BUSINESS Training Hello? Mr Client? Are you there? PAUL OWEN: Maybe it’s not you, it’s them
here are times when a salesperson craves silence (and times when they can use it well themselves). This article is not about those times. It’s about the times when silence is everything but golden. When a client or prospective client goes quiet on you, there are many possible reasons.
T In forthcoming articles, I’ll be
off ering insight into ways to minimise the times that clients go quiet. Though never eliminated, you’re better placed to reduce it by the way you interact with a client from moment one. However, let’s just help you this month with some thoughts around those times when clients just disappear – no email replies, no calls back from voicemails, nothing. Here are three things all salespeople should remember at such times.
1. IT MAY NOT BE ABOUT YOU We’re too quick in life to think that any behaviour that aff ects us is based on how someone thinks of us or a reaction they’ve had to something we’ve said or done. In many cases – I’d say most – that’s not the case. If a client goes quiet on you, there could be a number of reasons that are nothing to do with you or what they think of you. It could be the end of a busy quarter when sales are being chased down, quarterly numbers done, new targets set and agreed. There’s
a wedding to organise, a roof to fi x or a school fair to contribute to. You are important and your service is still interesting. It may be just less important right now than something else.
2. THINGS CHANGE
Priorities, timeframes and plans change. You’re not always going to be informed of these immediately because your prospective client simply doesn’t have time and, anyway, they’re planning to update you soon (just not today). The purchase is still going to happen,
That empathy will make you a better salesperson
just not today. What they want is your support, to know that you’re ready to go when they are, not the obligation to reply to useless “can you let me know what’s happening?” voicemails and emails.
3. TAKE A TIP FROM THE BBC The good old BBC – somewhat beaten up in the last year or so in the UK – was founded on these three pillars: Educate. Inform. Entertain. When faced with customer silence, think of those three before you write another dull email asking for news.
One way to keep front of mind
The Clear Path Company Tel: +44 (0)20 3004 9113
without pestering is to send something that educates, informs or entertains your client. You might even try to amuse them. Maybe it’s an article you’ve written (a bit like this one) with a pertinent and relevant point; perhaps it’s an amusing and insightful presentation from a global thought leader like Sir Ken Robinson (on
TED.com, look up How Schools Kill Creativity – it will challenge what you think about education); or maybe it’s a book you’ve read recently that changes the way you look at the world. This one’s a cracker: Bounce – The Myth of Talent and Power of Practice – by Matthew Syed (another potentially life-changing book).
What will all this sort of message achieve? Well, it’s a much more interesting email to write as well as to receive. A challenge always invigorates a dull day.
Hopefully, it will also remind your client or prospective client of what you off er as a company – something diff erent, challenging and innovative, I hope. Additionally, it will force you to think not just of your own interest but to remember that your client or prospective client has other pressures, other deadlines and other priorities. That empathy will itself make you a better salesperson.
Almost every time I have tried one of the ideas above with a disappearing client, they replied to me within 24 hours. Give it a try and let me know how you get on.
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