{"id":431,"date":"2011-08-19T11:11:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T11:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matriximpact.com\/fsf\/?p=431"},"modified":"2015-06-16T08:40:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T12:40:58","slug":"relationships-slips-and-dips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/2011\/08\/19\/relationships-slips-and-dips\/","title":{"rendered":"Relationships, Slips and Dips"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was at a customer\u2019s last week starting to dig into the Strategy Module for a S.I.T. Blitz<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> we will be conducting the 2nd week in September. Working with the salespeople, we always go through a series of questions to understand their perception of the suspect\/prospect\/customer (SPC) dynamic which is so crucial when planning for a successful S.I.T. Blitz<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

One of the key factors is knowing their standard for SPC communication in terms of frequency. During the course of questions one salesperson chimed in and said \u201cI keep in touch with my suspects and prospects 2x a year, any more than that and I think it would appear pushy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well after the black cloud and threat of lighting inside the building passed I asked him how often does he talk to his best friend? He said probably 2 times a week. Then I asked how often did he call his wife when they were dating? He said minimum 4 times a week. Then I asked him if he considered his relationships with his contacts as solid and he said yes, emphatically, I might add.<\/p>\n

So I think you know where I was going with this line of questioning. My final question to him was how many times has he called one of his contacts only to find out that his contact person wasn\u2019t there or there had been a drastic change in the company. His answer \u201cJohn, more times than I can count,\u201d and therein lies the \u2018problemo\u2019 my sales friend.<\/p>\n

Believe it or not this happens to me about once a month; a salesperson who understands staying in touch with friends or girlfriends, but doesn\u2019t have a clue what it takes to maintain a successful business relationship. Strangely enough, these same sales people will argue, \u2018till blue in the face, they have a good feel for their customers.<\/p>\n

I call the first level of this problem\u00a0Relation-Slip <\/strong>behavior. The sales person \u201cthinks\u201d they know how to stay in touch with a contact. The problem is what they \u201cthinks\u201d has nothing to do with the facts, needs and wants of the suspect\/prospect\/customer so what winds up happening is a deepening chasm develops between sales and contact with sales being quite oblivious to it. There is a ALWAYS correlation with a drop in sales but the sales person is stuck scratching their head and wondering why this is happening to him.<\/p>\n

The next level DOWN is Relation-Dip <\/strong>behavior. The sales person here doesn\u2019t have a clue how to stay in touch with their contacts. They will never admit they have a problem, so they go the other direction and MINIMIZE contact to the point of neglect. You see, in their mind, by not \u201cbugging them\u201d they are maintaining a good relationship. These sales people are so afraid of experiencing the UGH Factor <\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>that they will stay away from the suspect\/prospect\/customer. My question is \u201cIf you stay away for long periods of time how will you know when they have become a ripe prospect?\u201d Insert collective silence or righteous indignation \u2018here. Then you add the precipitous drop in sales and you have yourself a major issue.<\/p>\n

Like any problem in sales early recognition is key. If you are a sales manager WAKEUP<\/strong><\/span>! You should be tracking not just their sales production but their lead generation activities. Either one should give you enough of an alert to intervene before the behavior jeopardizes their career and your quota attainment.<\/p>\n

If you are a sales person WAKEUP<\/span><\/strong>! Your sales are down! Either you don\u2019t spend enough time staying in touch with your customers or you are doing the absolute WRONG things. You have to be self aware enough to say \u201cI have to change what I am doing or this sucker is going down!\u201d<\/p>\n

All righty then\u2026. that\u2019s it for today! Next post I will be talking about the solution to Relation-Slips and Dips and the changing nature of the sales contact process.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Until then remember \u201cYou can either make sales or you can make excuses but you can\u2019t do both\u2026\u201d I\u2019m outta here! \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you want more information about the S.I.T. Blitz and how you can have a “revenue raining, climate change” experience at your please call Matrix at 216 347 6729 or go to buildyoursalesmachine.com <\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>for more details!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was at a customer\u2019s last week starting to dig into the Strategy Module for a S.I.T. Blitz we will be conducting the 2nd week in September. Working with the salespeople, we always go through a series of questions to understand their perception of the suspect\/prospect\/customer (SPC) dynamic which is so crucial when planning for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17,25,29,56,55,27,44,54,40,45,46,51,47,48,52,18,38,59,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-players","category-best-practice","category-communication-skills","category-continual-development","category-customer","category-hiring-dashboard","category-lead-generation","category-leads","category-motivation","category-new-contact-touches","category-prospects","category-s-i-t-blitz","category-s-i-t-nurture-prospecting-system","category-sit-touch","category-sales-blitz","category-sales-superstars","category-simulations","category-suspectprospect-customer-dynamic","category-suspects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}