How not to make money

[Mr D]

Anyone else ever come across sellers who do not bother with a warm lead?

Wife was after a car. Found some on a website that links to multiple dealers.
There's an option on the site to contact the seller and your contact details are passed on.

One replied a few hours later with 'Hi, the car is available, many thanks'.
One replied next day (and almost lunchtime) with 'yes cars available for more information call me' and gave his number.
Neither called the customer.

And one called within minutes of the lead being notified, discussing the car and able to offer free delivery. Offered to do a video walk around of the car for the customer - this was not asked for, simply offered.

She made her own decision as to car - not surprisingly she chose the garage who responded and rang her.

So appears two car selling businesses did not want to bother with a warm lead. Cost them a sale of a few grand.

Anyone else come across businesses like that?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

All the time.......

Contacted a new supplier last week with £500 order in hand ready to place. Spoke to the receptionist who passed information onto sales, received an email 3 days later regarding account opening with a refusal, as they only supply people in the trade. I'd sent the email from my other business address and they'd made assumptions without making formal contact.

 

[Ozzy]

Yes, amazing me all the time. Our core business is generating leads for people, warm leads, and it amazes me some of the companies we work with do no more than just send the prospect an email and wait...

 

[Mr D]

Yes, amazing me all the time. Our core business is generating leads for people, warm leads, and it amazes me some of the companies we work with do no more than just send the prospect an email and wait...

I have worked sales.

First day us trainees were told - build relationships.
A few minutes on the phone. A few minutes getting to know the buyer, the business, the problems...

 

[Clinton]

Yes, amazing me all the time. Our core business is generating leads for people, warm leads, and it amazes me some of the companies we work with do no more than just send the prospect an email and wait...

I do exactly what those companies are doing! I send the customer a boilerplate email, let them investigate the subject some more and then get back in their own time.

If the customer is too lazy to do that, they are not good enough for the product / service. They should go to your competitors. Maybe even include a link to a competitor in that boilerplate email sent out at the start.

The problem with businesses nowadays is that they are so desperate for "sales, sales, sales" that they'll take any rubbish customer because it adds revenue.

And why are they desperate for sales? It's usually because they're selling the same tat as everybody else and have nothing to distinguish their product from the rest of the junk out there in the market.

I fully subscribe to the view that you should work on building your reputation, your product quality, your after sales service etc., to the level where customers are willing to chase you and chase you till you take their order.

Don't flatter yourself that you already have a great product and great service. If they are not begging you to accept their money, you need to do more work on improving your product / service so you don't have to chase sales, pay money for advertising, buy leads.

(there are very few exceptions to this).

 

[MarkOnline]

I do exactly what those companies are doing! I send the customer a boilerplate email, let them investigate the subject some more and then get back in their own time.

If the customer is too lazy to do that, they are not good enough for the product / service. They should go to your competitors. Maybe even include a link to a competitor in that boilerplate email sent out at the start.

The problem with businesses nowadays is that they are so desperate for "sales, sales, sales" that they'll take any rubbish customer because it adds revenue.

And why are they desperate for sales? It's usually because they're selling the same tat as everybody else and have nothing to distinguish their product from the rest of the junk out there in the market.

I fully subscribe to the view that you should work on building your reputation, your product quality, your after sales service etc., to the level where customers are willing to chase you and chase you till you take their order.

Don't flatter yourself that you already have a great product and great service. If they are not begging you to accept their money, you need to do more work on improving your product / service so you don't have to chase sales, pay money for advertising, buy leads.

(there are very few exceptions to this).

There's a fine line, as with most things, Im not going to k*ss anyones ar*e to deal with them. I will treat them with repect I expect the same back. I dont want to deal with anyone who thinks they are doing me a favour. The best anything in the world is only the best if it knows how to treat its customers. Now if I dont want to play by the rules and treat you with respect, then I deserve what I get.
(contrary to what SOME of my forum posts suggest)

 

[John Hemming]

In the past I have done active selling, but now my commercial priority is to build a range of services. Because I write almost all of the software myself I need to reserve time for that. Hence I rarely chase sales. I also spend quite a bit of time doing investment research because most of my revenue comes from that source.

