How many sales opportunities do you miss without knowing you missed them?
photo by creative soul/dpc
Matt Sunshine of the Center for Sales Strategy recently wrote about a salesperson whose email signature cost her the chance at an RFP:
It was a short turnaround situation, the client told her, and when the client looked for Debbie’s phone number in a recent email, it wasn’t there. She was in a hurry, and rather than look it up, the client just moved on to someone else.
To protect your interests, Sunshine recommends making sure your email signature contains “these five pieces of information:
- Your Name
- Your Title or Personal Brand Statement
- Your Company
- Your Phone Number
- Your Email Address
I will add one thing to his list: make sure the information is text rather than an image.
Many people now use software to scrape contact data from an email directly into their contact file — that software won’t find that data in an image. Rather than typing it in by hand, some buyers won’t bother — which means your phone number and email address won’t be in their smartphones.
Given a choice between looking your number up manually and just pressing your competitor’s name with her thumb, what’s your client going to do? Unless she really has to talk to you, she’ll do whatever’s easiest.
Is Your Voice Mail Greeting Chasing Business Away?
Have you ever called someone’s cell phone and gotten this greeting?
You’ve reached five… oh… three… eight… one… nine… eight… oh… three… three. The person you are calling is not available. Please leave a message after the tone.”
Did you wonder if you had the right number?
If your clients don’t know if they’ve reached you or just some random cell phone, they may not leave a message — it’s easier, and feels safer, to just call the next name on the vendor list.
Take a few minutes to set their mind at ease: record a personal greeting with your own voice. Just give your name and ask callers to leave a message.
And if your voice mailbox is full — or if your wondering if it might be getting full — clean it out.
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Being available for clients is really important. This is good information.
Thanks, Ken. For better or worse, we’ve been trained by Amazon to expect easy instant access. Anything that slows the process or makes it harder will send clients to the competition.