One of the challenges salespeople have always faced is how to keep the prospect’s mind on their solution. Many times in their zeal to stay in front of the prospect salespeople cross the barrier and become a nuisance. Once that has happened the chance of successfully closing a deal almost vanishes.
Question : So how do you stay in front of a prospect in today’s world without becoming a nuisance?
Answer : You have to bring value to every engagement.
Now that’s a lot harder than picking the phone up and asking a prospect if there is any news. It requires that you think about each prospect contact. understand the objectives of the contact and then articulate the value you will use to support that contact. Normally the value you bring will be information.
The easiest type of value to bring is the answer to a question the prospect has asked. This of course means that the prospect must ask a question. One goal I like to have in a contact is to always leave at least one question unanswered. This gives me the perfect opening to get back in front of the customer. Now you don’t want to foster the impression that you don’t know your solution so be a bit careful about the questions you leave open. They should be the type questions that would normally require the input of another person or some sort of research on your part.
As you talk to your prospects my guess is that the same questions normally repeat. Over time if you keep a log of these questions and the point at which they arose you will be able to easily see them coming and even facilitate their appearance. Sometimes you might get a perfect such question that you could answer now…think about it. Sometimes you might choose to leave that question open just so you have your next reason for calling “built in”.
The idea of staying in front of a prospect will be a reoccurring theme in this blog, just like it is in the daily life of a sales rep. If you have a specific question or situation just post a comment or drop me a mail at jim@revenuewonk.com and I will help in any way I can.