If you’ve worked in sales for any decent amount of time, you’ve fallen for it. Allow me to set the scenario for you…
The prospect hits you up, seems very interested in buying, shows all the right buying signs and then when you get down to final business they ghost you. By “ghost” I mean they disappear on you and haunt your dreams.
I don’t know why people do this. Some people call them “tire kickers” because they are the people who kick the tires on the car but never buy it. I call them “kangaroos” A kangaroo’s arms are too short to reach in their back pocket, but just the right length to fill their pouch up with any free shit they can get those giant rodent claws on.
Kangaroos waste our time, waste our energy and can even cause us to doubt ourselves. When we don’t close a sale, we start looking at ourselves for what we are doing wrong. Often times the salesman thinks it’s his pitch or product that’s the problem when it is most likely the prospect. No matter how good your pitch is, if your prospect is bad you won’t close the sale. Kangaroos are bad prospects.
Hardcore Closer’s #1 rule in sales – “don’t sell to broke people”
Broke is a state of mind. Kangaroos could stretch and reach their wallets but their mindset won’t let them. These rodents infest your sales game and shit all over everything. Sure, to us in the states, kangaroos are cute, to our friends in Oz, they are giant rats. The Liars are like kangaroos too, to outsiders they seem like true buyers but not to use experts who know how to spot them.
By “liar” I mean someone who acts like they are going to buy from you but doesn’t really have any intentions of doing so at all. I know it sounds crazy and like a complete waste of time but for some reason people get their rocks off by wasting salespeople’s time. Whether you call them “tire kickers” “kangaroos” or just flat out “liars” people who waste your time will not only kill your sales, they will fuck up your hot streaks.
You gotta spot kangaroos before they hop your way!
As it turns out, my like all other vermin, kangaroos are creatures of habit. They show up with the same ol story every single time. Sure, there are slight variations, but in the end, they are all the same. I’m about to out them though and give you 3 ways to spot these time suckers before they get you again.
The first way to figure out if the person is a complete time waster is to ask them if they are willing to do business today. You don’t have to be out right blunt but some trial closes never hurt anyone. Asking trial close questions will reveal their true intentions and expose them if they are kangaroos.
Some examples of trial close questions would be
Are you willing to take delivery today?
Is today the day you make the decision?
Do you want this today?
When are you wanting to take delivery on this?
Have you bought one before?
The second way to determine if the prospect is real or not is to get them qualified. When people use to call me back in my mortgage days and say “what’s your rate?” I’d always say “what’s your social and I’ll pull your credit.” I knew that once I pulled their credit the likelihood of them doing their mortgage with me improved drastically.
On the flip side, If they didn’t want to give me their social, I knew they weren’t serious. You need to create some semi-painful event that will weed out the kangaroos. When you get suspicious of their activity, hit them with the qualifier and see what they do. If they are real, they will give you whatever information you need.
The third and final way to determine if you got a real live kangaroo or a smoking hot prospect is to ask them to make a deposit. I used to have young kids come by the dealership wanting to test drive the GT mustangs. I’d always say insurance makes us collect $500 deposit on all test drives and overnights. This always weeded them out in a professional manner.
When I did mortgages I charged an application fee of $97 to keep them from shopping around on me. I’d collect the deposit and the appraisal fee up front, in order to keep them with me. Once you get in their wallet, they stay in your pipeline until they closed.
As a little bonus point here, I want to point out that if you are seeing a lot of kangaroos show up, you need to take a look at your marketing. Prospects and leads are a direct result of marketing. If you need good credit prospects and you run ads to subprime borrowers, no matter how good you are at sales, you won’t be able to do shit. Check your marketing and make sure it’s congruent.
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