Sometimes It's Better to Sack the Customer
Good Salespeople do Their Homework to Qualify Potential Customers ... but the best indicator of future behaviour is sometimes right in front of us.
Anyone who’s been in a sales / business development role for more than about five minutes has had it happen. That key contact that you’ve worked your tail off to get a meeting with has to cancel at the last minute. Sometimes it happens more than once.
But, hey – that’s business. These folks have companies to run and stuff happens. They usually re-appoint and make up for it. Times were when I even used to think … well, they owe me one, so I’ll get a better hearing next time as a result. Or not.
I’m starting to doubt the veracity of that philosophy. More to the point, it has caused me to stop and correct myself as well.
It’s increasingly prevalent for a couple of things to happen regularly in modern business interactions:
1. The repeated no-show; and,
2. The serial brick wall.
The no-show is fairly simple – an appointment has been agreed over the phone, an invitation sent and accepted via email / Outlook. On the day of the meeting, a last-minute re-scheduling phone call comes, almost always from an assistant on behalf of the targeted executive. In the worst case, advice of the non-meeting occurs when you arrive in Reception and ask for the contact to be greeted by and awkward … "Oh .. he’s not in, let me check with his assistant …”. And this isn't the first time.
Of course, you're gracious ... you smile ... say it's no trouble. You know the drill. You can come back another time.
The brick wall is a bit more blunt. Having got past the receptionist the call is directed to the target executive’s assistant, who dutifully filters and advises that the boss is in a meeting/on a call/out of the office. Would you care to leave a message? And so, you do. Again.
It's never returned, despite multiple approaches, referrals from others and even warm leads based on meetings at functions/seminars and the like. Even more galling is when you subsequently see that the individual has checked you LinkedIn profile, minutes after the call. More than once.
There are days when I’ve gotten really bent out of shape at these tactics. Knock-backs are part of the sales environment and one learns to roll with them. We develop a thick skin. But sometimes, they just seem to be more personal.
We’ve all been there, right?
So many BD professionals feel like they are in the “mendicant” position in a business relationship. That is: the client is doing them a favour even speaking to them. And, to be fair not every person that contacts a potential client is going to bring great value to the conversation or potential relationship.
But let’s face it – you wouldn’t do what you do if you didn’t truly believe in its value and potential benefit to clients. Those that behave in the manner above have made value judgements of their own and acted on them – sometimes without any evidence to support their decisions.
Let's call this out for what it is. It’s not being efficient, or hard-nosed. It’s rude, ungracious and redolent of an arrogance that is not needed in a professional environment. But, that’s their call.
There’s another way to see this. Any BD professional will tell you that some prospects are not worth pursuing. Usually we qualify leads based on potential spend, previous use of services like our own, the state of their business or project etc. The behaviour sets described above simply provide another layer of prospect qualification.
At the end of the day, we should always be looking for clients to whom we can add value in real terms. Only in those circumstances will the relationship flourish and survive beyond a simple transactional engagement.
The disrespect that these kinds of episodes imply has become more common in my view – and that’s not a good thing. One is tempted to say its societal and not isolated.
But if one accepts that it is beyond your ability to change, then it follows that the best approach is to simply walk away. After all, is a client that would repeatedly cancel meetings without apology, or not return calls, no matter what, someone you want to do or continue to do business with?
Real value flows from respectful relationships.
There are plenty of fish in the sea (though it sometimes doesn’t seem that way), and energy spent in pursuing mutually respectful, professional engagement with clients inevitably results in better outcomes for all parties.