Sales roadblocks aren’t the end of the world.
Most of the time they’re just bottlenecks that have to be overcome.
In this article we take a look at 5 ways you can turn common sales roadblocks into winning opportunities for your lead generation!
Lead Nurturing – When the Prospect is not Ready to Buy
Prospects that aren’t ready to buy are common especially in the B2B realm, and that’s perfectly fine.
There is no reason why they should be removed from a marketing list.
SDRs can use this opportunity to nurture the lead up to the point that they’re ready to buy.
Lead nurturing is also great if you’re planning to upsell in the future, the longer that they stay in the funnel, the more likely it is for a great relationship to form, and this can result in more sales for the company.
Related: Lead Nurturing Marketing Automation Statistics Every Marketer Should Know
Turning Budget Issues into Opportunities
Sometimes using lead qualification frameworks such as BANT and ANUM will immediately disqualify your leads for the lack of available money for the solution. However, that shouldn’t always be the case.
Other sales frameworks such as FAINT and the more buyer-centric NOTE, prioritizes working within available funds or helping your buyer create the budget necessary for the solution that you’re selling.
If you find that most of the people in your list can’t afford what you’re selling, then you still have three considerations:
- Change out your prospect list and fix your segmentation
- Help them figure out how much money they should allocate to your solution
- Move on to internal product development (more on this in the next section)
Related: 2 Surefire Strategies that Increased My Conversions by 70%
Internal Product Development – When There is a Mismatch the Offer and the Need
Sometimes the biggest problem you could be facing is a mismatch between your solution and what the prospect needs.
But, did you know that this is actually great news?
By analyzing how many mismatches you have and finding patterns, you can find out where your product is lacking and toss that over R&D or product development.
This way you can truly create a product that makes a difference for the people that you are selling it to.
SDRs and closers can take this a step further by asking exactly where the solution that they are selling is falling short, so that they know exactly how to position their product in the market.
Other marketers have used product mismatches as opportunities to create enterprise accounts where they sell highly differentiated and custom solutions for their clients. This equals better relationships and better revenues for both parties.
If there’s no way that marketers or product devs can tweak their products, the sales rejection can be used as an opportunity to realign marketing goals and targets.
Building Rapport – When You’ve Got the Wrong Person
One of the most common problems in lead generation is getting in touch with a person in another organization only to find out that they are not a DMU.
This can mean the end of the line for most of these types of prospects, especially if you use the BANT qualification framework, but it can also be an opportunity to sell.
Getting the wrong person on the phone doesn’t discount the fact that they and the DMU are from the same organization you’re targeting.
For starters, you can use this as a great opportunity to do some research on the company, and how it functions. This will help you in your next efforts to contact the actual DMU as it will give you clues on pain points and what type of messaging to use for your next conversation to be more effective.
Next, you can use this time to use the contact person as an internal “champion” for your sales efforts, if they’re in the right department and if you can build rapport with them, they might be able to help you sell the solution to the DMU.
And, lastly, we get to organizational targeting, this means marketing to the people who will actually be using the solution that you’re selling. This is an opportunity for you to introduce your product to other members of the organization and make it less intimidating when it finally gets onboarded.
Related: 4 Sales Call Rapport-Building Techniques That AI Can’t Yet Do
Asking for Referrals – Sales Rejection
At Callbox, we also highlight the importance of building rapport because it leads to real relationships, and we know that even sales rejection can be dealt with in a productive manner.
If you’ve had a productive conversation with a prospect but it’s been unfruitful due to the lack of a conversion, you can use this opportunity to ask for a referral.
This can easily turn one lead into two or more which isn’t so bad.
You can even use this opportunity to reward them for a good referral!
What we love the most out of these five tips is that you can use them interchangeably and they offer plenty of opportunity for your organization to grow internally. It’s through internal growth that you can convert more and create better solutions for the future.
