Our seller says: I visit a mine with a new product. The Maintenance Supervisor loves the product and asks about price and availability. He commits to running a trial or converting on next shut down. But nothing happens. He didn’t start the trial.

Answer: A number of factors might be at work in this situation.

• Did the prospect really understand the value of using the new product?
• Did the prospect need to get approval from someone else to install the new product?
• How close is the prospect to the incumbent supplier?
• Does the prospect have time to order and manage the new product vs using the same one as they have used before?

It is great that our seller managed to get the commitment. But more important is to maintain ongoing contact to ensure the trial actually goes ahead.

Maybe the seller should have confirmed othet details (as suggested above) to determine if other people are involved. Maybe further meetings are necessary to convince those other influencers.

Maybe it was simply a timing issue and the prospect was too busy to organize the new product to be installed. If so, is there something our seller can do to make sure the trial stays on track as planned?

These situations reinforce the need to fully explore the prospects situation using all the tools and techniques presented at Selling With Confidence. We don’t want to be caught out with a stalled sale after putting in all the hard work to get the original commitment to proceed.