Background

Julia Chen sells for Reliant Engineering. She has been calling on Acme Distributors for close to two years. Over the course of 15 calls she has sold nothing to date. During an early call, Julia had Acme engineers in to look over and test the quality of her products. The tests and the engineers' responses were positive. She thinks that she is getting extremely close to getting an order. Julia knows that Acme is happy with its present supplier, but she is aware that they have rejected some late deliveries. Raymond Brown, Acme's senior buyer has given every indication that he likes Acme's products and Julia.

Current Situation

During Julia's most recent call, Brown told her that he'd need a couple of weeks to go over Julia's proposal. Brown didn't really have any major objections during the presentation. Julia knows that her price, quality and service are equal to or exceed Brown's present supplier.

Questions:

1. Brown told Julia that he needed a couple of weeks to think about his proposal. How should Julia handle this?

2. What should Julia have done during the sales presentation when Brown told her that he needed to think it over?

3. What techniques should Julia have used to overcome the forestalling tactic?

4. Why do buyers hesitate and ask for more time to think over proposals?

5. How hard should Julia press to get Brown to act now?