Have you ever had someone really excited to buy from you, then it derailed quickly after that when they went to talk to someone else? It could have been their business partner, spouse, boss, or someone else entirely.
How can you avoid that?
It's a very delicate place to be, because you never know what's going on in their world, outside of meeting with you. And if you're not careful, you can set them up to be in an awkward position! How likely do you think they are to do business with you then?
Picture a wife and husband purchasing a new car. The wife goes and looks at cars, finds what she wants, and it's a great deal. She goes back home, super excited, to tell her husband all about it.
The husband hears the price, and responds, "What!? Are you insane?"
All of a sudden, she goes from feeling happy to feeling terrible.
Every situation is different. But many times, there's an unbelievable feeling of embarrassment. They don't know how to call back and tell the salesperson they can't purchase the car after all.
Meanwhile, the car salesman is blissfully unaware. They think they have another one in the bag!
You've probably had a similar situation, where you thought a meeting went well, but they never ended up buying from you.
If you make any assumptions along the way, you're in trouble! The absolute best way to move everything forward is to have some type of motion. An object in motion tends to stay in motion.
An object at rest tends to stay at rest.
The way you can avoid situations like that is to create some sort of motion, even if it's negative motion. If someone is excited to work with you, really question them about it.
"Are you really sure you want to purchase this?"
"This is more money than you talked about investing. Are you sure you want to spend more?"
"You said you wanted red, and this isn't red. Are you really okay with that?"
And a powerful follow-up question to those: "Why?"
Once they've thought through the "why" with you, they'll be equipped to discuss that with the other person.
And that concept creates the motion that you need. You should always be working on closing a sale, or closing the file so you don't waste any time on it. And the only way to do that is to create motion.
