I'm writing this and I have no clue what the name of this blog will be. I'm sure it will come to be as I can continue to tell today's short story.
Suspect/Prospect
I have a prospect for both wide format and color A3s that I've been tracking off and on for some years. What's unique and sticks in my mind is that their fiscal year starts in October. Right, this is September and it's time to **** or get off the pot.
I should be calling this account a suspect and not a prospect because I haven't submitted a proposal. I'll call them a prospect when they committed to me that they are in the market for my services. The suspect in question has an ten year old A3 color and an ten year old wide format. I inherited this account about five years ago and it was about three years ago when I was able to put a pre-owned A3 color in one of the offices.
Follow ups
Dropping back to the fiscal start of the new year. I've been on top of this with at least one call and one email for the last five months because this client told me that they need to do something with the one office. In addition they only have funds available with the new year. However the last five months have been nothing but crickets......, no return emails, not return calls, just a big fat nothing.
Today, I got tired of the nice emails and phone calls. I mean this account/suspect is the one who told me to that something needs to happen. I thought about sending a stern email (like stop jerking my chain) because this is not the first time the DM has ignored my efforts to help.
Today's Touch
Today's email was short and sweet.
"Did I do something wrong?"
I know there's a couple of emails that will raise the bar to get a response. One of them is the one I used and the other, "is everything okay?"
Wouldn't you know it, not more than 5 minutes passed and I had an email from that suspect. Our suspect told me about another device that was needed for another office which I was okay with, however what about the two machines that are ten years old? I did not bring up the point that two devices were needed in October and I addressed the current need for the one device.
Tomorrow I'll send an email asking for a chat to talk about my two options (always good to give options). Once I've given the specs on the options I'll lead into the two devices that should be replaced in October.
Tomorrows Thoughts
If after many emails and phone calls and you've got nothing. You need to pull out the phone call or the email that asks these two simple questions and one email change.
1. Did I do something wrong?
2. Is everything okay?
3. Start a new email chain and use the subject line of "Sorry I Missed You". Of course make sure you call them one more time because odds are you'll get voice mail again and if you don't then you've done your job well.
-=Good Selling=-
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