Take the Plunge!

It’s the end of the year and there is a natural tendency to think about slowing down. After all what could you achieve in the next few days that you could not achieve in the past 12 months?

A good sales person would not let even this opportunity go by. Take a look at your prospect list and select a few customers whom you have been putting off for a while. These are prospects that intimidate you for one reason or another. You’ve been putting off calling them because in your mind you are afraid that they will say no.

Having the fear is natural. We all fear the unknown. Everyone craves certainty. However, that’s not why you came into sales. You want to make new relationships. You want to make new connections. You want to find out what the prospect does. What they buy, when they buy and how much. And you want to know how you can be of value to them.

However, you will not find out till you call. The most that can happen is that the prospect says no. They were not buying from you till now and they are not going to be buying from you in the near future. You’ve not lost revenue, but you have established that your future revenue will not be coming from this prospect. You have freed up your time to move on to another prospect and probably make a sale. If the customer says yes, then you have created a relationship which will benefit you and your company.

One time or another I have heard sales people say that if the prospect wanted their product or service they would have called them already. Since they have not called up, they are not interested in the product or service. The customer may have their own reasons for not calling you up. They may need your product, however just like you, they too are intimidated. They are not calling you up because they think they are too small to be important for you; they think being smaller will result in poorer service, hence they make do with some alternative. They could consider your prices too high; they’ve not had the opportunity to talk to you and discover the value you provide. Or there could be inexperienced officers in the purchase department who have not had the opportunity to search and discover you.

All the more reason for you to make the call, establish rapport and convert the prospect into a customer. However, that will not happen till you overcome your own fear of calling.

So don’t let the end of the year go to waste. Make the call. You will be glad you did.