Do You Get Frustrated by Prospects Who Never Return Your Calls?
What happens if a prospect goes silent on you?
Print salespeople face a common problem these days. You contact a prospect. You have a good conversation with them. All seems to be going well. Perhaps you’ve mentally booked in a job from them.
Then everything changes.
Calls are not returned. E-mails seem to be ignored. Suddenly your prospect is impossible to track down.
Here's a quick tip that I use to sort out the buyers from the time wasters
I want to know if I should be spending my sales time on them. So, after they have ignored a few calls and e-mails, I send them an e-mail.
The e-mail mentions the fact that I have been trying to contact them without success. Then I ask one simple question. Here it is:
Would you like me to stop contacting you?
I am always surprised at how many people come back after this telling me to keep in touch. Many of them are also suddenly keen to buy.
As soon as I suggest that I may not be spending my time on them any more, the situation changes.
So what happens if there’s no reply to the e-mail?
Then it’s time to stop contacting the prospect. They probably really don’t want to hear from me. So there’s no point wasting valuable sales time on them.
I would far sooner be talking to someone who really might place some work with me.
PS: If you’d like more ideas on how to engage with today’s buyers, download my free e-book "Ten Common Print Selling Errors and What To Do About Them" at http://profitableprintrelationships.com/e-book/ You’ll also receive my regular "Views from the print buyer" bulletin, full of ideas on how to sell print effectively.
- Categories:
- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Many printing companies are frustrated how hard it is to engage buyers in today’s world. That’s where Matthew Parker can help. He is a gamekeeper turned poacher. Parker has bought print for more than 20 years and received over 1,400 print sales pitches. He now uses his buyer’s point of view to give practical advice to printers. He helps them engage with prospects and customers to create profitable relationships.
Download his free e-book, "Ten Common Print Selling Errors And What To Do About Them" and check out his recently launched book, "How To Succeed At Print Sales: Setting targets, planning the right activities and making sure goals are met."
