The Importance Of Adopting A Keep-In-Touch Mindset
9. Keep In Touch, After The Meeting, Nurturing 03,2009
Sales champions adopt a keep-in-touch mindset for dealing with all their valued leads and contacts, nurturing them to sales readiness and increasing their chances of success where a future sales opportunity does arise.
Occasionally You Will Strike Gold…
There will be times when you will leave a sales meeting on a high. The customer has a problem, is looking for a solution and yours seems to fit the bill.
Your timing has been perfect; a follow-up meeting has been arranged, which will focus on a detailed examination of needs and requirements. All of a sudden, your pipeline is one opportunity richer. Great!
…But Most Meetings Won’t Yield An Immediate Sale
However, most sales meetings do not present immediate sales opportunities; at best, they offer the vague promise of a distant future need, but many will present no promise at all.
More often than not, the company will have said they wanted to meet, they matched the pre-qualification criteria applied to all your sales leads, and yet the result of the meeting is a kickback.
“You’re going to leave lots of sales meetings knowing that the prospect is not in a position to buy…”
The buyer has said something along the lines of “This is not a priority for us”, “We don’t have a problem”, or “We already have a solution”. Perhaps there is a competitor already entrenched, or even no available budget. Even more frustratingly, maybe you know that yours is the solution they require, but they just can’t see this – at least, not yet.
The bottom line is that you’re going to leave lots of sales meetings knowing that the prospect is either not ready, unwilling, or else unable to buy. In many cases, they may never be; for now, though, you’ve only had one meeting – it’s still too early to tell.
Maybe The Next Meeting Will Result In An Order…
Most salespeople, despite feeling disappointed, can pick themselves up and move on enthusiastically to the next sales meeting. Perhaps it will prove to be the one that uncovers a real sales opportunity. If not, then maybe it will be the one after that…
As salespeople, we turn to the law of averages for comfort; it tells us that if we meet enough prospects – be that 5, 10, 15 or however many – we will eventually stumble upon the one who is ready and in the buying zone.
While this assurance keeps us going when the chips are down and keeps us busy, it can also result in the neglect of furtive relationships, as we fail to keep in touch with the scores of managers once met and quickly forgotten about.
The ‘Close The Customer Down or Move On’ Mindset
Most salespeople have an aversion to meeting ‘tire-kickers’, and are anxious to avoid wasting time on companies that are not really in the market for a solution. Their managers expect them to be converting sales meetings into orders won – the overriding objective being to ‘close the customer down or move on’.
However, just because a company is not ready to buy from you today does not mean that it won’t ever be. Situations can change: new businesses needs emerge, managers come and go, priorities alter – and so too do budgets.
The question you need to ask yourself is: Are you going to be around if/when this happens? Are you going to be there when the ‘light goes on’, and suddenly the customer is in the market for a solution?
The ‘Nobody Gets Left Behind’ Mindset
High-performing salespeople have a tendency to adopt the US Marines’ policy of ‘nobody gets left behind’. They keep in touch with the entirety of their contact base, with the level and frequency of contact being determined by a rating scale that reflects the potential associated with each company and contact in their sales system/database.
For example, they might just send an occasional email newsletter/sales article/information piece to those contacts that represent ‘long shots’; alternatively, they will make a point of scheduling a periodic telephone call – be it every 6 weeks, 3 months or as appropriate.
Good intentions are not enough, however. A CRM system is required to document and plan this periodic ongoing contact, making it easy to administer and ensuring that it doesn’t simply rely on the vagaries of memory.
To prevent follow-on contact from falling into the nuisance category, ensure that each individual correspondence carries real value. This can be achieved, for instance, by sending:
- an article or white paper that might be of interest
- a note regarding a recent move made by a competitor
- a link to a website containing useful information
Nurturing to Sales Readiness
Nurturing companies and relationships over time to sales readiness is essential to long-term sales effectiveness. This patient, steady approach to sales recognizes that, in most situations, buyers’ needs are latent and waiting to be discovered – even if that discovery process sometimes takes weeks, months or even years.
“…Even when nurturing to readiness does not lead to a direct sales opportunity, it can still prove worthwhile.”
Sales meetings and leads are too valuable to be discarded simply because they don’t produce an immediate opportunity. If the company in question qualifies for your target list, then you will want to keep in touch, helping to generate awareness of any needs over time, and making sure to be there if/when the light (eventually) goes on.
Even when the result of all this nurturing is not a direct sales opportunity, it can still prove worthwhile. That relationship could turn out to be a source of useful information, or even referral/introduction to others etc.
Keeping In Touch Will Boost Your Sales Success
The reality for most salespeople is that a keep-in-touch mindset or approach has the potential to double, or even triple, sales success in the long term.
A first pass of a target list in terms of leads generated and meetings held will result in a certain number of sales opportunities and, ultimately, sales wins.
However, a program of progressive contact with that same target list will, over time, deliver up to three times the results of a once-off campaign. That is why business development requires a strategic approach.
Being There From The Start Increases Sales Success
Those salespeople whose involvement with the prospect predates an active buying decision will have a head start over others who may be called to tender.
Being involved throughout the early stages of the process – in terms of both identifying need(s) and defining requirements – gives the salesperson a unique advantage in being able to influence the buying decision to a certain extent.
Posted by Ray Collis
on 12:17 pm. Filed under 9. Keep In Touch, After The Meeting, Nurturing.
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