Successful Sales Calls V Embroidery Project

The selling process doesn’t end with the meeting. You must always remember to follow-up. In some cases, you won’t leave with an order in-hand, but rather an open door to pursue the customer further. Don’t let the opportunity slip away. Be sure to check back within a reasonable amount of time with additional information and/or products.

A good way to do this without aggravating the customer is to ask their permission for a follow-up call. Don’t make it open-ended with a question like “How about if I give you a call in a couple of weeks” or even worse “Just give me a call when you are ready”. Instead, confirm a specific date and time to make the call. “I’ll give you a call, next Thursday at 1:00pm to follow-up on our meeting today.” If the customer agrees to this, then he certainly can’t be irritated when you make the call. In addition, by you making the call when stated, you are demonstrating your reliability and dependability to the customer. With this approach you are keeping some pressure on the customer, but in a polite and professional manner. Sales is always a balance between pressure and grace.

In the event that you do get the order, you will still want to check back periodically in hopes of continuing the relationship on a long-term basis. It’s surprising how many customers won’t take the time to call you back for a reorder. Instead they are waiting for you to contact them.

For example, we had a sales rep make a first sale with an oceanfront resort. He sold them several dozen “name-drop” souvenir t-shirts for their gift shop, just in time for the start of their season. (Their normal season was Easter to Labor Day.) The sales rep never followed up with the customer (he was a busy guy) until late in the summer, when he happened to be in the area and it dawned on him that the beach resort customer had never placed a second order. He was concerned that something was wrong, so he promptly went in to speak with the manager. The manager quickly responded that she didn’t have any issues at all with the order and in fact, those shirts had sold out in a week. The sales rep was astonished that they had never re-ordered. The manager’s response was “Well, we just stay so busy around here, I figured you would show back up and we would place another order.”

Always take the lead. Don’t depend on the customer to call you.