What
if
you
could
make
a
sales
call
on
a
customer,
with
no
expense
of
either
time
or
money?
One of the worst surprises to most sales people is when they discover that a customer has bought something they sell from someone else. This happens a lot more often than you'd think.
I've never quite understood the reason, but customers have a way of "boxing" their perception of your company around the initial products or services they bought from you. I think it's part of the general human tendency to want to remember things in the simplest of terms.
Overcoming this "box" the customers have drawn around you isn't easy. It requires not only reminding them of who you are, but also what else you do besides what they remember you once did for them. In that respect, they're almost like a new prospect that doesn't know you at all -- perhaps worse, since they already have a notion of what you do and, by exclusion, what they think you probably DON'T do.
So, you need a way to regularly remind customers of your full line of products and services. One member of Chief Executive Boards International suggested that you build into your automatic Email signature a short "commercial". Perhaps bulletizing your range of products and services or promoting something specific every month, rotating the email signature block message on a regular basis.
Not bad -- you'll be emailing customers and prospects anyway, why not let a bit of promotional material go along with it, including a hyperlink to that product or service on your web page? You could go as far as to institutionalize this, perhaps "rotating" that message across everyone in your company who emails customers or prospects. With a little practice, this could become second nature (of course, it has to be someone's job to get it done).
One of the worst surprises to most sales people is when they discover that a customer has bought something they sell from someone else. This happens a lot more often than you'd think.
I've never quite understood the reason, but customers have a way of "boxing" their perception of your company around the initial products or services they bought from you. I think it's part of the general human tendency to want to remember things in the simplest of terms.
Overcoming this "box" the customers have drawn around you isn't easy. It requires not only reminding them of who you are, but also what else you do besides what they remember you once did for them. In that respect, they're almost like a new prospect that doesn't know you at all -- perhaps worse, since they already have a notion of what you do and, by exclusion, what they think you probably DON'T do.
So, you need a way to regularly remind customers of your full line of products and services. One member of Chief Executive Boards International suggested that you build into your automatic Email signature a short "commercial". Perhaps bulletizing your range of products and services or promoting something specific every month, rotating the email signature block message on a regular basis.
Not bad -- you'll be emailing customers and prospects anyway, why not let a bit of promotional material go along with it, including a hyperlink to that product or service on your web page? You could go as far as to institutionalize this, perhaps "rotating" that message across everyone in your company who emails customers or prospects. With a little practice, this could become second nature (of course, it has to be someone's job to get it done).
