Why are you calling next week?

I talked with a sales trainer today. He relayed a story about a conversation with one of his clients.

The salesman said, “I’m following up with that prospect in a couple weeks.”  The trainer asked back, “Why?”  The salesman was stumped.

Excellent question. A simple question, but excellent. You need to ask “Why” about every single follow up. If you don’t have a great why, then you are wasting your time and your prospect’s time.

Before you make your next call, think about the purpose and the goal of that exact call. Better yet, use a system that maps this out for you… I’m partial to Vision Pipeline Assistant.

Keep in mind that the purpose is not always to make a sale. Depending on your specific sales cycle, you may have a dozen Life Touches before a sale happens.  So, the purpose of each Life Touch is to move the relationship forward.

When you build great relationships with prospects, you will have long-term and profitable clients.

What’s Most Important?

Excerpt from the book…

As we discussed before, the purpose of a sale is to get a client. The sale is the first major Milestone. This means that the relationship is more valuable than the transaction. Did you get that? Let me repeat:

The relationship is more valuable than the transaction

Put that on your wall. Big. Let it remind you to spend more of your time, energy, and resources on building relationships than on making the sale. As long as you focus on closing deals, you will be broke and miserable.

Most sales people work so hard to close a sale, then forget about the person and on to the next.  How are YOU building long-term relationships?  Or are you suffering through starting over every month?