You might as well play the lottery if you think this is going to payout for you.
This is especially true if it’s you, the salesperson, who has offered the idea up to send the prospect some information.
Although you might think you’ve done a good job, what you’ve really done is give the customer an excuse to end the meeting.
If your sales process requires several sales calls, then saying you are going to send them some information can work — but only if you’ve been able to first uncover the following:
A specific need the customer has shared with you that you believe you can help them with.
A level of confidence the customer has placed in you that what you send them they will place value in.
The knowledge the person you’re going to send the information to has the capability to make a decision.
If you can’t get answers to these three things, then why should you believe that what you’re going to send them is going to move the selling process forward?
The odds are far greater the process is going to go nowhere.
For customers this is an easy to way to come across as being courteous, but really what they’re doing is jerking you around.
There is no reason for you to go through the effort of doing more work if there is little to no chance of a sale materializing. Sending the customer information may give you a warm feeling, but don’t go kidding yourself. What you’re going to send them isn’t going to do anything.
When you don’t know where the call is going and you’re trying to figure out a viable next step, the process should be:
Find something you and the customer can agree on.
Gain the customer’s permission to allow you to follow up with them at a later point in time.
With these two things, you can now go forward and develop a better list of questions you can use to engage the customer. Your challenge on the next phone call or the next meeting is to get the customer to have their confidence in you increase because of your level of competence.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
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