simplification of your sale process. But if you’re afraid of that happening, there you have the real problem. If you’re unwilling to make it a simpler, easier thing for a prospect then don’t be surprised when they’re not willing to wait any longer.