Merch deals don’t always follow a straight line. Sometimes, you have a great discovery call only for the prospect to say they’ll circle back with you. Other times, you may send over some mockups and then suddenly stop hearing from them. The middle stage between the first meeting and a signed contract can be tricky.

Your job, according to Fluint’s Nata Nasralla, is to help the prospect make progress every step of the way. This means selecting the right set of plays that target exactly where the friction is, he says. In this issue of PromoPro Daily, we share some of his most effective mid-funnel “plays.”

Don’t Miss A Thing: SUBSCRIBE To PPAI Newslink

  1. Build a point-of-view plan. Nasralla says many reps treat the first few discussions like an interrogation. Instead of asking questions that force the prospect to do the heavy lifting, lead with your point of view. This isn’t a pitch but a hypothesis about what may be going on in their business. Nasralla says this play works because it flips the dynamic. You’re showing the prospect a version of reality they may have missed.

  2. Provide a discovery debrief. According to Nasralla, surface-level discovery kills more deals than objections ever will. Don’t just ask the standard questions and follow up with, “Nice chatting. Here’s the deck we covered.” It’s better, Nasralla says, to dig deep after the discovery and really synthesize what you learned. This shows that you understand the prospect better than they might understand themselves.

  3. Personalize your follow-up. If you’re meeting with multiple stakeholders, you may have one who nods along with you, one who’s skeptical and a couple who are multitasking. Treating them the same ensures you lose the nuance to drive consensus, Nasralla says. He advises sending personalized messages to each individual and referencing their specific questions or comments from the meeting.

  4. Target the skeptic. If you tend to ignore the skeptic, you’re basically ensuring they’ll kill your deal in a private message you’ll never see. That’s why Nasralla advises validating them. Understand what they’re protecting and reframe your solution so it serves that interest rather than threatens it.

  5. Stop selling and start diagnosing. If your deal gets stuck, don’t just send a “just checking in” email. Many reps do this and it only adds more pressure. Nasralla points out that deals don’t stall because prospects forgot — they stall because something changed. He recommends hypothesizing the real blocker, whether it’s budget or pushback or something else.

Your approach in the middle of the funnel matters. This is when your prospects most need clarity. Think about how you can sharpen your follow-up or improve your objection-handling. By guiding your prospects through the messy middle, you can help them find their way to “yes.”

Compiled by Audrey Sellers
Source: Nata Nasralla is co-founder at Fluint, an AI-powered sales enablement platform.