How to reject customers without hurting their ego

One of the most ticklish yet interesting moments in sales is to have to tell a prospect – “Sorry – we don’t see you being able to buy our product – and we don’t want to waste our time pursuing the sale with you.”

Do it literally & you have a prospect who is an enemy for life and can badmouth you publicly for eternity to come. Worse you lose someone who can be a future customer or acustomer for other product-lines – rejecting you forever.

Think like a BMW/Merc/Audi salesman who has to reject 99% of the walk-ins without making them feel bad! Protect the customer’s ego. Give them the prerogative to reject you – never reject them. Say “our typical customers are Fortune 500 MNCs who…” Don’t say “this doesnt work for Startups/SMEs” ever!

Early in the sales cycle – give them the price range. And then keep quite. 90% of customers don’t want to waste time – will realise this and walk off. For the remaining – who are trying to learn from you with no intention to buy – try to do small paid project & ask for upfront POCs with price.

We were all strugglers or students or startups/SMEs at a certain stage in our lives. Respect your prospect however small s/he is! The biggest customers were babies once!