When I was first in sales in New York City, one of my competitors had a very consistent and reliable sales routine. Every Monday he would work his Midtown Manhattan “milk route.” This meant that every Monday, he would stop by all of competitors’ accounts to see “how things were going.” He was so reliable and consistent, that I even knew what time to expect him at my customers. The conversation often went something like this:
“I just stopped by to see how things were going. Do you need anything from me today? Anything I can help you with? … Okay, I will check–in with you later.”
Does this sound familiar? When you make your follow-up prospecting calls, are you just “checking in“, “following up“, or “stopping by“? If you answered “yes”, you may have become a “professional visitor.” We were trained that persistence is one of the tenets to help you win over those tough-to-close clients. Actually, that is potentially quite true. However, in order for your persistence to pay off, you need to be building on your relationship, adding value to the client and gathering information on each of your visits. Simply, “stopping by” or “checking in” is not much of a sales call.
Here are some things I would bring to your next sales visit with a prospect:
1. Food: Everyone appreciates a dozen bagels or doughnuts or muffins. If you do this, make sure you drop them off in time for a regular or special meeting that you are aware of. Hint: Deliver and leave. You can chat with them next time. Also, this only works about once or twice a year.
2. Information: Find topical information to talk to them about. For example, you may have read an article in the paper about their industry, their market, or one of their clients. It would be a great conversation starter to ask them if they read the article and find out how that story relates to their business. It demonstrates real interest and provides you an opportunity to learn more about the prospect’s business.
3. Common Challenges: Many of our prospects and customers are facing the same challenges we face. It can be a very effective relationship builder and an opportunity to uncover innovative selling strategies to talk with your customers about some of your similar challenges. For example, “we seem to be getting beat up over price lately. How about you? Is your company getting hit by pricing challenges? How do you deal with that?” Who knows what this would lead to or what the discoveries would be. It certainly would be a change from the old routine of checking in.
In summary, the issue we face with making these routine and necessary calls is using them to help us move along the sales process. Sales is a about building relationships that add value and solve problems. Simply being a “professional visitor” that checks-in once in a while is not productive relationship building or value added activity. You need to make certain that every call provides you an opportunity to connect, learn, share, and engage with your prospects. Be creative and innovative by bringing something to the call that you can talk with them about.