Are You Giving Up Too Soon? | Sales Strategies

I recently spoke with a couple of high-performing salespeople about the various accounts we were managing. And one of them told me that he had been calling a particular customer for ten years before he finally got the break he needed to win their business. During one of his sales calls, he realized that he wasn’t just calling a single shop. In actuality, they had 120 locations.

Was his persistence worth it? Absolutely! However, more importantly, I want you to pay attention to persistence because far too many salespeople give up too early.

Your Not Following-Up Enough

I hear salespeople who have a number of active opportunities in their pipeline. They even got as far as putting pricing in front of the customer. However, if they don’t receive a call back after calling those prospective customers for only two or three times, they give up.

I sat in an office of an inside salesperson and saw he had $2 million in quotes sitting on his desk that he never had followed-up on. If that seller has a 30% closing ratio, that's a lot of money just sitting there in unfollowed-up leads. That is heartbreaking. It almost made me cry.

Persistence doesn’t necessarily mean taking 10 years to get the break that you need in order to close a business. More importantly, persistence entails making more than 4 calls or some kind of follow-up—some form of persistence to close such deals. People aren’t always ignoring you because they don’t have work for you or don’t have a good relationship with you. It could simply be that it’s not the right time.

I guarantee you that when you persist, you will win.