My first sales job was selling copiers, so I watched someone quit or get fired every other week. Seriously, multiple people a month would leave the sales team. It was a revolving door.
Every time someone left, my boss would take all their material from their desk and identify every opportunity or demo from the previous few months. This was before CRM systems, so his exercise consisted of collecting business cards, demo machine logs in the shipping department, and shoe boxes full of index cards. (Some of you are smiling right now, but most of you are thinking “shoeboxes?”)
His next step was to make phone calls to every potential customer with whom the ex-salesperson was working. As he contacted these people over the next few days, he’d pass out new leads to each of us. One of the first times I was present for this ritual, I benefited from an opportunity with a doctor’s office. It was the easiest sale I ever made. I showed up to answer questions about the demo that was performed by the former salesperson and left with an order.
I asked my manager why the former salesperson would quit when he had this opportunity 90% sold. His answer shocked me, but its conventional wisdom to me today:
“Peterson, you’d be amazed how much business is out there just waiting for a salesperson to follow-up. Most salespeople are sitting on goldmines and they don’t realize it.”
If there is one thing all salespeople should be done right now (I’m writing this on March 24, 2021), they should be calling every single customer with whom they interacted between October 2019 and June 2020. Yes, every single one of them.
The U.S. is opening for business again. The pandemic is still real, but we can feel the buzz. Whether it’s the vaccine or the belief that we have to move forward with safe measures, there is a movement that’s bigger than any of us and it’s on autopilot. As long as we continue to vaccinate and the key metrics keep decreasing, the buzz is going to get stronger and stronger. Those people that said “no way” last January are in a different spot today. The IT Manager that proclaimed that they would never let their company’s security data go to the cloud doesn’t work there anymore. The Security Director that told you to call back when things get better is wondering why you haven’t called back.
Spend a half day at your desk like my boss used to do. Get organized. Call, email, text, or visit all of those customers – the ones you quoted, the ones you demo’d, the ones you simply got on the phone but did nothing. All of them – reach back out to them and pick up that order or secure that appointment.
You might be sitting on a goldmine!
