[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to My Weekly Marketing.
Here's a scenario that you've maybe encountered if you've been in business for a while. Let's say that somebody reaches out to work with you. They're, they're already interested. In fact, they're really interested. They ask about your offer, and they show up for a call, and they say, "This is exactly what I've been looking for."
And then nothing. The DM goes quiet, the email never gets returned, and they just vanish. If you haven't had this happen, count yourself lucky, 'cause I can almost guarantee you that you probably will at some point. And honestly, it kinda stinks. And if you're anything like me, your brain goes straight to the worst place.
"What did I do? Was it my price? Did I say something weird? Should I follow up again, or does that sound desperate?" And having been on the receiving end of it, I also am making a policy never to do this to anyone else, especially if they've taken time to talk with me.
But today, I wanna tell you what is likely going on when interested people go quiet, because it's almost never what you think, and it's easy to slip into mind games and start assuming the wrong reason and blame yourself, and that does not help our business one iota.
Once you see these things, you'll stop taking it personally, and you'll know exactly what to do instead. But before I dig into the meat of the episode, The first thing I want you to know is this: when somebody shows interest, it's easy for our minds to mentally slip into the sale, especially if they're really interested.
It feels like the sale is in the bag, but it isn't. So a lot of people mistake curiosity for buying intent. I know that sounds obvious when I say it out loud,. but emotionally, we don't always treat it that way. When someone leans in and when they're excited, when they're asking question, our brain kind of files it under almost a yes, but it's not.
It was just interest. Someone hopped on a Zoom call or [00:02:00] even two, or talked to you at length. None of those mean that they're ready to buy. So when they go quiet, they did not reject you. The silence isn't a no because it was never a yes to begin with. You can't be rejected from a decision that was never made.
So now let's talk about what's really going on because there are three reasons people stall. They're more than that probably, but that's what we're gonna talk about today. And the good news is that every one of them is something that you can actually do something about.
Okay, reason number one: people rarely decide not to buy. They just fail to make a decision. Oftentimes, they don't sit down and go, "Nope, not for me." They just kind of get stuck in the process. Something was missing. And your job is not to push them into a sale. It's to hand them what they need to know so they can move forward.
It might be that they don't have the information they need. They maybe have a question that you haven't answered. Every unanswered question is a little bit of friction, and friction over time becomes silence. They're not gonna chase you down for the answer. They just quietly drift. And here's why this one's easy to miss.
The questions that stop people are almost never about your offer. They're more about them. They're saying to themselves, "Will this work for someone in my exact situation? Am I too far behind for this to help? Is this gonna eat up my time that I don't have?" Or, "What if I'm the one person it doesn't work for?" And they'll probably never type those out or ask you, 'cause that feels really vulnerable, so they just go quiet, and you never even know a question was sitting there.
And here's the sneaky part. It's often not the question that they asked out loud. It's one that's underneath. They might ask, "How long will it take to get through the course?" But what they're really asking, it could be that they wanna know if it's worth their money. If it's a big enough course, they feel like they've spent their money wisely, thinking that a [00:04:00] longer, more comprehensive course would be worth more.
Or they could be gauging if it's gonna eat up too much of their time to take it. So what do you give them? The answer to the question they didn't ask. Get ahead of it and spell it out on your sales page and in your emails and in the conversation that you could have from them.
You could say something like, "This course has five modules, but what's important is the results. Many of my students finish it in two weeks, but you have lifetime access to complete it at your own pace." That way you're removing uncertainty, you're focusing them on the results instead of all the pieces to the offer
The second reason why they fail to make a decision is overwhelm. Making a decision is hard. It's work. They're thinking about what happens next, how it works, what they're committed to already, whether they have time to do it, and if saying yes means that they have to figure out a bunch of stuff go through a lot of modules, schedule a bunch of calls, fill out homework, then that's a heavy lift.
So they set it down to deal with later, but later really never comes this is a mistake I made in my first course many years ago. I wanted to make sure my students walked away with a lot, so they felt like it was worth the price they paid.
