| In sales we expect to win new customers, we want to generate more deals. Obvious you might think. However, experience tells me that an awful lot of sales people just have a succession of nice meetings. Hopefully you’ll accept that I don’t mean that nastily as there’s nothing wrong in having a nice meeting. It’s just that nice meetings don’t actually achieve anything, they don’t take anything forward, nice meetings don’t reach or meet objectives.
Likewise after a meeting we can end up having a succession of “nice” phone calls. The telephone plays its part in allowing you to stay in touch with the prospect, however use it wisely. Some sales people pursue a number of tactics to justify follow up calls, these might include further questions or indeed information that they choose to “drip feed” through to the prospect. Having said that, please appreciate the phone really ought to be just one method of staying in contact. If you rely solely on the phone it’s likely that you’ll end up out of control and you may find the intrusive nature of calls increase the prospects resentment of your “pushy” approach.
 As salespeople we’d be stupid to ignore the benefits of communicating over the phone, however don’t lose sight of the advantages of face to face meetings where you’ll often have a better opportunity to judge the reaction of the prospect to your proposal. Moreover a face to face meeting often secures more of your prospects time and therefore provides you with an increased chance to fully understand their true requirements.
When you arrange a meeting in business there has to be an objective to that meeting. Assuming that in a good number of cases the objective is to conduct business with the other party, to win their custom then we must seriously think about the desired result. Building rapport is fine and to be welcomed but it’s not enough to simply get on very well with the other person. We want them to place an order with us.
Unfortunately in sales, just as in life, we don’t get everything that we want, not everything goes to plan. The other party doesn’t simply “roll over” and give us an order straight away. One of the essential strategies we need to adopt is what’s often referred to as a “contact strategy,” we need to stay in touch with our prospective clients.
Sometimes we will be able to secure a sales order at the first meeting and that is certainly to be encouraged. However there may be times and this is often the case with higher value products and services and larger applications that we can’t win the deal immediately. When that is the case, please appreciate it’s so much in both parties interest for us to arrange a follow up meeting. For us the objective of the follow up meeting is to collect an order, for the prospect the objective is slightly different. Prospective customers who haven’t yet made a decision to purchase deserve, in fact ought to demand, that the salesperson take the time to provide all of the information that they need to make an informed decision.
Therefore as the person requesting and being granted an appointment in the first place we should ensure that our contact strategy stacks up. If we can’t get the deal then at least get a follow up meeting. The process is actually quite straightforward and quite simple providing you act with confidence. As a meeting proceeds and it becomes completely clear that we won’t be collecting an order at the end then the objective shifts from securing an order to one of securing some further commitment namely a follow up meeting. Start by hinting that you will be coming back, for example you might find yourself saying something like, “that’s a good question, I’ll look into that for you and when we next meet up I’ll make sure I have all the information you need.” Then look to justify another appointment, for example you could find yourself saying something similar to, “next time we meet I’ll make sure I’ve got some equipment with me so you can see first hand how it works. When all is said and done you’re going to want to see this equipment working before you own it.”
When the time is right it’s nice and easy to then ask if the contact has their diary to hand or if they know their movements. A second or follow up meeting can be arranged and everyone is happy.
Without focusing on a clear objective you are likely to regularly lose opportunities to smarter and better focused competitors, or occasionally to the apathy factor. The tragedy is you might have a superior product with superb service and if this is the case you definitely owe it to the marketplace to let them know that’s the case. Make sure you’re there in front of someone when they are considering acquiring your products and services. The principle objective is to win the business, if you can’t do that then at least secure some commitment with a follow up meeting.
Sales is in the end all about winning good profitable orders and not about having a succession of nice meetings with nothing to show for it. A contact strategy with clearly well thought out objectives is only one part of the process but often an essential part. Ignore it at your peril.
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