How do you overcome customers that want to wait?

How Do You Overcome Customers That Want to Wait?

 “We’re going to wait.”

It’s one of the most common stalls—and one of the most predictable.

In today’s Question of the Day, I break down the key question you need to ask to uncover what’s really behind the delay, and how the right approach leads to a very predictable outcome.

In this episode, we cover:

•  The question that reveals the real objection 
•  How using the right verbiage keeps the conversation moving forward 
•  How to guide the customer toward clarity without pressure 

If you’re hearing “we want to wait” too often, this episode will help you navigate it with confidence and control.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is from Greg in Michigan. And Greg asks, I keep having HVAC customers that just want to wait. How do I tackle the all just wait objection? Great question. Much of the country right now is in mild weather, and this becomes a more common objection when we get into that mild weather season. Because as a as a customer, I'm not in any pain right now. When there's some kind of pain, a pain point, I'm more likely to move faster in making a decision. So like if it was really hot out right now, I'd be sweating to death and I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. And we'd all be crabby and at each other's throats. And that wouldn't be comfortable. That'd be painful. And so I'd be much more interested in making a faster decision. In reverse, it works as well. When it's cold and I'm freezing, right? Like I'm much more interested in making a quicker decision. One for my own comfort, but two, like, I don't want my pipes to freeze and stuff like that. So that makes it easier to quickly make a decision. Now, when it's mild, I'm not as motivated to make a quick decision because I can just open the window in the daytime and I got a cool breeze coming through. Or if I'm a little chilly at night, I might, you know, grab a blanket, something like that. And so I'm not as motivated. And this objection will come up more often. So, first thing I would say is we want to be proactive in this. When I do the objection boot camp, everybody's got questions about objections. And there's some great tools and strategies we go into in the objection boot camp, but those are reactive strategies. I'd much rather be proactive to either address that issue before it becomes an issue or set myself up that the strategies, the reactive strategies will work better. And so I have to be proactive here. Now, this is this is something I do. When I go visit a company, sometimes when this comes up, I'll I'll play dumb a little bit and I'll ask this question. And so I'll I'll just say to the team, like, well, let me ask you this. You're in Michigan, Greg's in Michigan here. So in Michigan, when is the best time to buy? When is the best time for an HVAC customer to buy in Michigan? And really what I'm doing is I'm I'm fishing here a little bit. The answer is today. Today is always the best time to buy, regardless of where you are. Today is always the best time to buy. Now, that is true. That's not just a funny sales line. Today is always the best time to buy. The reasons may change throughout the year, but today is always the best time to buy. And you come up with those reasons. Come up with those reasons. It's gonna be today is the cheapest price, right? We have openings today. There's no waiting. We have promotions, like there's all kinds of reasons today is the best time to buy. You come up with those reasons, but then take those reasons and weave that into your process. Weave that in proactively so that information is being communicated to the customer proactively rather than reactively. What I don't want to do is I don't want to get into my presentation. I get an objection, they say they're gonna wait, and then I'm like, but, but, but, but today, today we got a promo, but, but, but I don't want to attack this reactively. I have to weave that in proactively. In addition to that, I have to have a strong process. I have to have a really good process that builds value, value in the company, value in the solution, value in me. But then when I weave in the today piece, that that today is also the best time to buy. So they know by the time I'm presenting, they know we're the right company, we have the right solution, I'm the right person, and today is the best time to buy. They need to know that, right? So that's where I have to be proactive and weave those into my process proactively. Now, let's say I've done all that. A lot of times that will diffuse that objection before it even becomes an objection, or it'll set me up that if I do get into the presentation and I get that objection, now I've got a foundation. I've got something to build on, something to call back to. So let's talk reactively now. I'm in the presentation, customer gives me the objection of uh we're just going to wait. So I still need to have had a good process that built value in the company, the solution, me, and today. But now I'm gonna call back to it. So let's play this scenario out in your head. So customer says, I'm gonna wait. This is the question you're gonna ask. You're gonna ask, well, if you don't mind me asking, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, what will change between now and when you want to get this done? What's gonna change between now and then? Ask that question. What will change between now and then? And whatever the answer is, we're gonna tie back to the reasons we gave proactively of why today is the best time to buy. Now, if I do that well, here's where that conversation is going to go. That conversation is going to then lead to, yeah, Chris, I get it. I get it. I get today is the best time to buy because of the promo and the opening and the price, like whatever. Okay. I get today is the best time to buy, but I just can't afford it right now. I don't have the money right now. It's a budget issue, right? So if I did that well, if I built value up front, got the objection, and then I ask what will change between now and then, and then I tie back to all those reasons today is the best time to buy. That conversation will often lead to I get all that. I just can't afford it right now. And then when they can't afford it, that's where you go into financing. Financing, financing is an objection tool. That's what it is. Financing allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford. And that's exactly how I say it to customers too. So I'll say that again. Financing allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford. So as I introduce the financing and I start going over the finance options and how this allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford, often then, where that conversation will lead is to a conversation about the rates. And so if we have a conversation about the rates, I'm going to review the rates and I'm also going to tie in simple interest loans. All of these loans are simple interest loans. And in fact, most customers go with the longer term loans because it has the smallest payment, but it also has the highest interest rates. And that's where customers will often get stuck. And that's why I need to tie in simple interest loans. These are all simple interest loans. Most customers go with the longer term because it has a small commitment. But simple interest means you can pay early, you can pay extra. There's never any prepayment penalty. And so most customers go this route because it gives you a small commitment. So God forbid, something happened, lose your job, something changes, end up in the hospital, something like that. You have a small commitment. You don't have this large payment looming over your head. You have a small commitment, something manageable, right? Allows you to get the solution you need, a payment you can afford, small commitment, but because it's simple interest, you can pay early, pay extra. So in in lieu of something bad happening, pay extra. Most customers make a double payment, a triple payment. They pay it off early. And then when you do that, the interest doesn't accumulate over the whole term of the loan. When I explain simple interest loans and how most customers do that because of the small commitment, and you pay early, pay extra, almost every time customers go, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Right. And then they go with the longer-term financing. And that rate, that rate's not scary anymore, right? So play these scenarios out, like we did here, and be prepared for those conversations and practice this. Practice this so that the questions you're asking, the verbiage you're using, leads that conversation down the same path almost every single time. If you do it exactly this way, there's not many ways you're going to deviate off in this conversation. And then it's it's like a card game, then, right? Like if this is a card game, I got a lot of cards I'm holding, a lot of things I could say. But I'm not dumping all my cards at once. I'm not getting an objection and just overcoming it. I'm playing one card at a time. I'm playing one card and then they play, and then I play another card and another card. Because if I just puke my cards all over the place, I got nowhere to go, right? But I'm just going one thing at a time. Play it out like we just did this one. So we started with customer says they want to wait. We're going to ask the question, what will change between now and then? That's going to lead us back to talking about today, why today is the best time to buy. It's tying back to that process that we have, right? The value we're building in today. That's going to lead into a budget conversation, which is going to lead us into financing. Financing is going to be talking about rates. Rates is going to lead to simple interest loans. Play this scenario out in your head and be prepared to have these conversations. That's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying questions of day, follow, share, give a rating question of days on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me via email. It'll be listed in the show description. Let's get your question answered. And if you're a next star member, schedule a call with me. Let's get this addressed one on one and let's get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We will see you tomorrow.