Salespeople tend to be very optimistic. When a customer calls, it’s natural to be excited about the opportunity, but keep your eyes open for signs that your potential client isn’t as interested as he seems.
A customer who is truly interested in your company will be open to working with you. A customer who has secretly made a decision and is just looking for a competitive bid will likely do one or more of the following:
- Be unwilling or reluctant to schedule a meeting.
- Be reluctant to share inside information.
- Use a competitor’s terminology or language.
- Push to get you to submit a proposal very quickly so they can meet self-imposed and arbitrarily short deadline, one not driven by any impending business event.
- Not read the information that you send.
- Show signs of impatience if you call to get more background information.
- Be slow to respond to a request for information, or say they aren’t providing extra information to any vendors.
