Why Is Your Prospect Procrastinating?

What do you do when your prospect has viewed your presentation, but doesn’t give you a definitive YES or NO?  How do you fix procrastination? 

Today I want to help raise your awareness and assess what might be going on beneath the surface, and how you can help them.

And, if you find that you procrastinate yourself, this discussion may be beneficial to you as well.

I’ve come up with a list of five reasons that cause people to procrastinate. Let’s dig into them.

No Motivation

It could be no motivation. This has to do with not having a clear vision, not knowing what they’re supposed to be doing every minute of every day.

Fear Causes You To Hesitate

It could be because of fear. They don’t take action because they are afraid of what they would be doing, or that they might fail. 

How do procrastination and fear tie together? 

They’re hesitant, just like anybody’s hesitant when they walk to the edge of a diving board and look down and think, “Whoa! That’s a lot further down than it looked.” 

Fear causes you to hesitate. 

They may be fearful that they’re not good enough, fearful of rejection, or afraid of the unknown. 

I can assess it pretty quickly. 

I’ve got this going in my head all the time when I’m talking with prospects. I’m assessing their fear level already. Throughout the conversation, I’m asking them what they’ve done, their life experiences; things like that. 

What I’ve detected is that some prospects are afraid of the unknown and that’s why I show them the Pipeline very early on. That way they know what they’re going to be doing. 

No Clarity (About What They’d Be Doing)

Another reason for procrastination would be no clarity. They don’t know what they would be doing in the business.

They do not have a clear vision, and they have no interest in your business. 

I experience this in my own world. A lot of times when I want to shoot a video, I’m not clear about what points the video should cover. This tends to cause procrastination. 

I have to get clear on what I want to deliver in the video. 

That’s that step that I have to take, that everybody has to take, where they just step in and say, “That’s it. I’m going to do this.” 

Indecision causes a bit of procrastination. 

Lack of Organization & Good Habits

Another procrastination factor is a lack of organization. 

• How is their space; is it organized? 
• How many times has a prospect not responded to my emails? 
• How many messages have been left? 

If you don’t know these things, you tend to have a lot of things falling through the cracks. It’s a lack of organization. 

Lack of good habits and routines is also something that causes procrastination. Does the person get up in the morning and really get after it, first thing in the morning? Do they complete all of their “Dones?”

No Compounding Successes (Spiraling up or down?)

Not compounding successes will also cause procrastination. 

There is a spiral up. 

There’s a spiral down. 

Success 1 generates power for success 2. 

Failure 1 creates a more rapid descent. 

Sometimes I can estimate from the person how much energy they have when they show up, which can give me an idea if they are building on their successes or not.

Questions To Ask

What I’m really hoping to pass on to you in this: the entire time that I’m talking with a prospect, I’m assessing. I’m going through a process to find out where they are, not only in their life journey, but right now, on a weekly basis. 

• What’s their energy? 
• What’s their level of how fast they respond back to me? 
• How quick are they to want to jump to the next step? 

During this assessment (and I suggest that you do it too), I’m asking the fundamental question, which is, “Can I help them?” 

Sometimes I have to say no to that. “No, I can’t help them. They need to come further up the chain here in order for me to be able to help them.”

My next question is, “Do I want to help them?” 

Those are the questions that I suggest that you ask. 

You Can’t Help Some People 

I have gotten wrapped up before where the person was a whole lot of effort because I couldn’t get the person to do a thing: 

“Write your goal. What do you want?” 

“I really don’t know.” 

“What have you thought about that you’d like to be able to have, or do? Have you thought about anything?”

“No, not really.”

“I’ll tell you what, keep my phone number. And when you figure out fully what you want to do, and if you think that this will help you attain that, then give me a call back.”

Then I just have to bow out, because if the person does not have an aim in life that I can assist them with, then I can’t help them. 

In one of my previous videos, “Ethics in Network Marketing”, I discuss the importance of assigning responsibility. I establish what my responsibilities are, and what the responsibilities are for the new person that is joining my team. 

I know what that person needs from me.  And my new business partner knows what is expected of them.

In the above scenario, when they can’t identify goals and what they want,  it’s out of balance in terms of what I’m going to have to do versus what they’re going to have to do. 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my business experience, it would be that procrastination gets in the way of what we really want.

Simply being aware of what can cause procrastination is helpful to know so that you can help those you want to work with, get past it.