My SaaS services are for now all free. I intend to offer some premium services when I get around to that, but want to build a basic range of well used quality free services first (my business is cash burn negative because of investment income anyway hence I have plenty of time to build things up). At the moment I have around 1,000 clients and support takes a little amount of time (some more than others as they are often the taxpayers and neither technical nor trained in accountancy).

 

[Ozzy]

When I first sold these forums back in 2007 my wife insisted I get a new car, as I’d been driving an old Rover around for years which I actually really liked. We went to the Mercedes dealership in Milton Keynes, wife pretended we needed to go shopping then turned into the dealership.
We wondered around, we asked to speak to someone, we waited and then we walked out.
We drove back home to Northampton, walked into the Mercedes dealership there, and I bought one that afternoon. I would have done the same in MK if the sales people there had given me the time of day.

Then we have our clients, the stats in our database show the leads who have 3 contacts made convert significantly better than the one who just receive one email, and many variations of different contacts made effect the conversation rates too.

 

[John Hemming]

Then we have our clients, the stats in our database show the leads who have 3 contacts made convert significantly better than the one who just receive one email, and many variations of different contacts made effect the conversation rates too.

Sales is really a task of persuasion. Hence when you approach it in better ways you are more likely to persuade people to do things.

The psychological challenge for people is often the close (asking someone to buy) because there is a threat of refusal people often hedge away from that. However, without the close often there won't be a sale.

Similarly if you take a complex sell such as company you need to make sure all the bad news is factored in at the start of the process otherwise every time bad news crops up it makes the price lower or the sale less likely.

Its interesting to watch this process for listed companies where even for what is underlying any news actually a good investment the price get knocked back for each bit of bad news. If all the bad news came as one the damage is less.

 

[Clinton]

Then we have our clients, the stats in our database show the leads who have 3 contacts made convert significantly better than the one who just receive one email....

There's that emphasis on (and desperation for) sales again and tweaking copy to increase conversion and doing all that other desperate "mainstream" marketing stuff.

I feel it's a mistake to focus on the numbers (as most small businesses do) instead of putting emphasis on the quality of customer.

From my experience, the contacts who need multiple emails to make their mind up tend to be the lowest quality customers. They are more indecisive, more prone to being demanding, lack the confidence to pull the trigger on the sale, more likely to complain about nothing, don't read the T&Cs and then believe they were shortchanged, want to bargain etc etc.

Be discriminating. In addition to improving the product, focus on improving the quality of customer. Increasing the sales should be the last thing on your mind! Get the right type of customer and they will treat you with respect and will likewise be worthy of your respect.

 

[John Hemming]

From my experience, the contacts who need multiple emails to make their mind up tend to be the lowest quality customers. They are more indecisive, more prone to being demanding, lack the confidence to pull the trigger on the sale, more likely to complain about nothing, don't read the T&Cs and then believe they were shortchanged, want to bargain etc etc.

It depends what sort of market you are in. For your own Market that may be the right approach.

 

[Ozzy]

I’m sure there will be examples in some sectors where tweaking copy and pushing for conversions is not the right approach. Our clients are the banking and insurance sectors primarily, and I’m pretty sure if I told Natwest to not to focus on converting the leads and wait to see if the prospect calls them they’ll think I’m bonkers.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

It's clear to me that some of you folk have never had the pleasure of working to deadlines, where you've a daily newspaper, weekly magazine and monthly supplement to get out, where you've 3 pages to fill to size up and have 4 hours before the production department says 'No mas'!

I doubt you'd last a day in publishing Clinton

 

[Mr D]

I’m sure there will be examples in some sectors where tweaking copy and pushing for conversions is not the right approach. Our clients are the banking and insurance sectors primarily, and I’m pretty sure if I told Natwest to not to focus on converting the leads and wait to see if the prospect calls them they’ll think I’m bonkers.

One thing I learnt over the years is the art of not fouling the sale up. Letting the customer sell the product to themselves - in other words having said your piece then keep quiet. Time and again have seen sales staff talk a customer out of the sale by carrying on selling when they should let the customer convince themselves.

