A New Customer Reminded Me About a Key to Sales & Why We Need to Fire Customers Sometimes

September started slowly for me. Normally I pick up one or two new customers the first week as a result of accounts that just did not wrap up the previous month. This time around it took me until the 12th for my first new customer. I had been working on him for several months, we made several changes to his proposal, a couple other more important projects came up for the customer and he put me on hold for 3 weeks. His signature yesterday came a full week ahead of when I was supposed to follow up with him. I didn't call him, this time he called me. He asked me to come to his office and go over the paperwork so he could understand it. As I walked out the door, we shook hands and I thanked him for his business. His final comment to me "Mike, you are very persistent." In sales, that statement can be a real compliment. It can also work against you. I felt it was a good idea to use this sale and talk about where things went right and where they can go wrong.
Being persistent ultimately means following through. until a customer tells you "no" you have every reason to believe the answer should be "yes." Like anything else in sales, there is a right way and a wrong way to be persistent. To further complicate things, your style of persistence with one customer will often be very different from the style you have with another. This particular customer is an American immigrant who came from nothing and started a very successful distributorship. He is used to doing most of the work himself and he cares about little else other than cost and reliability. Now you may be saying "Mike, all customers care about cost and reliability" and to a certain extent that is true, but in this case he cared about little else. Company history, references etc. did not come up and when I tried to discuss other matters the topic quickly came back to what he needed. He is a very shrewd business man and used very little in the way of pleasantries. If you mentioned something to him 3 weeks ago, he would bring that detail up again and ask you to explain it. If something seemed inconsistent he would repeat back to you what you said and ask you why it was different from what you told him 3 weeks ago. This man is direct. So being direct with him was a key to the sale. If he brought something up and it was not relevant to my product, I told him that. He would look for reasons not sign today and I would address them simply and move on. He told me his time line and agenda and I agreed to keep pace and follow up at those intervals.When he would not respond at the appropriate times I would remind him (via voicemail or email) that during our last conversation we had agreed to speak again on this specific day and it had passed. Once we reconnected and set a new time to discuss again, I would notate the account to not follow up with him before then unless he contacted me first.

This customer valued direct, honest information within a specific time frame. I not only obliged but I held him to the same standard, he respected that and we consummated the contract.

I am sure many of you are saying "Mike, don't all customers value doing business this way?" The answer is "Nope." in fact many customer will be turned off and run the other direction if you try to deal with them this way. If your don't have a strong relationship with the customer and the customer is also not used to the negotiation process they can easily be turned off by you following up, even if the time interval is appropriate. When you first meet with a customer it is crucial to understand what their timeline is. Are they moving? Did they open a new office? Have they had tremendous growth in a short period of time? Did they hire new staff? What is causing them to meet with you today? If the answer is because you made a cold call and they agreed to meet with you then get ready for a long sales cycle. If there is no specific need and you don't find something within the first meeting to create need or urgency then you are on the lowest rung of the priority ladder. If that is the case it is essential to ask the customer what their decision time line will look like? Will this coincide with an annual budget review? Will it be addressed in a weekly or monthly management meeting? Who else is involved in the decision process? Are those other people equal decision makers in the process or are they senior partners and have veto power over the person you are dealing with. All of this information helps you set the decision timeline and also helps you know when to follow up or "push."

Another element to touch on briefly is "the push." There comes a time when you have done all that you can, you have answered the customers questions your product solves a problem, saves the customer money or fills another need they have but they just are not responding to you. That is when you must decide to "fire" the customer. Very simply you send them an email ( and cc it to all other contacts you are aware of that are involved with the process) and you simply tell them " I have addressed your needs and presented a solution that helps your company but you have not responded to accept or decline my offer. I must assume at this time you chose to work with one of my competitors. Please let me know who you chose and where you felt their product held a competitive advantage for your company." You then leave the customer alone, because 1 of 3 things will happen. They will ignore you. Fine, you already resigned yourself to that when you sent the email, at least now it is done on your end and you can move on. They will respond and tell you who they chose and why. Great! Now you have additional information to better prepare for you next customer. And the third option is my favorite & it probably happens about 30% of the time. The customer gets back to you and says "no no wait! were not done! We still need you we just had FILL IN THE EXCUSE come up and had to table this, so sorry."

In summary, persistence is a key to sales success but knowing how and when to apply it is equally important.

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.

BTW, if you are in the Baltimore area and would like to meet up with me and talk more sales, I am hosting a fundraising event and would love to meet you. Click here for more details

A Great Place to Meet for a Great Cause