There are certain times of the year when it can feel like as a coach, trainer or speaker that all prospects are ghosting you.
Like the week before Christmas, the first days of a new year or during a Mercury Retrograde.
But if you find that prospective clients, organizational decision makers and speaking bookers are consistently not responsive, it’s likely that your pitches, proposals and submissions are lacking something.
Quite possibly, several somethings.
I see a lot of speakers, coaches and trainers obsess about their program titles and punctuation.
And, while spelling errors, run-on sentences or blasé titles should be corrected to support you in crafting your most powerful persuasive cases, they usually aren’t the reasons that prospects are ignoring you.
If you want to stop prospects from ghosting you, it’s important to recognize and address these three common mistakes.
1. You are not connecting your offering to the decision maker’s top goals.
Too many learning and development consultants frame their offerings solely as development for people. I’ve certainly been guilty of this.
Most decision makers, unfortunately, aren’t primarily concerned with development.
Instead, they care about increasing revenue. Decreasing costs. Standing out in a crowded niche.
The sooner you can find out a decision maker’s top priority (i.e., minimizing client attrition), the easier it will be for you to position your offering (i.e., enhancing your customer service representatives’ abilities to retain clients through high-stakes communication and conflict resolution training) as the solution for achieving that goal.
2. You are not communicating why your approach is what this specific client needs.
Most event organizers and HR/senior leaders are pitched dozens of similar programs.
In my experience, while some decision makers will choose the cheapest or most famous option, you don’t usually have to be the Walmart or Beyoncé of your industry to get the gig.
Rather, you need to be the person who can most effectively articulate why your approach to your topic is the one that’s most going to produce the desired results.
Often times decision makers have already had a speaker, trainer or consultant (or many speakers, trainers or consultants) provide what you are offering.
And, the solutions either didn’t work, learning didn’t stick, or the topic was so popular with employees/audience they want to do more on it.
Knowing previous experience and integrating that knowing into your persuasive case will help you show why you are the one to pick.
It will show that you really get the needs and challenges of the group you’re jockeying to have face time with.
Plus, it will help you speak to pain points and personal motivators, and it will ensure you are able to counter likely objections.
3. You are not creating genuine time-sensitivity for a decision.
If companies or conference planners can postpone hopping on a phone call or giving you an answer without it inconveniencing them, they almost always will.
If, however, not making a decision is a greater inconvenience than making one… well, you are a smart cookie. You know what I’m recommending here.
You don’t need to abandon your integrity and be gross or manipulative to create time-sensitivity.
Simply let folks know how they or the organizations they represent will benefit short-term for carving out a modest amount of time for you.
You can let people know you are running a special. For example, you are offering a 15% discount to any company that books by a particular date.
You can also show how soon they might be able to experience relevant results. For example, 50% of those who go through your training see a 25% increase in sales within 90-days.
You are likely to stop prospects from ghosting you for speaking, coaching and training opportunities when you stop making your pitch or proposal about you or your content – even though I know how fabulous you and your offerings are!
Instead, you make your outreach and your persuasive cases about helping the people you are pitching achieve their goals, quickly and once and for all, for their people – be they employees or audience members.
Now, while you have three effective strategies to stop prospects from ghosting you, it’s time for some truth-telling.
Have you been guilty of ghosting prospects yourself?
If you are a coach, consultant, trainer or corporate leader who has ghosted rather than used direct communication to tell a prospect you are not interested, knock it off!
If you want your prospects to treat you with respect, it’s vital you do the same.
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