6 clues to help you identify and stop wasting time on clients who will never sign up

Posted by efficiencycoach on Mon, 18/06/2012 - 09:22 in Blogs 609 | report

Tyre-kickers. Not a particularly nice word, which is often used to describe prospects who don’t want to buy your service. Let’s be honest, we’ve all been tyre-kickers at some point, and we’ve all experienced tyre-kickers wasting our time. You know and I know, that your business development time is very limited. Whilst you still have to meet challenging chargeable time targets, your business development efforts need to be very effective if you are going to build a juicy following AND still have a life outside of work. Knowing what a tyre kicker looks and sounds like is an important skill for you.

What if you could spot them – before you spent time on them? Unfortunately, tyre-kickers don’t have a big sign on them that says, ‘just browsing’. (If only they did!) Here are some clues that will help you spot a tyre kicker:

They seem to be very keen to check that the no-obligation consultation, is actually free and they will receive professional advice from you in that time
When you ask them what has motivated you to call them, they are vague
They don’t seem to have given much thought to a budget for the project or work
They are not in any hurry to commit
They don’t seem to be focused on the direction their business needs to take – or unduly concerned about this
They say they will call you after the call, but don’t

How have you identified tyre kickers in the past?

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I help professionals and firms become the Go-To-Expert. Unusually for someone with an Engineering Degree, I accidentally became a writer and used my knowledge on social media to write the current best-selling and award-winning book on networking, The FT Guide To Business Networking. (75 five star reviews on Amazon - and read the 1st chapter for free here) People frequently talk about me as someone who really knows her stuff – which may be the reason I have, over the last decade, worked with over 300 partners, coached and trained over 1000 professionals at every level of the UK’s most ambitious professional practices. After nearly 5 years for working for BDO LLP, I realised I loved the intellectual challenge of working with accountants, so made working with accountants (and lawyers as I am a glutton for punishment) my sector specialism.

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