Waiting...........! Leaves the door open!

Waiting...........! Leaves the door open!

Time and time again local businesses when in the pursuit of sales and having made initial contact will say “I’ll just wait and see what they think”, "I’ll wait and see if they have any questions first” or “I’ll wait and see if they like the quote or not”.

Exactly WHAT are they waiting for, for the prospective client to get straight on the phone at breakneck speed and bite their hand off....! Perhaps so....but will it happen.....NO it won’t and if on the odd occasion it does it’s because the client has an immediate need for it – not because you waited....!

In the mind of the salesperson ‘waiting’ means giving the client time to think, not wishing to be pushy, allowing them to consider all the facts and figures in their own time - and thinking that the onus is now on the client to get in touch as and when, as they have done all they can......or have they?

Strangely enough....the ‘waiting’ in a clients mind means, “the salesman can’t be bothered to follow up” or “I’m ready to buy but as I haven’t heard from them, I’ll go elsewhere”.

We are all guilty as charged in being half-hearted about sales, you have to be a rare breed to like doing it, but it’ something which has to be done – regardless if it’s in your make up or not...!

Many local businesses fail in maximising a customers potential because they simply fail to stay in touch, they wait for the customer to always contact them when they need something - sadly, that's not always the case.

Businesses should always make the efforts to regularly make contact with current and prospective new customers – in fact, it’s vitally important to keep in touch with current customers if only to ask them how they are..! Build a relationship, build trust.....don’t just be a supplier on a list to them.

Waiting does leave the door open, if you wait till 10.00 am to ring a customer about confirming a quote means the door has been opened for an hour, if they started work at 9.00 am – this means your competitor whose also quoting for the same work will get there first.

Waiting does not connect you to business; it connects you to biz-less......!

When in sales it’s important that you are active, well organised and in regular contact.

Try not to confuse the sales process by having multiple people involved.....own the customer or the contact.

Having multiple people involved confuses things – that’s where the ‘waiting’ excuse gets abused the most “I'll just wait and see if Joe has phoned them” “I know that Phil spoke to them last but I’ll wait to see what he said first before I ring them”.

We all know that none of this is rocket science, and we all know we need to connect to sales in order to survive.....yet most of us decide to wait and see what happens...

Don’t get caught out and loose that high-value job by waiting...!