How should I respond when a prospect says “Call Me Back In 30-Days” on a first-time call?

The first thing we need to look at is your original opening value statement. If you hear this type of response daily, chances are what you are saying after “Hello, my name is…” is causing the problem. You will want to learn how to create a winning opening value statement as your solution. Otherwise, you will continue to get the “call me back in 30-days” response.

If you have an opening value statement that works at a high level, I believe the best response is to say something to the effect of:

“Mr. prospect, I appreciate that; however, I’m not asking you to make a decision right now. I’d like to ask you a few questions to see if what we do would help (Name Specific Benefits). And if you decide it does, we can take it from there, fair enough?”

An alternative could also be:

“Mr. prospect, I appreciate that; however, I’m not asking you to make a decision right now. If I could ask you just a few quick questions, we can determine right now if a call in 30-days would be a good use of our time…”

Those type of responses has generated the best results for me consistently.

What You Can Expect

Here’s what you can expect your prospect to say or do with your response:

Possibility #1:

If they say, “no, now really isn’t a good time, but call me tomorrow”, you’ve just shortened the sales cycle by 29 days!

Possibility #2:

They say “OK” and now you ask a few engagement/qualifying questions and determine that there is an opportunity (and they may want to talk further now or schedule a “next step” call)

Possibility #3:

They say, “OK,” and you ask your engagement/qualifying questions and discover they are not a good fit – saving you from chasing a non-qualified prospect.

All those above options are good!

Suppose, however, we agree to the initial “call me in 30-days” response.

In that case, the best-case scenario is we have a meaningful conversation in 30-days – but why do that when with the right response, you can increase your odds of shortening that time frame dramatically?

The worst-case scenario (and most common) if you first agree to the request (i.e., blow off / stall) is you end up “chasing” a non-qualified lead month after month to no avail.

– Michael Pedone

Michael Pedone teaches inside sales teams how to pick up the phone and close business. He is the CEO/FOUNDER of SalesBuzz.com – An online sales training company offering on-demand sales training and consulting.