This content has been provided by Mr. Inside Sales as a complimentary resource for the Inside/Digital Sales Community in this difficult time. If you have a resource to share with the community, please reach out to [email protected]!

Do any of these email responses from prospects or customers sound familiar?

“Everything is on hold right now.”

“Due to the circumstances, we just don’t have the budget right now.”

“We’re not making any decisions right now.”

“This just isn’t a good time for us—I’m sure you can understand.”

What all these responses have in common is that they are just common stalls. Oh sure, the circumstances might be new (the Covid-19 pandemic is certainly new!), but in essence, these objections are the same kinds of stalls you usually get.

“Not a good time,” “Don’t have the budget,” “Not making decisions right now,” are responses you get during your normal sales process, aren’t they?

So, how should you handle these stalls now? Using the same best practice approach you should always be using: You should isolate these objections.

What do you really want to know given these stalls or objections? You want to know:

“If you did have the budget, is our product or service the one you would choose?” and,

“When the time is right to make these kinds of decisions again, would you seriously consider our solution?” and,

“When circumstances change, are you interested enough in our solution to choose us?”

That’s how you should respond when you get these kinds of email stalls during this pandemic.

Of course, you’ll want to soften your response by showing empathy for what your prospect or client is going through.

Here are a couple of good, all purpose, email responses you can customize to each of the situations above:

Dear Prospect:

Thanks for your response and no worries about budget at this time.

We work with many companies like yours, and the timing must make sense—both budget wise as well as what your current needs are.

Quick question: Putting budget aside for a moment, I’m wondering if it makes sense to pursue our conversation in the future based on what you know about how we work?

In other words, if and when budget does become available, is our (product or solution) something you find enough value in to speak about another time?

Another example:

Dear Prospect,

Good to hear you’re keeping well.

I understand that things may be on hold for now but was wondering: How do you feel about what we covered in our demo last week?

Do you feel this had value for you?

Let me know so I can follow up appropriately.

Thanks…

As you can see by these sample responses, what we’re doing is side-stepping their objection or stall so you can determine whether or not they have a genuine interest in your product or service.

Until you know that, you’ll just be chasing your tail.

And that doesn’t feel good in any sales climate…