I recently spoke with a couple of high-performing salespeople about the various accounts we were managing. And one of them told me that he had been calling a particular customer for ten years before he finally got the break he needed to win their business. During one of his sales calls, he realized that he wasn’t just calling a single shop. In actuality, they had 120 locations.
Was his persistence worth it? Absolutely! However, more importantly, I want you to pay attention to persistence because far too many salespeople give up too early.
Your Not Following-Up Enough
I hear salespeople who have a number of active opportunities in their pipeline. They even got as far as putting pricing in front of the customer. However, if they don’t receive a call back after calling those prospective customers for only two or three times, they give up.
I sat in an office of an inside salesperson and saw he had $2 million in quotes sitting on his desk that he never had followed-up on. If that seller has a 30% closing ratio, that’s a lot of money just sitting there in unfollowed-up leads. That is heartbreaking. It almost made me cry.
Persistence doesn’t necessarily mean taking 10 years to get the break that you need in order to close a business. More importantly, persistence entails making more than 4 calls or some kind of follow-up—some form of persistence to close such deals. People aren’t always ignoring you because they don’t have work for you or don’t have a good relationship with you. It could simply be that it’s not the right time.
I guarantee you that when you persist, you will win.
[…] As you can see, you can move the value you are delivering in your product across the organization. When you accomplish that, value spikes and the return on investment is that much higher than what your competition is showing. Thus, you bring in more business. […]
The more you follow-up for the order, more the better. It shows your serious intention and you are really there to do sound business. The customer / buyer will appreciate it. Inactive and potential accounts should be given equal enough leverage, attention & treatment to bring in unknown business volumes. You have to get around and be behind the buyers mind least they forget about you. It’s in these circumstances that these buyers will re-call us by the easy reach of a call and our personal visits afterwards that will do the trick. Definitely extra efforts are called for. You were absolutely right there and always spot on. Thanks a lot. Best Regards.
I’m just wondering how you can be persistent, without annoying the customer. We have a salesperson who calls on our company every couple weeks and quite frankly, it’s annoying.
[…] Accomplishing a project—a large, complicated project especially—in that manner, will also help you fend off competitor attack. This is because you are constantly measuring, improving, and expanding. It forces you to stay engaged with the customer. […]