[The Beast1]

A simple question for the sales professionals on the board:

I've gotten really good at keeping my sales funnel full. It's a lot easier for me to find new leads than to re-engage old ones.

Let's say you met a potential prospect who liked your product but wasn't ready to buy asking for you to re-engage in a few months. This was before Christmas and I sent out a "Merry Christmas!" greeting email on behalf of my firm before the Holiday began to make sure they wouldn't forget me.

Now that it's the new year, i'd like to re-start the conversation since that is what they asked for. Realistically, I'm pretty sure most of them did this to get me to go away, but I think there's at least 1 or 2 that may bite.

How do I approach them? What's the best way to do this?

[qwertyuiop]

Call him and ask him what his Q1 and Q2 plans are and if your product/services can help with any of it.

[Eddie Winslow]

As some one who answers sales calls on behalf of my firm and uses this excuse somewhat frequently, I only say this if I really thought the product/service was potentially useful, but implementing a new product/service at that very moment is a lower priority than making sure I get all of my important shit done with my current product/service. There are many ways to reject someone softly without directly inviting them to call back - I certainly would not throw these type of leads in the garbage.

I would gently push for a specific meeting/call appointment and also gently explain the specific benefits of having the product/service now rather than later. A couple salesmen have talked me into a real sales call by simply sending a calendar invite to my email with a specific time I agreed upon verbally. One little commitment at a time.

[christpuncher]

"Call him and ask him what his Q1 and Q2 plans are and if your product/services can help with any of it."

I've dealt with companies selling mine professional services, not products, so it might be different.... But vendors asking for information about what we're doing and if our plans might involve them is super annoying. Usually we are not at liberty to say anyways, so that makes me feel powerless and not great about my position. Often the people that decide on who to hire are the technical staff, not the money managers, we can't divulge budget or business information.

The best thing you as the supplier trying to woo the client is to TELL me what you're up to, seem excited and competent about what you're doing, and highlight one or two points about what you're working on that are relevant to what you THINK I'm working on...but you absolutely should not pry or even seem like you're interested in asking.

[captain_shane]

The biggest part of sales is weeding out people that aren't interested.


"Hey X, it's Y from XYZ, do you remember when we talked about Q back in Oct?"

"Yeah, I do, what's up"

"Is this something you're interested in still or should I put you in the not interested pile?"



-------

Filter them out hard and fast. The best salesmen go for "girls" that are already "yes's".

Filter out the time wasting hoes, golddiggers, info hackers, pitch stealers, etc

Hard next.

[TooFineAPoint]

^

This, but then put them on an email list to get periodic messages from you.

One of my main clients pulls at least a few sales each month from past prospects that said no / not now, just from sending offers, promos, check ins, and tip type emails. And sometimes the prospects were from years ago.

[kirdiesel]

(01-11-2018 09:17 PM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

^

This, but then put them on an email list to get periodic messages from you.

One of my main clients pulls at least a few sales each month from past prospects that said no / not now, just from sending offers, promos, check ins, and tip type emails. And sometimes the prospects were from years ago.

That is correct. I am running a mailing list as well in this manner and you can catch a few good sales this way.