Pleasantly persistent : virtue of a salesperson

Pleasantly persistent, this is a term I came across in a sales blog and I loved it. I guess that is one of the key qualities of a successful professional sales person. Research proves that most of the salespeople don’t try beyond 2-3 times and then give up, I guess that’s the reason that only 40% of the sales reps in the enterprise sales world meet / exceed their sales quota.

If you are in sales you have to be persistent, but be persistent with the right prospects. Pushing your prospect is not going to make her / him buy from you if they don’t have the need or wouldn’t have the need in the near future?

As important a process it is for a salesperson for moving the suspects into prospect stage, it’s even more important to qualify them out of your sales funnel. But once you are sure that the prospect is qualified and at least meets 50% of the qualification criteria set by your company, you have to make all attempts to move the deal across the finish line.

However, in this process there is a tendency for the salesperson to become overly aggressive and spoil the party; pressure from your sales VP is understandable but you need to set expectations with your manager. You have to be polite yet be persistent with your prospect.

You have to understand the buyer persona and then create your attack plan. If the prospect doesn’t like to be disturbed on a regular basis and likes to work on her own pace, find non obtrusive ways of reaching out to her. Send her tweets which are informative and could be helpful in her professional day job.

At Simplimetric which is a sales consulting and outsourcing company we strictly follow, what is the 4-1-1 formula.

• 4 = number of times you are educating the prospect, telling them more about the latent or active pains which exist in their organization
• 1 = one time telling them about your solution which can solve the problem
• 1 = last time asking for the business, you have earned your right to do so now

By following this time tested formula, you are positioning yourself as a trusted advisor for the prospect. Post this when you send her, 4 follow-up emails, 5 tweets and landing up on events where the prospect is an invitee or speaker; the chances of the prospect getting upset is far lower. Infact she may give you an audience for the long awaited meeting which you have been trying to showcase your solution or at least give you a clear picture when is the deal likely to come in or not.

I guess we need to get out of the mode of “checking in”, whereby you not adding any value to the prospect except for asking the standard status of the proposal. Let’s make sure that we take the vow of becoming salespersons with whom the customers become lifetime friends and not a onetime transaction.

The author runs a sales consulting and outsourcing firm called Simplimetric Consulting. More details on his website www.simplimetric.in. You can reach him at [email protected]