- November 22, 2006
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Hauntings and salespeople? How do those two go together you might ask?
Ghosts – At one time, you probably had salespeople working for you that failed, and now their mistakes, lost opportunities and disasters are coming back to haunt you. Most companies are haunted by salespeople who have moved on and depending on the industry, those mistakes can easily cost several hundred thousand dollars.
Follow Up – There are three kinds of salespeople here:
First are those who follow up once and wait indefinitely for the return call that may never come. As you might guess, these salespeople don’t do very well and often become the ghosts mentioned above.
Then there are those who fail to follow up at all. Their fears, discomforts, laziness, lack of confidence and lack of understanding of what is required of them causes them to become the previously mentioned ghosts too.
And then there are those who haunt their prospects. There it is again – haunting. As irritating as these salespeople can be, they have a much higher rate of success when it comes to getting appointments and closing business. To a certain degree, their prospects respect their tenacity. They appear to care more than their counterparts. They have a much better chance of getting an audience than those who disappear. And more often than not, when something changes and the prospect’s urgency increases, the only salesperson they remember is the one who has been doing the haunting.
You want your existing salespeople to haunt their prospects when those prospects go into hiding. That will prevent them from becoming sales ghosts that come around to haunt you!