📄 When You Lose a Sale… Was It Because You Were Trying to Steer a Parked Car

When you try to enroll someone and it doesn’t work, there’s typically two reasons:

The first is when we try too hard, when we push, when we try to persuade.

Good news for you: you can stop doing that (See: 📄 Never convince, never persuade). Boom: instant improvement in sales, fun, and relationships.

The second reason is when we try to steer a parked car, as James Schramko likes to call it.

Meaning: some people just aren’t in the market, and nothing we can do is going to change that.

Oh they might have the problem you solve, and they might need it, and they might have the funds to invest – but for some reason privy only to them, they’re not going to buy.

At least, not from you, or not at this moment.

It’s actually quite easy to tell, too.

Everybody, including potential buyers, gives signals.

It’s your job as the provider of a product or service, to read those signals, and you do that by applying empathy.

Stepping into the other person’s shoes, and asking yourself what the meaning is, of the signals you get.

Very often, you’ll find that when you take the pressure off and you stop trying to steer a parked car, the conversation changes and something useful happens.

Could be they give you permission to follow up at a later date, or they might think of someone to introduce you to, or they might ask you the key question that actually does ready them to consider a purchase.