Was dealing with a sales rep from the Spring Fair last year. He met us for 2 minutes out of a 6 day fair and as commonly happens we swapped business cards.
He kept in touch last year, he kept in touch this year.
Tuesday we are planning a small (£500) order with the company via him. Potentially he's probably looking at 6 or 7 figure sales to us in the next 10 years. From keeping in touch and not overselling the products.

Spring Fair this year we contacted probably 30 companies new to us, only a handful got back to us once and none have got back more than once. Perhaps one or two will get in touch later this year.... converting the lead to an order and in future to regular orders. Or perhaps none will get in touch and it will be next year's Spring Fair before we get back in touch with them.

 

[Mr D]

It's clear to me that some of you folk have never had the pleasure of working to deadlines, where you've a daily newspaper, weekly magazine and monthly supplement to get out, where you've 3 pages to fill to size up and have 4 hours before the production department says 'No mas'!

I doubt you'd last a day in publishing Clinton

There is other work requiring deadlines to be met.

Miss them and may as well not bother. Miss them and lose opportunity.
Hit them and still likely getting nothing. The world of tendered contracts....

Seriously not all business can work the same way. Processes and policies that seem sensible for one can be appalling to another.

 

[Ozzy]

He met us for 2 minutes out of a 6 day fair and as commonly happens we swapped business cards.
He kept in touch last year, he kept in touch this year.

That sounds similar to how I tend to work, which is behind my 3-touch points comment earlier as a general rule. Respond to the initial enquiry, check in later to see if they have everything they need, and then appropriately timed follow up at the date agreed on the second touch point.
Different circumstances can vary as can products, but you got to at least follow up on sales enquiries or you might as well burn your sales and marketing budget on the roulette table instead.

 

[John Hemming]

Its all horses for courses. If you are providing say an integrated stock broking package which provides end to end services (as I used to) the sales process involves being aware of who is going to change systems years in advance. Changing systems is a major challenge and has derailed a number of stockbrokers in the past. Hence if you are not in touch over years you will not be considered.

Selling a free service for doing tax returns as I do now however is quite different. People can change systems with 15 mins work. They can also run more than one system for different aspects of an individual tax return. For example I can handle submitting VAT returns that were due in 2018, but people tell me Sage cannot. Hence people come to me to do the return whilst keeping their sage service for other things.

 

[UKSBD]

I sell a product/service for £30/£50 all 95% automated

Sometimes I get people emailing or phoning wanting to know more, wanting to know what else they get, wanting to know results, wanting to know this and that, etc.

95% of the time I will just send them an automated reply with link to a page explaining more.

Occasionally I'll give them a bit more time, if they have gone to the trouble of phoning me, sound civil, and I'm not busy.

People may think this is bad service but the thing is, if I had to spend time explaining things to people and trying to sell it to them, it wouldn't cost £30/£50 pounds.

It's a deliberate decision to just automate everything and charge accordingly

 

[Alan]

Wife was after a car.

Some thing has happened in the car sales industry. On a Facebook group I'm in some one was complaining about this - even not following up on a hot ready to buy lead.

I thought it was a one off. But them I experienced the same ..

We are planning to change car. I had short listed a model. I was passing a main dealer and popped in to have a good look, kick the tyres so to speak and probably would have started to commit to buy.

I walked around the car lot - a group of three sales men walked straight past, engrossed in their own conversation, never even glanced at me. So I walked into the show room (COVID complying of course ) - and stood around while the staff just ignored me, chatted amongst themselves, soI walked out.

At another main dealer 5 sales people chatting in a huddle, ignoring me, so I interrupted and asked to see a model, they reluctantly let the most junior person attend to me, and he knew nothing about the car I was asking about. I walked out.

Something is wrong with the way cars are sold these days.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

There is other work requiring deadlines to be met.

Miss them and may as well not bother. Miss them and lose opportunity.
Hit them and still likely getting nothing. The world of tendered contracts....

Seriously not all business can work the same way. Processes and policies that seem sensible for one can be appalling to another.

