In person meetings

One of the best ways to solidify your relationship with a client is in a face to face meeting.

I am going to castigate you a bit for holding the perspective of NOT spending too much time with low-end clients.

True story,

A few years ago while I was still selling for another company in the insurance restoration industry a large storm had hit Omaha Nebraska.

The first thing every salesmen did was scope out the Upper class homes and begin selling, I was no different.

One day a lead called into the office that was from the "Lower-end" side of town and no one wanted to run the lead. Of course no one wanted to spend time with a client that makes them 5-10 ten times less because no matter the clients economic status we still had to do the same things for them. The time spent was the same if the claim was 4k or 50k, but of course the commissions were much different.

Anyways, the lead sat in the office for three weeks! Finely one of the young men I had trained into the business a few years earlier got tired of hearing the boss bitch that no one was running the lead, so he took it.

He met with the home owner and for sure it was a piddly ass insurance claim. However, he treated the owner just the same as he would treat the guy with a million dollar home who had a $50k insurance claim.

The next day my buddy got a call from the home owner and he met him at a local diner. While sitting down the owner said, I have good news and better news. Which do you want to hear first.

My buddy said, give me the good news first.

The good news is, I am hiring you to do my job. The better news is that I am the maintenance manger for Boys Town. You got that job too!

Boys Town turned out to be a multimillion dollar insurance claim and the commission on it equaled to about two years worth of work.

A little extra fun:
After my buddy met with the board at Boys Town and got the contract signed he went into the office and in front of every one challenged the owner in an offer the owner could not refuse.

He asked the owner if he could get a brand new truck as a bonus if he could seal the deal with Boys Town. Of course the owner agreed in front of "EVERY ONE". Well we know what happened next, my buddy was driving a brand new crew cab ford truck the next day! Epic!

Moral of the story?

Treat all clients the same. Never judge a client by their economic status or the size of their business, you "NEVER" know who they are or who they might know.

At first, yes. The first contact with our clients is almost always through cold calling, because we don't want to waste our time finding out who the decision makers are. And in our market, several decision makers usually need to be present all together or else the deals get delayed or scuttled. After that, everything is on autopilot.

Which represents 2 different markets as in "If use walk in appointment setters then a person who likes to shake hands is my market, but if only do phone sales then a person that requires handshaking is CLICK. Not my market".

There's a market for everyone.

It can certainly be more efficient to do things over phone/email.

There are also services like GoToMeeting that can help. Over the past few years A LOT of the sales I've made have been over phone/email/GTM.

I used to work with a company that closed $100k+ contracts over phone/GTM. They'd only do in-person visits on the REALLY big deals.

I agree. You also might be completely wrong about how much they have or are willing to spend.

Years ago I had a client who had always lived at the poverty line and still wasn't doing much better. However, he had just received an inheritance from a distant uncle and decided to spend it on coaching so he would have a good income from his business.

I have also seen clients who were bankrolled by boyfriends or lottery winnings.

In all these cases, their lifestyle was completely incongruent with what they were able to spend.

Marcia Yudkin

I firmly believe if you take the time to meet with business owners in person you will not only get bigger checks but you will quickly learn that your close rates are higher.

However,

If your not a polished salesmen it will be a little rough at the start, this is a good thing if you keep at it. You will become sharp like a razor and when you get to that point your prospect stands no chance!