Having been fortunate enough to spend time in both sales itself and a strategic role that supports sales, I’ve always been amazed at some of the reasons for not getting sales. I’ve heard a lot of them, but one that is all too common is “I don’t know why they didn’t take it”.
I once sat in a meeting with a senior management team, with the discussion around closing a shortfall in revenue to budget. When the sales director was asked what his plan was, he said his first order of business was to pick up the phone and ask for decisions on sales pitches from clients. This blew my mind, to the point of facetiously replying “what, you mean like, selling?”.
Following up and asking for the business should be part of your day – every day. How many pitches, proposals and responses do you do, and then never hear back on? Why haven’t you picked up the phone?
THE FEAR
What is the fear?What gets you so wound up about putting in that call to ask if you won it.
Are you worried they are going to say no? So what if they do?
Are you worried that one too many calls will annoy them, so they will take their business elsewhere? I can assure you, only a petty handful would be like that.
Are you concerned that they will ask questions? Do you have your scripts in place to handle objections?
Get over the fear. How many sales have you missed out on, budgets gone begging because of it?
I guarantee you, one of your competitors has no problem asking for it. And they’re probably recognising the dollars right now.
PHOTO – LWPrencipe