Of course, and in an ideal world deadlines are manageable, the problems associated with missing them normally a direct result of something in the process going wrong. In publishing, when one of your top spending customers wants to place a late page for a product launch that's been re-scheduled to a week earlier and the only way you can accommodate them is to go up 4 pages, a warm lead, a cold lead, any lead is gratefully received.

 

[Mr D]

Some thing has happened in the car sales industry. On a Facebook group I'm in some one was complaining about this - even not following up on a hot ready to buy lead.

I thought it was a one off. But them I experienced the same ..

We are planning to change car. I had short listed a model. I was passing a main dealer and popped in to have a good look, kick the tyres so to speak and probably would have started to commit to buy.

I walked around the car lot - a group of three sales men walked straight past, engrossed in their own conversation, never even glanced at me. So I walked into the show room (COVID complying of course ) - and stood around while the staff just ignored me, chatted amongst themselves, soI walked out.

At another main dealer 5 sales people chatting in a huddle, ignoring me, so I interrupted and asked to see a model, they reluctantly let the most junior person attend to me, and he knew nothing about the car I was asking about. I walked out.

Something is wrong with the way cars are sold these days.

And the media report that car sales are down....
Go figure.

Couple of years back I had been helping a friend do some building work so was wearing old clothes and a bit dirty. Wife picked me up to go home.
On the way home we passed a new car garage so popped in to see what the current cars were and what sort of finance they offered for HP. Wasn't planning on sitting in a car or doing a test drive that day but had the idea of arranging a test drive for later that week if a suitable spec car was found.

Ignored by all the staff so got someone's attention, he went in the back to get the brochure and never returned.
One Honda garage I'll happily never buy from.

 

[Alan]

Maybe they realise they are all doomed

• Cazoo is one of Europe’s fastest growing digital businesses, growing 300%+ year-over-year, with expected 2021 revenues approaching $1bn.
• Europe’s used car market is $700bn opportunity with <2% online, ripe for digital transformation.

The new car market should look like this soon too. Manufacturers giving virtual tours. Demo vehicle delivered to your door, with option to keep or order or give back all direct from the manufacturer.

If I recall, the only reason main dealers actually sell cars is as it is a lead into the workshop / repair business. With the 'onlinification' of sales, what is the point of an expensive show room with useless salespeople hanging around on the off chance that some one actually wants advice from a human.

 

[Clinton]

I’m sure there will be examples in some sectors where tweaking copy and pushing for conversions is not the right approach. Our clients are the banking and insurance sectors primarily, and I’m pretty sure if I told Natwest to not to focus on converting the leads and wait to see if the prospect calls them they’ll think I’m bonkers.

I can't think of a single sector that would be an exception.

Even in your banking (Natwest) example. If Natwest offered a kick ass service with plenty of blue water between themselves and their competitors, and didn't try crooked tricks (example) and moneylaundering that got them their bad reputation, they wouldn't need to tweak copy, increase conversions, do all that other BS.

Marketing cost is the price a business pays for having a crap product / reputation (or at least a product that's not sufficiently better than the competition's).

 

[Mr D]

I can't think of a single sector that would be an exception.

Even in your banking (Natwest) example. If Natwest offered a kick ass service with plenty of blue water between themselves and their competitors, and didn't try crooked tricks (example) and moneylaundering that got them their bad reputation, they wouldn't need to tweak copy, increase conversions, do all that other BS.

Marketing cost is the price a business pays for having a crap product / reputation (or at least a product that's not sufficiently better than the competition's).

If your product is for sale at say 1500 quid and the competition sell at 20 then marketing would be useful to sell the benefits of one product over the other. Exact same purpose, just different features.
Rather than selling the product the marketing focuses on the features. Which sells the product.

 

[Clinton]

If your product is for sale at say 1500 quid and the competition sell at 20 then marketing would be useful to sell the benefits ...

You still don't get it!

If your £1,500 product is so, so superior (it would need to be for such a price difference), you do not need to invest in any marketing, your customers will do the marketing for you!

