Colleen’s Blog

We recently spoke with a client who was frustrated by how difficult it was to get testimonials from their client. When we began to explore what was going on, we discovered that he was sending out a single email asking for a testimonial and then, when the responses were few, got frustrated and gave up.

It can feel like a soul destroying experience. You leave phone message after phone message with a prospect or an existing customer, and seemingly for no reason at all, your calls go unanswered and unacknowledged. Have they been getting your calls? Did something happen to make them reconsider their decision to buy from you? Are they avoiding you? You just don’t know. What may have happened is that the person you need to reach has gone stealth. They’ve fallen off your sales radar and will stay that way until something makes them choose to re-emerge from their guise of invisibility. This can be really harmful to your productivity as a sales professional. Not only can it undermine your work in meeting your sales targets, it also can put at risk some well-established business you’ve worked so hard to earn with a customer who has bought from you in the past.

However, you’re far from helpless in situations like this. All sales professionals–even the top 10% in organizations both large and small–encounter sales that go stealth from time to time.

So let’s look at what you can do to set things right.

Remember, it’s not about you.

The first thing you need to do is to not take it personally. To be a top-ranked sales professional, you must always remember that selling isn’t about you–it’s about your customers. There’s an infinite number of reason why your prospect or customer has gone quiet. You must take complete ownership for why that person might not be returning your calls…even if you feel as though you’ve done everything right.

Step #1 in trying to regain a prospect who has gone stealth is to…?

was combing through the questions from our Best Year Yet call last week and WOW! There were a lot of questions about voicemail. What to say. How to say it. When to leave a Voice mail. How often to leave a voice mail. And so on. It seems as though everyone these days is struggling with voice mail…except for a few smart Engage clients who have mastered our voice mail strategies! Instead of losing to voice mail these sales pros are using voice mail to make sales, and commissions. Check out these results:

Colleen, So let’s say it’s Wed., and I’ve already emailed and called all of my clients. How might I spend the rest of my week if I’ve already called, emailed, or have done some other form of communication to reach out to my clients? Great question Dave. Assuming you have 40 hours in a week to spend on sales and invest in growing your business how best should you spend that time? Below you will find my suggestions for a schedule that is consistent with thriving in any economy.

You might notice that the total number of hours adds up to more than 40 because I know that some of the ideas I am suggesting may not apply to you – or you might just downright refuse to do some of them despite my constant urging of them as a best practice. On the other hand, some of you are freakishly productive and can complete the tasks much faster than I. If that is the case, move quickly, add activities and by all means DO MORE in the time allotted.