Sales Chump

The Manager had a post a while ago talking about cutting bait and I wanted to revisit this idea of “cutting bait”.  A lot of this post will reiterate what was already said but we can touch on some new things too.  The title of his post was Can’t land a deal? Cut Bait!  But how many of us actually do this at the right time?

Cutting bait is a must to succeed and as sales reps we all find this hard to let a lead or prospect go.  If a lead or prospect isn’t going anywhere though it is just wasting time and energy that can and should be spent elsewhere.  But when is it the right time to cut bait?  How do I know when it’s time?

More often than not, you will know when it’s time.  Have you left voice mails and emails all to remain unanswered by your prospect over the past several months?  Chances are it’s time to cut bait with this lead.  This type of lead is even harder to part with as you haven’t got a direct answer from the prospect saying no.

Haven’t you said to yourself “I wish they would just call me back and tell me no”?  Well soemtimes silence is the loudest form of saying no.  If you’ve left voicemails and sent emails that generate responses typically and you’ve tried calling during different times of the day and month and don’t get a response, that silence can be taken as the sincerest form of not interested.

How do I know when someone says no if they really mean it?  Well this would depend on how well you talked with the prospect.  Did you go right into your product’s features and benefits without talking with the prospect finding out what is important to them, what they need?  If so, the no was probably knee jerk.  But if you went through your sales process and sincerely listened to the customer about what they want or what they need and you weren’t able to produce something that would help them satisfy that need or better their situation then the no is sincere and it’s time to cut bait.

Believe me, cutting bait isn’t easy for me either but at a point in time you look at your notes on a prospect and realize after 2 or 3 times longer than your typical sales cycle you’re still at step 1, it’s probably time to let it go.  Think about it this way (makes me feel better)… you could have completed 3 sales cycles in the time it took you to get this 1 going.  Set a time in the future where you dig through all those old (dead) leads and go through them all at once and if you have 10 to 20 of them, you might find yourself getting somewhere with 1 or 2 of them 6 months or a year down the road.

One thing I see time and time again is a sales rep working the same account for what seems like an eternity and not getting anywhere with it.  This is very frustrating from a reps perspective and a management perspective.  If a correct sales process was followed along with follow up after follow up with no further action, it’s time to cut bait!

This scenario is going to happen at some point no matter what and the best thing to do is try to learn from it and move on.  There are plenty of other prospects that will make a decision much quicker.  This may frustrate your reps because they think they will eventually land the customer or the deal.  This could be true however the time spent on running in place could be used much more effectively to land accounts that are willing to do something now.

I give my reps two options when they must cut bait.  The first is to cut bait, but set a reminder 3-6 months down the road.  I instuct them to not look at the account in that time and then call back after those months have passed to see if the prospect has changed their mind.  Things may have changed in that time period and they may be willing to make a decision at that time.

The second is to swap off your cut bait leads to someone else on your team.  A new perspective and style is sometimes all that is needed to land the deal.  This works best when other reps take and give the leads to a certain partner or spread it around evenly.  Sales is mostly an individual game but when other employees are successful it spreads.  This has been the most effective of the two options for me. 

Another amazing thing may also happen when a rep cuts bait.  The customer is no longer pursued or chased and calls back to complete the sale on their own.  I’m not sure exactly why this occurs but it seems like they finally have time to realize this is something they are missing out on and don’t want to miss the boat when it has pushed away from the dock. 

The time at which to cut bait will be different depending on what a normal sales cycle is and what kind of product is being sold.  The sales manager needs to be aware of that time and advise the rep to cut bait and move on.  This will allow the rep to be more productive with other leads and enable them to land more, instead of just spinning their wheels.