How long have you been in the business, five years, ten, fifteen, 20 or more years? The cliches never stop do they, one that comes too mind is "what comes around goes around". For those of us who have been in the business a long time, well we've seen it all, new tactics get old and old tactics get new again.
Do you remember who you sold your first copier too? Hmmmmmmm, can't say I remember, how bout the first deal you lost? Do you remember the customer, sorry to say, I can't remember that customer either. How did you first schedule your appointments? I can remember getting a Doctors appointment book to write down the locations, appointment times, and phone numbers. As the days turned into months and the months turned to years I would find myself getting another appointment book for every year. After about four years I realized that could go back and review the accounts that I sold and contact them again for the potential upgrade, gee wasn't that smart of me to keep those books.
These days most of us keep our appointments, contacts and lists of things to do on our pc's and the appointment books have all but disappeared.
It's a fact that we lose more deals than we sell, you can't sell everyone right? Well, that may be an understatement, how many us of actually track the deals that we lose. Meaning, you didn't get the sale, you know who you lost to and you know the term of lease or purchase that the buyer committed to. A little of bit of "extra" tracking can go along way if you commit to scheduling call backs for the accounts that you lost. Heck, if you know they signed a 36 month lease why let them go and never contact them again. You already have the name of mr. or mrs. right, the make and model number of the system, plus the volume.
Put your lost deals back in your contact list and schedule a follow up call for 18 months, then 24 months, and then 30 months on a 36 month lease. You can spread the time a little further for the 60 month leases, try getting back in touch with them at 30 months and then every six months thereafter. Customers lost, can be a customer gained down the road. Another thought would be to keep them on a mailing list, where you will send them something every six months. If you've been in the business a long time, you'll agree that the months and years really do fly by.
If anyone has any additional comments, we'd love to hear them.
-=Good Selling=-
-=Good Selling=-
1 comment:
Great article! It is ironic that I had a sales rep ask me what I remembered about the territory he now has, which I had 13 years ago!
I just happened to have my old Daytimer and was able to show him the activity levels, appointments and we laughed about how many he is trying to get into!
Building that territory as a young reps will pay off for years to come and I always encourage young reps to at least stay put in the territory for 5 years to erap the benefits of the buying cycle you discussed.
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