What To Say When Your Prospect Only Has 10 Minutes

Have you ever had a prospect say to you "Tell me about your products and I only have 10 minutes"? What have you done in this situation? What was the response you received?

Before we look at three ways to respond, let's look at the "I only have 10 minutes" statement.

The "I only have 10 minutes" statement could be true and/or it could be being used as a protection mechanism. Your prospects want to protect themselves from salespeople and this statement is ideal for this. If they've told you they only have 10 minutes then they are not being rude when they leave the conversation in 10 minutes. Bear this in mind as you read on.

There are three options for how to respond when your prospect says "Tell me about your products and I only have 10 minutes."

Option One

You fall into the trap and tell them about your products. You talk non-stop for 10 minutes bombarding them about your products. You hope that something relevant is going to jump out at them as you talk, talk, talk and talk.

If you take this option you've acted like a salesperson. If you're acting like a salesperson your prospect will be counting the seconds until the 10 minutes are up so they can say "thanks very much, I've got to go."

By talking nonstop about yourself and your products you've committed 6 out of the 10 top sales mistakes and you will have more than likely repelled your prospect.

Option Two

You ask to schedule a time when they have longer than 10 minutes to talk.

On the surface this sounds like a sensible option but if they are using the 10-minutes as a protection barrier, it'll be difficult to get more time with them. Prospects don't want to let this protection mechanism against salespeople go.

If they really only have 10 minutes then think of it from their perspective. They are busy and their time is valuable. In the 10 minutes they've given you they really want you to show them why they should talk to you. So can you see that even if they don't have a real 10 minutes deadline, they'll probably still only want to give you 10 minutes?

Option Three

This option is the complete opposite of Option One where you talk, talk and talk. With this option you get them to talk, ideally for about 8 out of the 10 minutes.

With this option, instead of hearing "Tell me about your products and services." you hear "What's in it for me to talk to you?" You know you have 10 minutes for them to feel there is value in them spending their limited time having a conversation with you.

If they can see the value in talking to you, then when the 10 minutes is up they'll probably keep talking and you might find the 10 minutes extends to 30 minutes to an hour, etc. Also, if the 10 minute limit was real, then probably at the end of the 10 minutes they'll be the ones asking you to come back to continue the great conversation.

So how do you show them what's in it for them to talk to you? There are essentially two parts. Part one is where you set the context for asking questions and the second part is where you ask them highly relevant, targeted and short questions which get them to talk so you can listen.

Here's a very brief example of setting up the context for asking questions:

"There is so much I could l tell you but rather than waste your time talking about products that may or may not be relevant or of any value to you, I'd really like to spend the next 10 minutes talking about your own specific issues. That way when I do talk about our products, I'll be able to show you exactly where the value is for you. You never know we may even find that my products are of no value to you. If it's okay with you I'd like to ask you a few questions..."

If you take this approach, you're not acting like a salesperson trying to sell them something and consequently the salesperson protection barrier will come down. People are interested in people who are sincerely interested in them and want to help them solve their problems. They will want to continue the conversation as they will see it to be of value to them.

So in summary whenever a prospect says "Tell me all about your products and I only have 10 minutes" don't fall into the trap of talking and get them to talk instead. Ask meaningful, relevant and short questions and your prospects will want to talk to you - for much longer than 10 minutes.

Effective Selling - How Do You Dig Holes To Draw Water?

If a geologist told you that in order to draw water from a parcel of land, you would have to dig down 10 feet. The obvious best course of action is to dig one, 10 foot hole. The task would not be difficult and once you dug the hole, you would draw water. This is not a trick question and it certainly does not require a complex answer.

But too often, the ineffective sales executive over complicates their situation and strays from the salesmanship basics: building relationships, exploring customer needs, overcoming rejections, etc. The ineffective sales executive loses focus on the corporate strategy. They keep reinventing new things to do versus executing the tasks at hand. To the dismay of the geologist, the ineffective sales executive digs ten, 1 foot holes. Hence, they never draw water!

In our current internet age business environment, it is easy to become distracted. You are juggling an overflowing e-mail inbox, your customers are demanding more and more for less, and you may be experiencing sales management pressure to just "do something". It is easy to fall prey to the sales management fallacy of believing that hyper-activity will lead to immediate results. Unfortunately "busyness" does not close deals, persistent execution does.

As a sales manager, it is easy for me to spot out the "hole diggers". They are ones that show up every week on the sales call with some new close strategy or master plan to make a quick sale. This in itself is not the problem. The problem is that they are not persistent in executing all of the other strategies they were pursuing from the previous weeks, i.e. they did not finish digging their holes. This is one recipe for lack of sales execution.