And then I also added a bonus stack, all the freebies, which added more to their to-do list. Looking back, I think this scared people away from saying yes, because I was selling the offer instead of the results. So if the customer isn't all in, waiting to make the decision is the easiest option for them.
So what do you give them? You make the decision light. A heavy version sounds like this: "Let me know if you wanna move forward, and we can figure it out. Just give me a call." So doing that sounds like a lot. Now they have to make the decision, schedule a call, and figure out what the details are, right? So they don't even move forward.
The light version sounds like this: "Okay, here's what happens [00:06:00] next. Grab a time on this link. We'll talk for twenty minutes, and you'll leave knowing exactly whether this is right for you. No pressure either way." So that's the same offer, but now there's one thing to do. They know exactly what it costs them, which is just twenty minutes, and they know what they'll get.
So the heaviness is gone. The friction has been removed. In that case, you didn't have to push harder. You just made the, the yes be lighter and easier. But where it's honest to do so, you can give them a real reason that now beats later.
Like the cohort fills up, or the price genuinely goes up, or you can only take three people each quarter. If it's true, say it. If it's not, don't fake it. You're not deciding whether they buy, you're deciding for them what the next step is, so they don't have to worry about that. And what's important that many people miss doing, giving them a reason to do it now instead of later. Remind them what the stakes are to waiting. Outline for them what will get better if they don't fix the problem now. Nothing will improve, or maybe things will get worse.
More time, more money, more frustration. Simply showing them why waiting will actually hurt them in the long run is often the wake-up call that they need. The third reason why they fail to make a decision is that risk feels too big. Sometimes they want it, and they still don't move because it feels risky.
And remember how we make decisions on emotions?
If something feels risky, they're not gonna move. Here's a little equation running in the background. If somebody's confidence is lower than the risk they're feeling, they will never buy. Explaining it more doesn't fix it. They understood you just fine. This is a trust problem. They're just not sure it'll work for them in their situation, so you need to give them proof. Proof like testimonials and case studies, and a [00:08:00] guarantee that takes the risk off their shoulders and puts it on yours.
When the risk feels smaller than the price, then they can move forward. But I want you to know this, not all proof is equal. A glowing testimonial that says something like, "This call was amazing," does almost nothing because it doesn't answer their specific fear.
So when you're gathering testimonials from happy clients, look for ones that focus on why they almost didn't buy or had a hesitation that mirrors a common problem for your ideal customer. Something like, "I was exactly where you are. No email list, terrified of selling, and six weeks later, I had my first three clients."
That one works because it lets your nervous prospect see herself in it. Same situation, same fear, but a happy outcome. And you might be s- kind of scared of guarantees. I get that. But a guarantee isn't you being overly generous. When you offer a guarantee, you're removing the risk off her shoulders and putting it onto yours on purpose.
If she's not confident it will work, that's okay. You can be confident for her. That's what a guarantee actually does. Okay, so how do you know which one of these three that you're dealing with? Pull up your last few people who went quiet and ask yourself one question about each one. Did they understand it?
If there's any fog, if they seem confused, or if the offer needed a second revision, that's probably the reason. That's reason number one.
If they clearly understood it, then ask the question, did they know exactly what to do next? If the next step was a little fuzzy or it was too big, such as call me back, that's friction.
And if they understood the offer and knew the step and still didn't move, that's probably reason three, which is trust. They're not sure it'll work for them, so you need to add some proof and perhaps a guarantee. So ask yourself one question [00:10:00] at a time in that order. That'll help you understand where you likely went wrong.
But honestly, you won't always know the reason. You're not a mind reader, and that's fine. Just take your best guess, fix that one, and watch what happens. This is a process that we learn one sale at a time.
So that wraps up our episode for today. If you know of somebody who would benefit from this episode, please send it their way and make sure you like and follow.
For more information about anything we talked about today, visit myweeklymarketing.com/169. Thanks so much for joining me. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.
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