You’ve been chasing a sales prospect you think will turn into a great customer, but for one reason or another, the trail has gone cold.
The prospect hasn’t provided you with any indication such as proprietary information or sense of time to lead you to believe they may buy from you.
The question now becomes,”What do I do next?”
There are two strategies you can use.
If you’re in a market where the selling cycle is short and there are a huge number of sales prospects you can turn into customers, then your strategy should be upfront and direct. Ask for the order.
If they buy, fine. If not, move them off of your prospecting list and place them on your marketing list. (Marketing list is what I refer to as those people who may one day buy from you but clearly that day is not anytime soon.)
If, on the other hand, you have a long selling cycle and prospects are not plentiful, then your strategy should become one of awareness building.
What this approach involves is staying in contact with the cool prospect not on a regular basis, but as opportunities arise. These might be the prospect’s company making a press release of a new product or announcing earnings, etc.
Announcements of this type are a great way to merely reach out and say congratulations. By doing this, you’re demonstrating you care about their business.
Another great way is by using news articles and other key pieces of information that may appear from time to time on the internet.
By forwarding to the person a link to the article you are again demonstrating you are not a normal salesperson who is only concerned about making a sale. You are concerned about the health of their overall business.
The beauty about both of these techniques is once you have Google Alerts set up for key people and their companies you want to follow, the process will not take up very much time.
Also, by monitoring news and industry sites on the internet, you’ll find yourself becoming more knowledgeable. You will find quick opportunities to forward links to numerous prospects.
In the end, you will take some of these cooler prospects and turn them into customers.
Does this technique work? Yes! The results I’ve seen from this approach have been significant across a wide number of industries. The key is knowing that the best results for the time invested will come from those areas where there is a longer selling cycle and the number of prospects is somewhat limited.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
