Never Enough

Big Intro:

Some sales seem to take forever. Is that a reason to give up? Experts and sales managers say it’s not. In other words, there’s always hope. Just hang in there and someday all your efforts will pay off.

You’ve tried everything. You’ve made presentation after presentation, sent proposals, followed up, and kept in touch with information of interest. You’ve made trial closes and added value, but the customer just won’t buy. Should you pack your bags and hit the highway or keep trying to close the deal?

We posed this scenario to Al Davis, vice president of sales for the western division of First Trust Advisors and Melissa Rasmussen, Chicago area sales manager for Cooper Vision. And we received the exact same answer.

“Never say never,” says Davis, who spent years coaching. “You never know. People’s attitudes change, their game plans change, and you need to make sure you’re there when the opportunity presents itself.”

“Never write somebody off, especially the prospects that have big potential,” says Rasmussen, who sells contact lenses to doctors. “Find new ways to close a deal, but never just walk out from an account without a follow-up strategy, because life is always changing.”

One of the ways to ensure quick sales is to make sure you’re selling to an account that has a need and desire for what it is that you’re selling and the propensity to purchase. In other words, qualify the account.

“You have to really qualify and prioritize your accounts,” says Rasmussen. “You may find that in the time it took you to sell one larger account, you could have sold five smaller accounts that, when combined, actually have more potential than the larger account. It’s all about time and money.”

Davis emphasizes that salespeople need to have strategic plans and objectives for each call they make.

“Salespeople need to map out exactly what they want to accomplish with each customer call or ‘touch,’” says Davis. “Part of the reason salespeople don’t close is because they just kind of wing it and hope that the customer will close himself by saying, ‘I’ll take it.’ If you don’t know what you want from your customer, you can’t get upset when a sale takes longer than you anticipated.”

Even if you find that prospects have absolutely no need for or can’t use your product or service, don’t write them off. Remember, needs change, and you never know what the future will bring.

Also, ask if you can use the prospect as a referral source. “The prospect may not be interested in my product or portfolio, but he or she can lead me to someone who would have an interest,” says Davis. “Don’t be afraid to ask for a referral. Everyone knows one or two people they can recommend.”

Time is money, so Rasmussen advises salespeople to cherry-pick their accounts and not get discouraged if some sales take longer than others. “Cherry-pick your accounts, go after the ones that have the highest potential, and mix the size of the deals,” says Rasmussen. “The high-potential accounts tend to take longer to sell, but they’re the ones that pay out the most.

“If you’re not making progress on a sale, remember that, in most of the cases, there are underlying issues that you need to bring out in the open and address. For example, in my business, a doctor may be best friends with a rep from another vision company, or there might be financial considerations that they’re not discussing with you.

According to Davis, being on the second string isn’t all bad. “Even if you’re not their first choice, hang on in the wings,” says Davis. “Let them know that you’re available to them if they need your product or assistance.”

Rasmussen believes that sometimes you have to distance yourself from a problem prospect, but you should never walk away completely.