As sales people, we are always concerned with out time. We can’t afford to waste our time, we can’t afford to have customers waste our time.
We constantly assess things to determine whether they are worth our time.
Our customers do the same. Customers are busy, they have too much on their plates and too few resources to accomplish what they want. Consequently, they are time poor.
Yet, too often we ignore that. We call blindly, interrupting their day–usually to read some scripted pitch that says, “Buy my product.” Or we drop in for check up or “Howdy” calls. Or we focus on what we want to talk about, not what the customer wants to talk about.
Or we are unprepared, we’ve made hundreds of calls before, we know our stuff, we know the standard questions, we can just wing it.
In the end, we waste the customer’s time.
And we wonder why it’s so difficult to get customers to meet with us.
The funny thing, when we are prepared, when we have something impactful to talk about, when we are focused on what the customer wants to talk about, when we make the meeting worth the customer’s time—something magic happens. It is always worth our time.
Guard your time viciously! Don’t waste your time, it’s valuable. Don’t invest in anything that’s not worth your time.
The little secret to doing this all the time is making sure what you do is worth the customer’s time!
(Thanks to Jackie Puleo for her great comment, provoking this post!)
Dave,
Nice Post. I remind my sales team often of this same advice. You cannot be ordinary and expect extraordinary results. Focus on the needs of your customer as an individual not just a prospect. Sales is a process and all the little things done correctly, go along way to making the sale. There is a reason that top sales people consistently perform well, and it is not luck.
Travis
Nicely stated Travis! Thanks so much.