Closing is still a necessary skill for greatness, but it’s different today. Over a four-week period, I’m presenting four ideas to closing sales in the security technology industry today. During the last two weeks I introduced Idea #1: You’ve got to prepare your point of contact (POC) to close the sale for you and Idea #2: Get to know the members of the decision-making committee. This week we present our next idea on closing sales.
Idea #3: After the proposal stage, send tailored content in a timely manner.
I keep hearing a phrase more frequently every year that I never thought I’d hear from a salesperson. When asking salespeople about an opportunity, some of them reply with: “I don’t know. I sent the proposal and it’s in their court now.” That answer would get most salespeople fired 15 years ago, but today it’s acceptable. Maybe it’s not the preferred answer, but our attitude of waiting for business has become the norm.
Which makes Idea #3 so awesome. You’ve got an opportunity to impress your potential customer throughout their journey of making a decision while your competition sits back and waits. How? Below are a few ideas on the best methods of sharing content between the proposal delivery and the decision.
· Create a list of content – case studies, articles, videos, etc. – that your customers would appreciate, whether it has to do with your proposal or not.
· Make a schedule to deliver the content. Not too frequent, but enough to stay top-of-mind. If you think the decision will be made in a month or so, then send them a piece of content every 10 days or so.
· Do not bring up the proposal. If you send an email, just state: “I thought you’d like this article.” That’s it – no reminder or inquiry about your proposal. If they have news, they’ll let you know.
· If you want to know about the proposal, then call and ask. Keep this type of communication separate from the content delivery.
Your goal is to stay in front of them with value – not constantly asking “Just curious when you’ll be making a decision?”
