Is it procrastination or indecision?
It’s frustrating when you get all of the good signals from the customer that they like what you’re offering, but they just won’t commit! Thanks to Marylee for this suggestion. We’ve all been there. What’s holding them back? For some, it’s just their personality type to procrastinate, and they do it on most decisions. For others it’s indecision, which is related to, but a little different from procrastination. Determining which it is will help you get them past it.
Listen to this new 9-minute episode for perspective on procrastination versus indecision, and some ways you can help them move things forward.
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Is it procrastination or indecision that’s preventing them from signing up? Listen to this episode, see where I’m going with this. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. Here is another listener suggestion from Mary Lee in Connecticut. She, like many of you, is having some trouble with people who just won’t sign up.
They seem to love you. Maybe you think they do. You’re getting the good feeling and you just can’t get them to close. So there’s a couple of things that could be with this. One is. It’s also a sales skills issue. Are you asking for the sale? Are you making the next steps clear? Are you being assertive, not aggressive, are you being assertive with your sales process?
A lot of people are just sitting back waiting for people to say yes and you think they’re procrastinating. And then there are And then there are people that life gets in the way and they have to put off the decision making. So are you following up with that? Actually got a great question today from Phil and he had said the same thing, you know, in terms of trying to get people to make the commitment there, right?
You know, what is the follow up procedure and what are you doing to make those next steps possible? So let’s deal with each of these things a little bit differently. Procrastinators, that is a personality type. We probably all know people like that. I’m sure we all know people like that. Some of us might look in the mirror and find someone just like that.
I’m not particularly a procrastinator. There are certain decisions I will take longer than others to make. But I’m pretty good with doing that. I, like many of you have family members that are procrastinators. Now, when we are trying to make a decision and we’re up with someone that is not like us.
So if you are not a procrastinator and you’re dealing with someone that is, or if you are a procrastinator dealing with someone that isn’t, your selling style can impart things to their, to their audience. So if you are a procrastinator and you don’t expect people to make decisions right now because you’re going to think about it and think about it and think about it, chances are you’re not asking for the sale as soon as you could, as soon as people might be ready to buy and someone else might ask for the sale and then get it.
And then the opposite of that is if you are someone that makes quicker decisions, I don’t mean you have to make them right here right now, but makes quicker decisions. You are frustrated by people that can’t make a decision quickly. So, let’s deal with indecision differently than procrastination, right?
Indecision is not necessarily procrastination that you’re putting off the decision. Indecision is you are sold on that thing, that person, that service, that product, that business, but there’s something holding you back from making that decision. I know I’ve mentioned this already, and you know that I like to reference different books that I read or listen to in my case because they’re audiobooks.
The Jolt Effect, J O L T Effect by Matthew Dixon and other people, and Jolt talking about that indecision, where they are afraid of making the wrong decision. Or there’s a you need to kind of take risk off the table for them, or you might need to offer a suggestion and help them because they just feel unequipped to make this decision.
So you might have to say, you know what, if I was you, here’s what I would do. And not necessarily try to sell them up to the top thing, maybe even sell them to something a little bit lower that you can upsell later to get the date confirmed. I had also something similar, an email that came in today, a friend of mine, Chuck in Philadelphia, and he had someone that had come back and said, You know, we got a lower price from somebody else.
Well, what’s the indecision here? The indecision here is I like your services. I like your results. I like their price. So he was going to go back and try to resell them. And what I suggested is you don’t need to resell them. They’re sold. That’s why they came back to you and said, we want to buy from you.
Can you match their price? Which I know I’ve addressed on another podcast. But if you haven’t heard that one, let me just touch it here. The fact that they’re asking you to match their price or lower your price is a huge buying signal. It’s a huge buying signal because they want your results. They like their price.
They want your results and they are entitled to ask in this particular case. It was a popular month and a popular day. And Chuck knows that he can sell that to somebody else. So there’s no reason to lower the price when you know you can rebook that date to someone else. So. Instead of trying to resell and he had this long email with all these things, trying to resell them on the value.
They already know the value. They know the value. That’s why they’re saying they wanna buy from you, but it’s somebody else’s price. And that’s why you go back and say, thanks for asking. I know things always add up for weddings or events or whatever it is. It’s clear that from the results that you’ve seen in our reviews, and in this case it was even a referral from someone, right?
That you want the kind of results that you know we can do. It’s easy to find a lower price. It’s not easy to find these kinds of results. So the decision comes down to, do you want to pay the lower price or do you want to get the kind of results, you know, we can do for you and your guests? Should we get that reserved and get moving forward?
Right. So was that indecision. Not really. See, I don’t think it was indecision. I think they really wanted you, and that’s where they’re coming back. True indecision, when you try to resell them, and again, in this book, The Jolt Effect, you’re trying to resell someone who’s already sold. And in this case, with Chuck, they were already sold again, so you don’t need to resell them.
You need to, again, point out what’s important. True indecision is They want you, it’s not necessarily a price thing, they’re not trying to negotiate your price, they just won’t pull the trigger, so you have to find out where the indecision is coming from, you have to try to get to the root of that, and again, maybe, again, in terms of this jolt effect, offer a suggestion.
If I was you, here’s what I would do. Or also pointing out the other things that will be affected by this. Not making this decision. For instance, until you have a date, let’s say you’re the venue of the caterer, until you have a date, or in the case of the church, right, until you have a date, nothing else can happen.
No one can tell you if they’re available. Until you have a date, if the caterer is separate from the venue, the caterer can’t tell you if they’re available. The photographer, the videographer, the music. The everybody, I mean, certain things are not as affected. Everybody has limited bandwidth. So invitations and dresses and things like that, that they don’t have to be there on your day.
They’re not necessarily affected as much, but every one of those businesses has a limited bandwidth for the number of customers they can handle. So your officiant can tell you that they’re available. Your florist can tell you that they’re available to core and you go down the line, your transportation, Nobody until you have the date.
So if you point out, listen, I know that you’re agonizing over this. You understand that the average wedding has 12 to 14 different services. And until you have that date, most of them can’t tell you if they’re available. So whether it’s us or someone else. The sooner you make that, the sooner you’ll be able to move on to those other decisions and get the quality results that you want from those other quality businesses.
Would you like to get your date reserved now? So procrastination is just people that just put off decisions, put off decisions. That’s a little bit different than indecision. Although there, there could be a crossover there. People that tend to do this a lot in terms of indecision could be that same procrastination camp.
Other people just, if they don’t feel the sense of urgency, they’re not going to pull the trigger until they feel they absolutely have to. So if their supply and demand is in your favor in terms of the popular date, they’re There’s some pressure over there. When I say pressure, again, I mean assertive, not aggressive.
That’s why I said just before, whether you book us or someone else, you want to get that date sooner so that you can also get the quality vendors that go down low, you know, kind of downstream from whatever service you are there. So Mary Lee, thank you for this suggestion, indecision or procrastination.
It’s kind of a, I mean, Very, very close there. I would say that there are some times where procrastinators, again, it might not be indecision. But indecision, you have to figure out what is it that’s stopping them from pulling the trigger. If you can pull, take risk off the table. I know some of you will hold the date for three days or seven days.
I don’t like to hold it for a long time. Actually, I don’t like to hold it at all unless they give you a deposit. But there could be a way of taking risk off the table. Some businesses do have money back guarantees. I know in our industry, it’s, it’s not that often, but some of them do. So that’s another way of taking risk off the table.
You know, procrastinators sometimes just need a little bit of a understanding of what that sense of urgency is so that they’re feeling it so that they’ll make a decision and move on to the next decision that they will probably procrastinate. Also, thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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