The following appears on gcworldbiz.com
By Sid Chadwick, President, Chadwick Consulting
People buy — from people, and through systems they trust — operated by people.
Too often, Customers, and particularly major prospects — don’t know anyone from our organization — other than our Sales Rep.
That’s a major mistake, whose cost tends to not be recognized — until it’s too late.
Frankly, making the decision to change suppliers — when you’ve only met one person from a prospective supplier — has to represent a nearly impossible challenge. And when the Buyer has three comparable suppliers, but of those three — has met “the management team” — from only one of the three suppliers, well — who to buy from becomes almost a “no brainer”.
Add to that challenge, with downsizing of Customer organizations, that decisions of major awards — and changes in suppliers — tend to require “The Committee’s” (a.k.a. senior management’s) involvement.
Supporting this invisible wall challenge, Sales Reps tend to NOT be required to add target prospects’ senior management’s names — and email addresses — to their organization’s self-promotion databases.
Finally, whenever I start asking a client’s management team, “How many Sales Calls have you been on, and how many Customers have you met, outside these walls — in the last six months?” The response tends to sound something like, “I’ve never been asked to go on a Sales Call.”
Who Could — and Should — Go On Joint Sales Calls — With Sales Reps:
- Your President: As an anecdotal observation, I find that President’s are more Customer sensitive, and supportive of Customer issues — the more time they are in front of Customers — at Customers’ locations.
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