The failure to find and cultivate new customers is a death sentence in sales yet I see 80% of sales people refusing to do the legwork, networking and personal marketing required to find new customers everyday. Customer attrition and losing business to the competition is a frustrating inevitability in sales. You can’t close everyone. Businesses move, people move, economies shift, and people decide to do business with others. Sometimes, your prospects have friends that compete with you. You can count on losing prospects and customers even if you think you are doing everything right!
Most companies don’t have a sales problem, they have a prospecting problem. If you are counting on your current prospects and customers to bring in your revenue forever, you will most assuredly be disappointed. Sadly, the most common trend I see with sales people is that a phenomenal sales month is followed by a disaster because, prospecting was neglected as sales were coming in.
The sad reality I see is that most sales reps do not feel the full force of customer attrition and lost new business until it is too late to save the month. Even worse, they suffer for a long time until they refill the pipeline. I want to see you make a consistently high revenue, month after month, year after year. You can do that b y committing to a specific time every day to prospect. Block it in your calendar and close your office door. Be sure to attend networking events, make your calls, solicit referrals, make good notes, use a customer database set reminders, and complete your followup!
Dedicated to increasing your sales,
Colleen