How To Get A Response When You Are Being Ghosted?

In sales and marketing, getting a “no” from clients and prospects is normal, but this should not always be the case. In this episode, Sam Wakefield talks about taking “no” for an answer and knowing what to do when your prospects are ghosting you. Sharing tactics from personal to social, Sam helps you get in touch with people through technology by starting first within yourself. Read further to learn how to get a positive response even when you get a “no.”

We are going to be talking about taking no for an answer. That’s what we’re after. Especially when it comes to people who have ghosted you for a while. We’ll cover what that means here. First of all, I want to welcome you. Thank you for reading. I so enjoyed putting these episodes together. We’re back in drive time university. I’ve been actually listening to a new book. Drop me a line. Let me know, what are you doing to grow yourself. We know that in order for things to get better, we have to get better. For things to change, we have to change. Become a person worth buying from. What that means is to raise yourself. Raise your personal growth level. Constantly learn new things. Better yourself, better your discipline. Better your focus. Be reading books to change your life. As your life changes, you’ll find that the level of people buying from you increases and the dollar amount also increases. I can totally prove that. I didn’t even have any appointments, but I still had a $34,000 day, which is not too shabby for two sales.

I want to hear some successes from you. I want to hear what you’re doing, what are your numbers in our Facebook community? You can call in together a tribe of people to sell the new way. This is the new style of selling. Gone are the days of asking shaded weird questions, going right to the thermostat, and all those kinds of things. Gone are those days. You are not going to win at the level now if you think that you can’t use your cell phone and text people to make a sale if you think that you can’t do things digitally. I literally have sold thousands and thousands of dollars worth of projects to people who don’t even live in the same city. Just shoot them pictures and through phone conversations, make the sale. It is possible to sell in this new way, this new age. That’s a big part of what we’ll learn in this podcast.

Go to CloseItNow.com. That’s going to get you connected to all things Close It Now, the HVAC residential sales training authority. This is growing so fast. I love it. We’re in six countries now. A big shout-out to all of those countries. My mom mentioned that she was listening. Hi mom. I want to give you a shout-out. I love you and thanks for supporting me for all these years. Let’s get into the content. You go out to do a proposal, so you meet with them, or somebody distant. You’ve done a proposal. For whatever reason, it didn’t close when you were in the house. You followed it up and then crickets. They go dark. There’s no response. The first question is, how are you reaching back to them? Are you only calling them? Are you only emailing them? Have you texted?

Every time I reach back to anyone, if they don’t answer the phone call, which most people typically don’t, and this is even in the introduction and when I’m on the way. I will call text and email all at the same time. In our society, in our day and age, people do not listen to voicemails. Most of the time, you’re going to find that more and more, the mailbox is full. They’re not listening to voicemails. I know personally, I have been guilty of it myself. I won’t listen to voicemails for a couple of weeks literally. It’s something that is just in our society. When I know who it’s coming from, I’m going to put it off. This is obviously not when I’m doing my business. Personally, I won’t listen to voicemails because somebody will instantly text me and that’s really what I expect from them.

Why leave something on a voicemail when you could text? When you’re following up with people, call, email, and text all at the same time. Hit them from all three different ways. Literally, if you could send smoke signals, send smoke signals. You’ve got to get in touch with people. Hit all the different ways you can get in contact with them. I’ve literally also found somebody on Facebook, sent them a Facebook messenger, “I sent you an email. Did you get it?” They said, “No, I didn’t get it. I will check it. Thanks for the heads up.” Use the technology available to you. Don’t act like we’re living in a society where you can’t use technology because everyone is, and they expect it. Totally use the technology that’s available to you. Send an Instagram message. Stalk people on LinkedIn. Send a LinkedIn message.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

You can connect to the world in three to four degrees of Kevin Bacon now. It used to be six if you’ve ever heard that. Remember the old saying that through six degrees of separation, you can connect to anyone in the world. That’s because you know someone who knows someone who knows someone. All of a sudden, you’re connected to anyone that you want to be connected to. Because of our connected society, I think the number is now three or four degrees of separation. You can literally connect to anyone that you want to get connected to. I, 100% believe it is very true. Especially when we’re talking about something like residential HVAC sales. It’s very regional.

If you’re on social media, just about every single person I’ve ever come across, and I test this theory really often. Being in 350, 400 houses a year, a lot of times out of curiosity’s sake, I’ll jump on Facebook and see if I’ve got mutual friends with the people that I’m going to see. Most of the time, I sure do. If for some reason, I need to reach out that way, I know it’s going to be able to. Use the technology at your fingertips. More importantly, quickly shift to text when you can, because that is a level of familiarity that people have with you. Even during a visit, a lot of times, if I’ve taken pictures in the attic, or whatever very specific, if it’s something fairly interesting or they’ve got a specific problem, I’ll say, “Do you mind if I text these to you so you can have them?”

I’ll take a picture of something different and, “Do you mind if I text this to you?” The second that you text them, then there’s a level of relationship that’s being built. It’s okay and it’s great. It’s one more step in the psychological chess match that you’re playing with the homeowner that connects you with them and builds that relationship. What do I mean by going for the no? This is not the same concept if you’ve ever read the book Go For No!, which is a great book. I highly recommend it, but this is something different. If you’ve ever had anybody ghost you when you start to follow up. They’re not responding, they go dark, they’re not getting back to you. You’re wanting to ask them a question at this point that is going to generate a “no” answer from them. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is, say somebody has gone dark, the question I like to use is, “Have you given up on this project?”

