Rocket Fuel - How not to be a sales pest
Hi everybody, and welcome to this week's sales tip: how not to be a sales pest! The reason I've called it this is because of one of the conversations I've been having with a consultancy client during our one-to-one sessions, and we've been going over their sales process.
Hi everybody, and welcome to this week's sales tip: how not to be a sales pest!
The reason I've called it this is because of one of the conversations I've been having with a consultancy client during our one-to-one sessions, and we've been going over their sales process.
What they do once someone has agreed to sign up to their service is to send over some paperwork and get some direct debits sorted, and book the new client in for a set up meeting.
And that's all fine - but what we've been finding is that people say "yep, we're going to go ahead," all the paperwork is sent out, and then...
Nothing happens.
Then my client turns into a sales pest! They're trying to get the paperwork back, the client has given them the go ahead, but they're not sending the paperwork back or setting up the direct debits. So my client was calling them every other day, trying to get that paperwork back from them, and one customer turned round and said "if you phone me any more, then I'm canceling the whole deal".
We walk a fine line on this, don't we?
Our solution to this problem was rather than leave these customers in the ether to come back to us (when they've decided that the time is right), we've decided that when somebody says "yes", my client will then take one month's payment upfront. Then the paperwork can get sent out, the direct debits can get set up, and away we go!
They won't need to be a sales pest to complete the rest of the process and get that physical close going.
So, the reason I wanted to talk to you about this is that I'd love you to go and take a look at your own sales processes.
Are you following up too much?
Are your customers saying "stop phoning me!"
It might be that, rather than having to stop calling them because you've annoyed them, you could change your sales processes in order to close faster.
Have a good week!
