Sloppy Selling Sucks

Sloppy selling has always been a personal bug bear of mine. So many sales people think that "sending" the communication is all they have to do.

Newsflash: that's what we call marketing.

The sales process (and there's more than one step) actually involves doing more than sending an email and hoping for the best. That's just sloppy.

Last week I recieved just such an email, from a completely unknown person, at a (sort of) unknown company. It was, you could say, a "cold call" but of an electronic variety. I won't tell you what they wanted to sell, but I am (most definitely) in the market for buying their services. In fact, annually, I spend tens of thousands of pounds every year on the kind of service they offer.

The interesting thing about this email is that the company office is just three doors down the corridor from my office...... heck, I probably already know the sales person to say hello to - albeit from a watercooler (read: kitchen, coffee machine) type moment.

So I replied and said "Why not pop along the corridor and we'll talk."

And I'm still waiting.

Apparently 3 doors is a step too far.

Note to sales people: the objective of your first (introductory) contact, whether by phone or by email, should always be to get permission to move to the next stage. The second stage is your opportunity to sell.

Failing to follow up is just sloppy sales. And it sucks.