How to Move Through Your Prospects' Biggest Blocks

I've found that there are three big blocks that most often come up when anyone is looking at using a professional's service or getting ready to buy a product:

Money, Time, Timing

This is with the understanding that everything else is a match. They have a need and you can serve that need. They feel connected to you. You have established trust, you both feel excited, and the energy of possibilities is clearly in the air between you.

Then one of the major blocks pops up.

What now? How can you help?

Let's start with first understanding the energy behind the blocks. By doing this, we are able to come from a place of empathy, rather than sympathy. It is a disaster move, as a service provider, for you to join them in their blocks. That might sound something like, "I know exactly what you mean Ms. Prospect, and t here are a lot of things that I really want, but can't have either. I hate it, too." This is a HUGE disservice to them and you.

So what we are really looking at here is fear (of the unknown, success, change, doing something positive for themselves...the fear takes different forms for different folks, but fear is fear). Even if they really don't have the money, have absolutely no time, and are in some way not ready or able, they are making excuses to mask the fear.

We make excuses because we can't see the difference between an outer reality and our inner belief regarding that reality. For most of us, we have a hard time separating the two; we make them the same.

It might sound something like this:

I don't have the money now. = I don't believe I can raise the money.

I don't have the time now. = I can't see how to make the time.

I'm not ready now. = I'll never really be ready.

Back in the summer of 1999, I was studying in Ashland, Oregon and one weekend we found this beautiful lake to swim in and saw that across the lake people were jumping cliffs. Now, this is something I use to do a lot when I was in high school. So I swam across, climbed to the top, got to the edge and froze. I could not jump off that cliff. Every time I looked over the edge I thought, "This is a fifteen foot cliff; what if I miss and slam into the rocks, I could break my leg, I could die..."

Then, as I stood there, this boy, maybe he was eleven, came up next to me, and asked, "Are you going to jump?" I started to come up with all these excuses, but sighed and just told him I was really scared. "It's just air and then water. Just jump."

As I watched him sail over the edge and then bob up to the surface just seconds later, amazingly to me, I jumped. It was exhilarating! (And, obviously, I survived.)

This, my friend, is exactly how a prospect feels when considering working with you. They see a financial investment, an obligation of time and a challenge. They're preparing to face a cliff to be jumped off.

So the automatic-human-fear-reaction is to make an excuse.

And, again, the worst move you can make is to join them. "Yes, this cliff is really high. You're right; it's impossible to jump. I understand how hard it is, so let me call you back in a few months and see if you're ready to jump then."

I can tell you, they will never be ready. (I know if that's what I'd heard, I would still be standing on that cliff, or worse, I would have turned around and gone back the way I came.)

Again, assuming your offer is right for the m and they will truly benefit from working with you, then you are NOT serving their best interests if you "just let it slide." Telling yourself that you are serving them by letting them slide is your own excuse.

The energy of commitment is very strong. Let your prospect know that when you make a commitment the Universe begins to line up for you. Things may start slower than planned, but when you truly commit, it happens. Let them know that, together, you will take care of their concerns (money, time, doubts).

My sense is you'll hear, "Let's do it!"

Can I tell you it will ALWAYS go this way? No, but what I can tell you is that if YOU make the commitment to take a stand for the truth about the difference your service will make for your clients (and don't back down when they give you excuses), you will have a client who puts themselves completely in your process and together you will produce magnificent results.

Go ahead. Take a stand. You can do it.

Call-to-Action:

When clients are afraid to move forward, they will make excuses. They will give excuses that keep them from facing the challenge.

As a professional, you need to call forth the magnificence of your client, not join them in their fear.

Take a stand for them.

Take a stand for you.