Sure, that sounds great. Providing great customer service is what every company and salesperson feels they need to be doing.
The sales myth is the more focus that is placed on taking care of existing customers and providing them with great service, the less need there will be to prospect.
The myth becomes the rule when salespeople don’t like to prospect, because to them it’s a perfect out to never having to prospect.
Watch this 94-second video where I rant on this issue:
The risk of focusing on customer service as your growth engine is you become too reliant on a few customers. It’s a problem that occurs far too often where a couple of customers grow over time to become a huge amount of business to you. When this occurs, you’re locked into them.
Worse yet is you suddenly are left at the dinner table eating their leftovers. Don’t believe me? All you have to do is look at suppliers who go out of business because their one big customer went away. They may not go away completely, but all it takes is for them to get a cold and poof, you’ve got pneumonia.
Examples of this abound, but one I’ll share is a client that reached out to me for help. They had allowed over time for their business to become dominated by one customer who accounted for nearly 50% of the company’s total business.
Life was good until the customer was taken over and the new company went with a different supplier. Suddenly the company I was brought into help was laying off people, slashing costs and doing anything they could to survive.
What made this situation worse was the small sales team had neglected the need to prospect and their pipeline was empty. It was so empty one could argue it didn’t exist.
Regardless of how much focus you place on customer service and serving your existing customers, you MUST be spending time on a regular basis prospecting. Call it your sales insurance if you must, but the failure to prospect is simply not fulfilling your mission as a salesperson.
Ready to up your prospecting game? Grab a copy of High-Profit Prospecting at this link.
Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.
Mark Hunter, your next keynote speaker:
Mark Hunter, CSP, “The Sales Hunter” is recognized globally as one of the top sales speakers, known for his challenging insights, high-energy, and passion to create change that he delivers each time he speaks, whether it be a sales kick-off meeting, corporate function or association event. Mark Hunter is the author of the best selling book, High-Profit Prospecting. Here’s what others are saying:
Mark presented “Accelerate Your Sales Prospecting” at the February 2015 Institute for Excellence in Sales program in Northern Virginia. He nailed it and gave the 150 selling professionals and business owners in attendance amazing tips, strategies and tactics they could implement that day. The sales leaders at our program universally acknowledged Mark as one of the top speakers we’ve ever had.
- Fred Diamond, Executive Director, IES Washington DC
At our annual company sales meeting we’ ve never seen a speaker work so hard, with advance preparation, with such genuine style of delivery, and with such hunger for results. If you weren’t on the edge of your seat….you were in a coma. Period!
- Mark Allen, Regional Manager, Marlin Companies
Mark’s strategies are innovative, easy to follow and easy to use in the “real world.” He customized his strategies to directly speak to the issues and challenges facing our unique business, and he helped us encompass specific selling examples. This training was very applicable to our sales staff, both at a senior and junior level, as it reinforced important sales techniques.”
- Danielle Pakradooni, Blue Man Group
Copyright 2017, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.
One Response
Very well said, Mark. Just like any meal, it takes a few ingredients to make it taste delicious and appetizing. In sales, there are also ‘ingredients’ that are put together to make a business thriving, profiting and growing. The ultimate goal is to grow and make a name in the industry, and one way of growing is to acquire more and more customers. To provide the best aftersales service is a must — but it doesn’t end there. For a company to grow, it has to gain more revenue and more revenue requires more sales to come in. And to get more sales, the sales team shouldn’t stop looking.
What you said was true, if a company stops prospecting, the owner will wake up one day and find out that the last client on their list is gone because he became a hot prospect of his next door competition.
Particularly in sales-driven companies, prospecting never ceases. Only the strategies change, but it’s always there.