- July 20, 2006
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s not unusual for weak salespeople to generate business by marketing themselves. One of the many methods available is to drop brochures – with secretaries, on car windshields, at the bottom of driveways, via fax or email (not SPAM), attached to door knobs, but never in mailboxes unless you mailed them.
So it wasn’t a great surprise to arrive home this evening and find one such brochure attached to the door. Nice brochure, very appealing with just two huge problems. The first was that as nice as the brochure was, Jim’s scribbled note was equally unimpressive. Worse, he was offering a free estimate and I didn’t even have to call to get it. So why call at all?
It’s bad enough that some of you have literature distributors masquerading as salespeople. But it’s even worse when they do something to prevent prospects from calling. If I had the slightest interest in this service but didn’t know the price I might be tempted to inquire, providing the salesperson the opportunity to ask me questions, create some need and urgency and get me scheduled. But since he provided the price, I already know what I need and won’t phone him until I’m ready to buy.
There’s that ‘death of the sales force/death of the sales call’ thing again. My point is that he could have easily persuaded me to buy this today if he had teased me into calling rather than distributing everything.
Got salespeople or literature distributors? Got salespeople or order takers? Got salespeople or educators? Got salespeople or account managers? Not sure? Know the Answer? Don’t know how to fix it? Evaluate Your Sales Force today and get the answers you need.
(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.
