Ruthless
Seats taken
What do you find to be the best approach to making contact with potential new clients? Both as far as getting a response and actually making a sale.
When I first went independent I had like a 90% sale rate on showing up in person no appointment with a handshake a clean outfit and a good idea of what I was doing. I was at that time approachi n rather small businesses (10-20 employees, ship 150-200 loads a year altogether).
I initially had really great success with phone sales (I couldn’t believe it!) but that petered our quickly.
I have used generic emails from companies I find on the internet to solicit, none of which have garnered a long term relationship, just a few meetings that went nowhere and a couple one of moves.
For myself and my operation, I feel that in person is the best, at the customers location. That gives me the opportunity to see the way they operate, and judge if it’s something I even want to be involved in. However, lots of places aren’t interested in suddenly pausing their day to give a salesman a walk thru and listen to a sales pitch.
I’m interested to hear what have you all found to be the best approach to meeting new customers, and what all you do to close a deal you feel is a good one.
I haven’t had my coffee yet, so I’ll say that there’s a few things I can offer that bring service to the front of the line for my customers; and therefore if they just want a low price I’m not likely to want them anyway. Seems easy to tell those people from people that appreciate it pretty quick, even if they don’t say it upfront or even when they do say all they want is price. ( I actually had one of my larger customers tell me that upfront when I first met them: turns out they always had such shitty service they didn’t know that anyone could do better and therefore weren’t initially concerned with poor performance from trucks.)
When I first went independent I had like a 90% sale rate on showing up in person no appointment with a handshake a clean outfit and a good idea of what I was doing. I was at that time approachi n rather small businesses (10-20 employees, ship 150-200 loads a year altogether).
I initially had really great success with phone sales (I couldn’t believe it!) but that petered our quickly.
I have used generic emails from companies I find on the internet to solicit, none of which have garnered a long term relationship, just a few meetings that went nowhere and a couple one of moves.
For myself and my operation, I feel that in person is the best, at the customers location. That gives me the opportunity to see the way they operate, and judge if it’s something I even want to be involved in. However, lots of places aren’t interested in suddenly pausing their day to give a salesman a walk thru and listen to a sales pitch.
I’m interested to hear what have you all found to be the best approach to meeting new customers, and what all you do to close a deal you feel is a good one.
I haven’t had my coffee yet, so I’ll say that there’s a few things I can offer that bring service to the front of the line for my customers; and therefore if they just want a low price I’m not likely to want them anyway. Seems easy to tell those people from people that appreciate it pretty quick, even if they don’t say it upfront or even when they do say all they want is price. ( I actually had one of my larger customers tell me that upfront when I first met them: turns out they always had such shitty service they didn’t know that anyone could do better and therefore weren’t initially concerned with poor performance from trucks.)