“Thanks for following up, we hired a local company.”
I’m looking at that in my inbox right now. I’ve been following up with this prospect for weeks since they contacted me through my Google form on my website. They contact me on November 21, at 7:53pm. So in essence, it took them 60 days to say ‘no.’
All they wanted was a simple article – I could have written 100 keyword optimized articles in the time it took them to finally give me a concrete answer.
So, as a freelancer or small business (or even a big business) what do you do to keep selling yourself past ‘no’ and prevent rejection from being the last thing you hear from a prospect?
You show them you still care about their business by offering a second opinion.
In my case, part of my follow-up offer was “Please let me know if you want and honest, third-party review the work the company does for you. I want to be sure you’re getting quality work for your money.”
What have I done here? I’ve shown that I care. And I didn’t give up without a fight. I offered something of value that put the prospect and me on the same team. By putting a slight ding in the credibility of the chosen company and merely suggesting the possibility exists for less-than-perfect work, I stayed on the potential customer’s team.
As the saying goes, “The real selling doesn’t start until someone says no.”
