It was the day after Christmas in 1996. I was the only person in our sales department working, and I probably wouldn’t have been if I didn’t have an appointment to close on a project I’d been working for a while. After my morning appointment, I decided to stop by the office of one of my current clients to say hi and check on the equipment I sold them a year or so ago. As expected, no one was there … except the boss. The same boss from whom I had been shielded by the office manager. The same boss who makes all the strategic plans for the company. The same boss who didn’t understand how our professional services could save her thousands of dollars. You know the rest of the story … within months we had taken this account to another level all because of my second strategy for making the summer productive…
Strategy #2: Make courtesy calls to current customers, and expect to meet other stakeholders. In the above story, I never would’ve made contact with the boss unless I made that courtesy call when most of the office was on vacation. Of course, December 26th has a lot more people out than a typical summer day, but your odds are still pretty high that your point of contact will be out. If so, ask who else you can see. You’re not trying to sell anything … you’re just in the area and want to check on “fill in the blank”.
BTW, navigating your accounts is a critical piece of selling successfully today and in our future, so you need to get to all the stakeholders.
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