There’s an important balance you need to strike when you’re engaging in sales conversations, especially when you’re in the beginning parts of those conversations.
Particularly if your industry or your company has a long sales cycle, you need to find the balance of waiting for the right time, and being proactive enough to stay on your prospects’ minds.
You’ll set yourself apart in a big way if you do.
Even if your prospects don’t currently need to do business with you, you can build a relationship that will ensure that they will call on you if they do need your services in the future.
One of my clients recently shared a story with me that illustrated this phenomenon very well. He owns a company in the manufacturing industry, and there was one sales person who has always made an impression on him.
He shared that, as the owner of a company, he’s used to having sales representatives from banks give him their cards and try to convince him to move his banking over to their bank.
Now, it’s not an easy thing to switch banks. It’s a very painful process, in fact. So my client really doesn’t have a lot of motivation to switch banks, just because someone gives him their card and tells him he should.
But he knows that they’re a relatively small business, and if his current bank were to choose to cut him loose, he might need to change banks.
What these sales representatives who pester him don’t realize is that he already has a positive relationship with one sales rep who has figured out what my client wants and is able to deliver.
My client wants for banking sales reps to keep in touch with him rarely, maybe once a year, so he’s able to reach out if and when he ever chooses to change banks. One sales representative has really taken that to heart, and she’s reached out to my client about every year, very respectfully, and in a friendly, not pushy, way.
That has made such an impression on my client that he knows if he ever needs to switch banks, she’s the representative he’s going to call first.
How much attention are you paying to what your prospects want? If your prospect doesn’t want frequent interaction, are you willing to go with what they want? Or is your comfort level more important?
If you can find the balance of being patient and being proactive that works for your prospect, you will gain their good opinion in a way that most salespeople will not.
