A fundamental axiom in sales is people buy when they want to. Not when you need to make a sale! And that at unless you’re right in front of them at that moment, no deal.
Sure, they may be interested, but interest doesn’t equal pain and a desire to remove it. It’s all about timing.
Given this, another axiom is success lies in being top of mind when your prospect is ready. You accomplish this through regular contact.
Chet Holmes, author of the Ultimate Sales Machine puts it this way.
Only 3% of your target market is actually looking for a solution Another 7% are not actively looking but would be open to considering your offer. The rest range from indifferent to completely uninterested.
So your job is to find the top 10% and keep in persistent contact with them – consistently adding value. Then when the time is right for them, you’re the person they contact.
Now here’s a caveat.
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of one to many messaging. i.e. You send bulk emails or messages to your list and hope that something triggers with the recipient.
It can. But you’re leaving it to chance. They may not receive your missives or just delete them.
Far better to have a smaller list of curated prospects whom you actually call and have real person to person conversations with.
You get to know them. They get to know you. You build up a level of trust so when the time is right for them, they’ll ask for your help.
Which begs the question, how long should you keep following up and what’s the frequency?
Prospects you call should obviously be in your target market, have decision making power, have money and the ability to spend it. This is not about looping around people you just feel comfortable speaking with.
As to how long, this chart from Microsoft shows just how many times you need to contact a prospect on average before a deal is consummated.
Now obviously that’s not always the case. Some people will become clients right off the bat. But that’s pretty rare. More often than not they’ve seen stuff from you, articles you’ve written, videos, interviews, all which falls into the purview of marketing.
Material which educates and warms them up. Explains details of your solution. They read case studies and testimonials. So when you do reach out to them, it’s a warm call where you foster a discussion that uncovers their needs so you can propose a solution that best fits their requirements.
All of which is why we’re such advocates of aligning prospecting, marketing and selling as per our PMS model.
Integrating the 3 activities gives you leverage because it takes less time, money and effort on your part to warm up a prospect, follow them regularly and close more business, faster.
If you’d like to implement this system into your organisation, give me a hoy at RevealedResources.com.
And as always, if you’ve found these tips useful, please like, comment and share it. And there are hundreds more at our site, RevealedResources.com.
