Clients who won’t haggle

There are few worse feelings than having a client who won’t return your calls after you’ve submitted a proposal.

You spent months cultivating your contacts, then you lost a few nights to preparing your initial approach. They liked what they saw and asked you for a proposal, then you haven’t heard back from them for a few weeks.

You are at loose ends and don’t know what to do.

The three main reasons clients won’t call back are:

• They don’t like your price
• They don’t have time to deal with you right now – i.e. it’s not urgent
• They are not the final decision maker and they need to consider the offer too.

You need to call.

Ask how they are proceeding and if there is anything you can do to help. This usually identifies reasons 2 and 3.

If you uncover it is a price issue, then the old rule is to negotiate the scope and not your unit rate. Find out what it is they really want as opposed to the wish list they first gave you. Then you can reduce the scope and scale off the offer, provide the service in stages, etc. See if you can get them to haggle.

After all this, some people just won’t give you any straight answers, including no. They are likely uninterested due to price or for internal political reasons. So don’t hang around waiting to haggle – approach other customers too – and you never know, it may just work out.