What’s the longest sales cycle you’ve ever had?
It took me 18 months once to close a client. Eighteen, long and frustrating months and I wasn’t prepared to give up.
I called them and arranged catch up calls every quarter. If I saw an interesting article, I’d pick up the phone and ask if they’d seen it. Have a conversation and then send it over to them.
When I was booking to go to regional, national, or international events, I would have a think about the value to this prospect as well as others I was talking to at the time. Every time, I picked up the phone to ask if they were going too and ask if it would be helpful for them to go.
I’d ask, right at the end of the call how they were getting on and what was happening regarding us potentially working together. BUT it wasn’t the focus of the call, I kept bringing them value, so I knew (and hoped!) they’d take my call.
Ghosting has becoming commonplace in our world as business owners, how much of that should we be accountable for? Are we giving up far too soon and complaining that we are being ghosted?
Sending email after email doesn’t get your prospects attention. You are not DISRUPTING and that’s what you need to do.
“I hate picking up the phone to people”, well OK – that’s fine – just remember, there’s a competitor out there who also doesn’t like it, and they are showing they are more committed to winning that client than you are.
As business owners, there a bunch of things we don’t like doing, some we can pass on to other team members to do, but some of those things, we just need to learn to do.
All you are looking for is that magic ‘yes’, after you’ve asked the question, “Would you like our help?”
