Does anyone introduce themselves as a sale rep to a prospect or customer? I would love to hear your feedback on why you do or don’t.
]]>Looking at some of these replies I think a commission only sales person over other has to see himself as his own company. He can cultivate a relationship and stand out form his competition as an individual very well if he will use some basic marketing practices.
How much more of an impact could he make if when he goes cold calling business to business he leave a 5 or 8 page report on the “true cost of xxxxx and for xxxxx position of person”. And it gives that prospect a chance to see his expertise.
It has a lot to do with positioning. If you are seen as just anther sales guy you will close much fewer sales and you will not get access to the bigger deals.
The sales guy who is positioned as the expert and authority will always win out.
When your prospect comes to you and says “hey I read your report and we need to talk” you are then a trusted adviser. You don’t have to “sell” you just have to do what you do. Which is solve their problem as good as or better than anyone else can.
And in a way as John is saying that makes them want to do business with you again and tell all their friends about it.
]]>Hi Letitia,
Personally, I would not send them a proposal in this case.
I would work hard to get them to tell me that they don’t really want the proposal. Sometimes people say “send me a proposal” because they don’t know how to say “no”.
By “work hard” I mean ask a lot of questions about what is going to happen after they receive the proposal – who is going to evaluate it, how do they make their decisions, when will they make a decision. If you send them a proposal, what are they willing to commit to do?
You may even have to say “Based on our conversation, even if I send over a great proposal, it doesn’t sound like this would be a good fit for you, do you agree? Yes, ok, then what would you do if you were me?”
If you come at this with an approach of “I want to try to help you, even if that means helping you discover I’m not the best fit for you need”, then you may have more luck having people tell you no when they mean no.
Hope that helps.
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