In sales, one of the biggest challenges in converting a prospect to a customer, or a customer to a client is getting more “face time” to continuously explain our value proposition. This is where most sales folks fail. Most sales folks, even seasoned professionals, don’t appreciate the importance of creating “excuses” to get back in front of prospects and new customers.
Prospective customers are busy and tend to forget who we are a few minutes after a sales call. Sometimes, our newer customers tend to put us in a “smaller box” than the broad array of products and services we offer. For example, if our first order with a new customer is branded hats, then many times this newer customer may peg us as “the hat people.”
Our job in the sales process of turning prospects into customers and customers into clients is to continually educate them on the broad array of products and solutions we are able to offer. I recommend that when you are on a new sales call you get permission from the prospect to call them from time to time when you see new ideas in which they may be interested. Then, from time to time, reach out and let them know that you’re keeping your promise to inform them of great new ideas that may help them, and that you’d like to stop by and show them some samples.
At Proforma, we have an overall capabilities brochure that is the next-best thing to a suitcase full of samples. We share this brochure along with new products, white papers and more on all of our sales calls. The No. 1 thing our people hear when they review the full capabilities brochure is, “I didn’t know you did that!” Truth is, there are many things your prospects and customers do not know you do, even if you already told them. They key is to continue to find “excuses” for getting back in touch, getting face time and re-telling your story.
Usually, my blog is about creating wealth, and I would say that there are “no excuses” for not getting wealthy in our business. For this article, however, I will say, “it takes some good excuses” to get wealthy!