One should make sure their product is far superior, not raise the price on a piece of sh*t and then rely on marketing to fool punters into paying that price for the sh*t.

The latter is what usually happens though (because marketing people have convinced us that their dept / skills / function is critical to business, indispensable even).

If I owned a Merc showroom, I'd not have salesmen rush to assist every bloke in overalls who walks in and looks around (though I'm sure Ozzy and his wife were not in overalls that day). For every one million of those there may be only one who has the money to do the deal. Use discretion and suss the punter before offering to spend an hour showing him around, answering questions and taking him for a test drive. Common sense, IMO. Otherwise one million hours wasted by your staff - a lot more expensive than the odd missed sale.

Perhaps when Ozzy went in they didn't have enough staff to answer his question. Again, it's a resource issue. Pay for 2-3 extra full time staff all year to cover the occasional busy time ...or lose the odd sale. It's a management decision. If management are crap at making these calls, they'll soon go bust. And that's just how life is.

 

[Mr D]

You still don't get it!

If your £1,500 product is so, so superior (it would need to be for such a price difference), you do not need to invest in any marketing, your customers will do the marketing for you!

One should make sure their product is far superior, not raise the price on a piece of sh*t and then rely on marketing to fool punters into paying that price for the sh*t.

The latter is what usually happens though (because marketing people have convinced us that their dept / skills / function is critical to business, indispensable even).

If I owned a Merc showroom, I'd not have salesmen rush to assist every bloke in overalls who walks in and looks around (though I'm sure Ozzy and his wife were not in overalls that day). For every one million of those there may be only one who has the money to do the deal. Use discretion and suss the punter before offering to spend an hour showing him around, answering questions and taking him for a test drive. Common sense, IMO. Otherwise one million hours wasted by your staff - a lot more expensive than the odd missed sale.

Perhaps when Ozzy went in they didn't have enough staff to answer his question. Again, it's a resource issue. Pay for 2-3 extra full time staff all year to cover the occasional busy time ...or lose the odd sale. It's a management decision. If management are crap at making these calls, they'll soon go bust. And that's just how life is.

You presume the customers want to do the marketing.

Now suppose you came up with a great product that massively benefitted the businesses buying it. Say a product that cuts their biggest cost in half while increasing productivity at the same time.
Will they tell their competitors about it? What is the benefit to them in word of mouth?

Getting a business advantage over competitors does not mean you have to tell those competitors how to match you again.


It's not so much superior as has additional features the cheap version does not.
Same end result, same use. Just additional features that are expensive and worth a considerable amount to a few.
The production and delivery costs are considerable - but has decent profit worked into it.
Legal was a big bill too but that was factored into pre production.

And virtually the entire business outsourced.

 

[Ozzy]

My firms product is amazing, one of the biggest introducers of new customers to business banks beyond any other channel.
My problem is our customers don’t want their competitors to know about us, and they’ve told us that. I’d be interested in learning how we can encourage our customers to tell their competitors about us (knowing of course if they do it reduces the volume of new customers we can give to them). I’d love to have a zero cost marketing budget but I’ve obviously been hoodwinked by the marketing department.

 

[Mr D]

My firms product is amazing, one of the biggest introducers of new customers to business banks beyond any other channel.
My problem is our customers don’t want their competitors to know about us, and they’ve told us that. I’d be interested in learning how we can encourage our customers to tell their competitors about us (knowing of course if they do it reduces the volume of new customers we can give to them). I’d love to have a zero cost marketing budget but I’ve obviously been hoodwinked by the marketing department.

Yes. Times that marketing is needed or you end up selling zero a year.

Must be dozens of hundreds of products that are such benefit to the users that to tell competitors about it would cost them dearly.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

If I owned a Merc showroom, I'd not have salesmen rush to assist every bloke in overalls who walks in and looks around (though I'm sure Ozzy and his wife were not in overalls that day). For every one million of those there may be only one who has the money to do the deal. Use discretion and suss the punter before offering to spend an hour showing him around, answering questions and taking him for a test drive. Common sense, IMO. Otherwise one million hours wasted by your staff - a lot more expensive than the odd missed sale.

