A salesperson contacted me saying he was not having any success developing new customers.
I get calls like this all the time, but what struck me about this situation is what I found out after I started digging in.
The company the salesperson sells for offers a wide range of services their target prospect could use. Problem is they don’t know if it’s one service or several the prospect could use, so they serve up all of them.
Providing the prospect with a range of different services sounds logical when you’re trying to cover all the bases, but really it’s a recipe for disaster.
Prospects aren’t waiting for you to contact them. They’re doing just fine, so what that means is they don’t have the time or the patience to put up with you.
It doesn’t matter how you or your messages comes across, whether it be in person, via the telephone, in an email or even as a hologram.
This salesperson’s first mistake was thinking the best approach would be to hit the prospect with everything.
This would be like walking into a Chevrolet dealer and having the salesperson insist on showing you every car from a Cruze car to a Silverado truck. If I had a salesperson attempt to do that to me, I would leave pronto!
Prospecting is about first uncovering a need by establishing a relationship and a level of confidence with the prospect. This must occur before you can even think about putting a solution (a product or service) in front of the prospect.
Trying to put the product or service in front of them before you establish a relationship is simply not wise, if you want to have any chance of turning the prospect into a customer.
Take a look at how you prospect and what you do.
Are you establishing a relationship to uncover a need as your first step or are you jamming something in front of them? The bigger the price tag and the more complex what you sell is, the more vital that you do this first step.
Your prospects will care when you take the time to listen to them and allow confidence to be the first thing you sell.
Copyright 2015, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price.
