It's gonna be a beach day today. So, I'll make this short.
It's been 49 days since I published an article here. 7 weeks. Seems hard to believe that I used to publish 2-3 articles/week, every week, but I just haven't felt that the conversations that I was having were relevant. Huh? Well if you've read many of my articles, you know that a lot of them start with "I was talking with..." or "So and so was telling me..." Do a search on my blog for the word conversation. Google gave me 190 results in less than a second. I've always figured if a somebody's talking about something, somebody else would be interested in hearing about it, but lately my coaching conversations have been on "getting to the decision maker", "finding compelling need", "getting the real or enough budget", "developing urgency" or a whole bunch more basic, Sales 101 obstacles that I (and many others) have written about before. In a few cases, I've re-shared some of those old articles, but it's not the same. However, if you've encountered an obstacle or objection on a sales call recently that kept you from closing the sale or delayed the close, tell me what the objection was and I'll either privately send you an article that I've already written or write a new one.
I will say that a lot of the salespeople that I've been talking to lately haven't been able to get out of their head. I'm reminded of the article that I wrote that asked, Are you listening to yourself?
One guy tells me that he's referred by Michael and Michael's an awesome salesman. So, if Michael's recommending me, that's good enough for him. Then, a few minutes later he asked me if I had any references. Huh? I felt like asking if he had downgraded Michael's reputation while we were talking.
Another guy first popped up on my radar 3/30/2014. He booked a call 2 years later with this as the agenda.
"We have 15 inbound clients on retainer. I've been working at redacted since Oct 2012. We would like to be at 20 inbound retainers (average 4k per month) by December 2015. Also, I would like to clear the air and ensure you don't think I'm a jerk or an idiot."
That call never happened. He eventually booked another call with me, him and his CEO over a year later (6/2015). He and his CEO were so busy posturing and resisting telling the truth that they never changed.
Long story short, the guy and his CEO went separate ways. The guy got another job. Didn't see eye to eye with that CEO and decided to start his own firm. Downloads an evaluation on 5/12 and books a call on 6/1 with this agenda. "I was speaking to redacted about how I’m going out on my own to work for myself as a “marketing consultant”… He said you’ve really helped him along the way and he strongly suggested we set up a time to talk. Thanks Rick."
We did talk. We exchanged emails. He believes that he built his employers companies, then they got greedy. He has two clients and needs 6 to get to equilibrium.
He didn't follow through on his last commitment. I wonder if that's how his prospects treat him.
Better to disqualify than find out after.
Either of these relevant?