Stop Reaching For The Low-Hanging Fruit
Stop Reaching For The Low-Hanging Fruit
Low-hanging fruit is often not as good as it appears. It looks plump and delicious, but after one bite of the fruit, you’re spitting out worms. In a sales scenario, that’s the equivalent to making a sale to someone that you later wish you never did. Most salespeople are too interested in making the quick sale that they don’t slow down to fully assess the potential client and the situation on the front end of closing the deal. This can easily result in one of two scenarios.
The first scenario is that you and the client never fully engage. Because you short-changed the sales process and failed to understand what was important to the client and why, you don’t have much of a relationship. While you can always try to build a stronger relationship after the sale, and you should; you may find that it’s too little too late. The client may not be interested, you or the client may be too busy or you may find that you really don’t have a lot in common.
The second scenario is even harder to overcome. After you start working with the client, you discover that your solution is not a good fit for what is needed. Or you find out that your client is the type of client that is never satisfied. This realization usually comes about when your new client calls to complain, which may be an ongoing and regular occurrence.
In fact, if you have clients that are thorns in your side, you can often track their origin back to your failure to fully assess the client on the front-end. You got excited about closing the deal and you short-changed the sales process. You didn’t ask all the questions you should or you dismissed the red flags you noticed and hoped they would go away.
The problem with these ill-fitting clients is that they demand your time and keep you from focusing on those clients and prospects that are the right fit for you. And because they are not thrilled with your products or services, they will never send you referrals or give you positive word-of-mouth advertising. In fact, it’s more likely that they’ll make damaging and derogatory comments if they bother to talk about you at all.
Stop Reaching For The LowHanging Fruit - To learn more about this author, visit Will Turner's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Free Download - Handling "I'm Not Interested." By Will Turner |
Easy sales don’t necessarily make good sales. Many businesses and salespeople are guilty of going after low-hanging fruit. It’s those sales opportunities that are ripe for the picking with little effort. Isn’t that what we all want? Before you succumb to your temptation and start plucking away, make sure you don’t end up with a bitter after-taste.
Low-hanging fruit is often not as good as it appears. It looks plump and delicious, but after one bite of the fruit, you’re spitting out worms. In a sales scenario, that’s the equivalent to making a sale to someone that you later wish you never did. Most salespeople are too interested in making the quick sale that they don’t slow down to fully assess the potential client and the situation on the front end of closing the deal. This can easily result in one of two scenarios.
The first scenario is that you and the client never fully engage. Because you short-changed the sales process and failed to understand what was important to the client and why, you don’t have much of a relationship. While you can always try to build a stronger relationship after the sale, and you should; you may find that it’s too little too late. The client may not be interested, you or the client may be too busy or you may find that you really don’t have a lot in common.
The second scenario is even harder to overcome. After you start working with the client, you discover that your solution is not a good fit for what is needed. Or you find out that your client is the type of client that is never satisfied. This realization usually comes about when your new client calls to complain, which may be an ongoing and regular occurrence.
In fact, if you have clients that are thorns in your side, you can often track their origin back to your failure to fully assess the client on the front-end. You got excited about closing the deal and you short-changed the sales process. You didn’t ask all the questions you should or you dismissed the red flags you noticed and hoped they would go away.
The problem with these ill-fitting clients is that they demand your time and keep you from focusing on those clients and prospects that are the right fit for you. And because they are not thrilled with your products or services, they will never send you referrals or give you positive word-of-mouth advertising. In fact, it’s more likely that they’ll make damaging and derogatory comments if they bother to talk about you at all.
Stop Reaching For The LowHanging Fruit - To learn more about this author, visit Will Turner's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Will's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 Host Beneficiary Find It. Use It. Instant Yellow Pages Boomers & Zoomers A Clean Desk |
|
 | ||
 |
Choose A PR Topic
Press Release Builder | |
 |
Write The PR
Press Release Builder | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