The biggest problem many salespeople have is their inability to realise that sales can come from anywhere. In this respect you appear to fit the bill perfectly Clinton?

18 months ago 2 reps were knocking on doors on our estate trying to sell office printers. They called into the Printers who, surprisingly already had one. They called on the Insurance office, who surprisingly had one, and they walked straight past my door. Guess what I'd been looking at buying earlier that day?

 

[Aniela]

There's that emphasis on (and desperation for) sales again and tweaking copy to increase conversion and doing all that other desperate "mainstream" marketing stuff.

I feel it's a mistake to focus on the numbers (as most small businesses do) instead of putting emphasis on the quality of customer.

From my experience, the contacts who need multiple emails to make their mind up tend to be the lowest quality customers. They are more indecisive, more prone to being demanding, lack the confidence to pull the trigger on the sale, more likely to complain about nothing, don't read the T&Cs and then believe they were shortchanged, want to bargain etc etc.

Be discriminating. In addition to improving the product, focus on improving the quality of customer. Increasing the sales should be the last thing on your mind! Get the right type of customer and they will treat you with respect and will likewise be worthy of your respect.

But you do exactly the same, just in a different manner?

You are doing the same 'desperation' of sales but you do just it before they come to you, rather than after like most businesses do. Your 'spiel' of being the harsh bad guy (but has the answers with all the information), is still 'desperate marketing' stuff too. At the end of the day, it's all marketing.

For your business it makes sense, as you're a small operation that requires larger businesses to make it worth their while but to apply the logic to all or most other business is just plain stupid.

At the same time, so what if a customer needs 5 emails to decide and are more demanding? Have a support team. If you're business can't handle those sorts of 'problems' then either the business model isn't all too good or the business relies on one person too much.

I would suspect for you, it's that your business relies pretty much all on you, which is why you don't seem keen on growth, no matter the 'quality' of lead.

 

[Clinton]

My firms product is amazing, one of the biggest introducers of new customers to business banks beyond any other channel.
My problem is our customers don’t want their competitors to know about us, and they’ve told us that. I’d be interested in learning how we can encourage our customers to tell their competitors about us (knowing of course if they do it reduces the volume of new customers we can give to them). I’d love to have a zero cost marketing budget but I’ve obviously been hoodwinked by the marketing department.

They don't tell their competitors - they tell their suppliers, their courier companies, their accountants, their lawyers, their mate down the pub ....

Offer a significantly higher level of service or a significantly better product and you'll have trouble getting them to shut their mouths!

I owned a PC business like that once. Employees of my competitors used to buy my products and show it off to their friends!

Next week I'm using a place in Basildon to do my exhaust. They were recommended to me by Halfords employees. And yes, that place do an amazing job (details by DM if anyone's interested). But Halfords Autocentre is their competitor.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I guess I'm on both sides of the fence here

It does frustrate me how useless a lot of salespeople are - to pick up on the car analogy, some years back my mid-life crisis divorce gift to myself was a shiny new BMW M3. I live in a wealthy part of the UK, but in 2005 £40k was still a lot of money to spend on a car service from the garage was so unengaged that I ended up going to an old friend who sources cars

On the other hand, I have a very strict process when dealing with incoming enquiries. I will be helpful & friendly, but step 2 is that they must send good quality information to get an informed response. I absolutely won't do a stroke of work on their behalf until I have the information

The crooks of the industry actually do the opposite

 

[prophet01]

Guess what I'd been looking at buying earlier that day?

A cheese and pickle sandwich?

 

[Guy Incognito]

Does it not all come down to product? If you take cars as an example, the sales force at Ferrari surely don’t have to work as hard to make someone but a car as, say, the comparable people at Fiat?

At the moment we are not capitalising on all our warm leads simply as there are too many of them and we don’t have enough staff to deal with the enquiries, so we are actively growing the team so that we can. We are also looking to change our website so that people are more confident ordering directly without having to ask questions.

What we do not, and never have done, is cold call. We don’t need to, as our product is desirable.

