Badgering into buying doesn’t build business
Among the bad sales approaches peddled out there is a set of activities based on the idea that if you keep at certain prospects often and long enough, you’ll eventually succeed. But mostly, you can’t badger desirable clients into buying, and it’s definitely not the best way to build business.
If prospective clients aren’t in touch, it’s probably because you’re not on their radar or they have higher priorities than you and what you want to sell them.
Forcing yourself on prospective clients, continually calling or emailing to see whether they’ve made a decision yet, isn’t the way.
Meeting someone at an event and exchanging cards or responding to an enquiry doesn’t constitute an invitation to constantly call, repeatedly follow up asking for business, or become a nuisance or irritation.
You’re not badgering if you are following up at the invitation of the prospective client – once or twice – armed with something useful and interesting for them. But constantly sending unsolicited helpful information can amount to badgering.
Instead, give prospective clients a small taste of the reality of working with you and what they can look forward to once they become your client.
There may be a tiny handful of prospective clients you can annoy into saying “yes”. However, that’s a miniscule cohort compared with those you’ll turn off by constant unsolicited follow-up (which they regard as somewhere along the continuum ranging from mild irritation to downright harassment).
Badgering is a really terrible idea which can become a bad habit for some naïve business developers. And it doesn’t make smart people buy, and it won’t build your business.
If it’s time for some break-through thinking about business development, we can help.
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