I’ll send an email and a text if they don’t respond to the email, but typically they respond to the email that says, in the subject line I’ll ask, “Have you given up on this project?” In the body, in the first line I’ll ask that again, “Have you given up on this project? I wanted to let you know we’ve got a promotion happening, let you know this, let you know that.” Have a piece of information for them but importantly ask, “Have you given up on this project? Have you moved on from my company? Have you decided to wait to do anything right now?” Ask a question that’s going to generate a “no” answer but in your favor. There’s a friend of mine, Joe, who always likes to ask, “Have you forgotten about me?” Because we are building a relationship and when you build a relationship in an hour of time, an hour visit, you’ve gone from first date to proposing marriage. When you ask, “Have you forgotten about me, or have you given up on this project?” you are pulling on those relationship strings that you built in your visit.

People will respond to that type of question and this is in no way manipulation. Imagine if somebody sent you a message and said, “Have you given up on this?” You will be like, “No, I haven’t given up on this. I went with somebody else. No, I haven’t given up, I’m waiting for a tax return. No, I haven’t given up on it. We’ve had some things happen but I want to do the project here or just no we decided to wait for now.” It’s going to generate an answer. At the end of the day, no is a perfectly acceptable answer for everyone yet we always want yes. I would rather have a yes or a no than being stuck in the whole.

They are either not responding or they are in the pending mode, to get stuck in that limbo moment of their thinking, the back and forth, tell me yes or no. I want to think about it usually just a vail response of no but they feel too bad to tell you no so use that. Use it to your advantage when you haven’t closed it now in the house and you are doing some follow-ups and people start not responding, they go dark, use that question, “Have you given up on this project? Have you forgotten about me?” Send that in the subject line and then put that in the body and leave it at that. Send that and see what happens and I can guarantee you, your response rate is going to skyrocket. It’s going to go through the moon because people almost can’t resist responding to that question. It’s like the psychological magnet that pulls people into that response.

Try that. I want to know how it works for you. I know for me and our team it’s worked amazingly because it the way people are wired. People are wired to respond to that and all we are looking for is a response. We are decision collectors. That is our job it is to collect decisions of yes or no on projects. Obviously, the more you build your value and the more you show how valuable your project is and your company is and you are as their resource and their consultant, then you’ll get more yes than noes and you should but to get those answers back, use those questions. Craft a question that results in a no answer but it’s to your benefit in the positive. “Have you forgotten about me or have you given up on this project?” are really two good examples of exactly what to use and it’s okay, you can duplicate. Use that question and try it and see how it does for you.

That is the episode and it was a little bit shorter than usual. Join our community, go to CloseItNow.com. That’s going to be the landing place but that’s where you can get connected to everything that has to do with Close It Now. You can find out about the coaching program. We’ve got group coaching. We’ve got one-on-one coaching. We also have a Facebook group to get involved with. We are building a community of professional salespeople from around the globe. I just had somebody join the group from Norway.

Getting Response When Ghosted: Quickly shift to text when you can because that is a level of familiarity that people have with you.

Welcome, everyone from around the world. I’ve got an audience in Morocco, India, the United Kingdom, Colombia, Canada, and the United States. If you’ve got some value and have been getting value from these, share it with anyone you know in any type of in-house sales, especially heating and air. Because sharing is caring, this is a way that we can grow and raise the standard of our profession. It’s way too much like the Wild Wild West out there. Let’s raise the standard of our profession. When people call for an air conditioning quote, they need to have confidence that they are going to get a professional experience.

We know that when you get connected with us, the skills that you learn, the techniques, and the principles will turn you into a professional heating and air Comfort consultant, Comfort representative, project manager, Comfort advisor, or whatever you want to call yourself. At the end of the day, realistically, people know why you are there. There is no hiding the fact that you are there to sell them something. The more professional you are about it and the more upfront you are and the less we stop trying to use all kinds of weird names for stuff and hide it, the more that we are like, “This is what’s happening. Here’s what’s going on,” and that is when we stop being weird and start selling. The principle is don’t use a weird voice. Too many people use a weird voice. “My name is Sam Wakefield and I’m here to.” No, that’s ridiculous. Just have a normal conversation with people. When I’m training people, I get asked the question, “Why is it when I ride with you, it feels like you are talking to people like they are an old friend but when I ride with somebody else, it’s like they’ve turned this weird switch on and become somebody they are not?”

That’s because I used to do that, that used to be me but the more that I study sales, the more that I study people and interpersonal behavior. People can smell weird sales jargon in tactics and all of that stuff a mile away. There is no reason to step into that role when you don’t have to. Be normal. Be real. That doesn’t mean we are not learning skills. That doesn’t mean we are not going to use the right phrasing and the right words. I’m actually listening to a book called Influence as the Science of Persuasion because that’s what it is. Influence is being able to ask people questions in a way that they see your point of view. It’s not manipulation. It’s a matter of education to the level that they have come to in agreement with you.

You are working together with them to come up with a solution that’s going to solve their need. The next episode I’m going to do is a fantastic way, in the beginning, to set up the end of the call with some very specific verbiage. It doesn’t feel weird, it doesn’t feel forced, but people understand that you are there for a reason and you are there to find solutions to their problems. You are telling them right up front that you are going to ask them for a decision before the call is done. Thanks for reading. I will talk to you again soon.