So I think it all comes back to product.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Does it not all come down to product? If you take cars as an example, the sales force at Ferrari surely don’t have to work as hard to make someone but a car as, say, the comparable people at Fiat?

Different, possibly not easier

But it does support Clinton's point that if you have what people want - and little/no direct competition then the business will come to you

 

[Mr D]

But you do exactly the same, just in a different manner?

You are doing the same 'desperation' of sales but you do just it before they come to you, rather than after like most businesses do. Your 'spiel' of being the harsh bad guy (but has the answers with all the information), is still 'desperate marketing' stuff too. At the end of the day, it's all marketing.

For your business it makes sense, as you're a small operation that requires larger businesses to make it worth their while but to apply the logic to all or most other business is just plain stupid.

At the same time, so what if a customer needs 5 emails to decide and are more demanding? Have a support team. If you're business can't handle those sorts of 'problems' then either the business model isn't all too good or the business relies on one person too much.

I would suspect for you, it's that your business relies pretty much all on you, which is why you don't seem keen on growth, no matter the 'quality' of lead.

Indeed.
A customer that may spend 6 or 7 figures money with the company over the next decade? Worth getting.
How do you spot those customers? You start with keeping in touch and work towards one order. Then the next order. And so on.
If they never try the product they are never going to be a customer.

So many companies take a warm lead and never appear to do anything more with it.
This isn't cold leads, where conversion is likely to be low and the business is contacting people effectively at random.
But never going to convince some people about changing their business.

 

[Mark T Jones]

The biggest problem many salespeople have is their inability to realise that sales can come from anywhere. In this respect you appear to fit the bill perfectly Clinton?

18 months ago 2 reps were knocking on doors on our estate trying to sell office printers. They called into the Printers who, surprisingly already had one. They called on the Insurance office, who surprisingly had one, and they walked straight past my door. Guess what I'd been looking at buying earlier that day?

My personal view is the opposite- lots of salespeople are far too busy chasing the 'everybody' market instead of focusing on a segment where they can truly add value

As an aside, those generic breakfast networking groups 'bring plenty of business cards' are guilty of building this culture

 

[Mr D]

Does it not all come down to product? If you take cars as an example, the sales force at Ferrari surely don’t have to work as hard to make someone but a car as, say, the comparable people at Fiat?

At the moment we are not capitalising on all our warm leads simply as there are too many of them and we don’t have enough staff to deal with the enquiries, so we are actively growing the team so that we can. We are also looking to change our website so that people are more confident ordering directly without having to ask questions.

What we do not, and never have done, is cold call. We don’t need to, as our product is desirable.

So I think it all comes back to product.

A product that has considerable marketing? Ferrari have done plenty over the years to promote their cars.

Now if someone was to come up with a new car, develop a new brand for the car and then simply put it for sale online? Then they could choose not to spend money on marketing.

However they may struggle to get the market share of Fiat.....

 

[Aniela]

They don't tell their competitors - they tell their suppliers, their courier companies, their accountants, their lawyers, their mate down the pub ....

Offer a significantly higher level of service or a significantly better product and you'll have trouble getting them to shut their mouths!

I owned a PC business like that once. Employees of my competitors used to buy my products and show it off to their friends!

Next week I'm using a place in Basildon to do my exhaust. They were recommended to me by Halfords employees. And yes, that place do an amazing job (details by DM if anyone's interested). But Halfords Autocentre is their competitor.

You've chosen to ignore my post because it doesn't align with what you're trying to say.

To me, what you're saying is extremely flawed, although I would agree there are times and businesses where only getting the 'ideal' customer is best suited. A company charging £5k a month doing SEO consulting is not going to want to waste their time on businesses earning £50 a month from their website. You want to get rid of as many businesses as possible there, to get the right customers... or startup a different branch of the company that sort of client.

You require a very special type of client, because of how you operate, and the way your business is you, in a very specific setting. That's not how most businesses work.

 

[Aniela]

What we do not, and never have done, is cold call. We don’t need to, as our product is desirable. So I think it all comes back to product.

If the product is so desirable, wouldn't it make sense to cold call?

It would be an easy sell.