I’m almost embarrassed to use this sales tip, however, I keep running into sales people who really think they can make a large B2B sale with just one sales call. If you ever do run into someone who wants to buy a complex product or service on the first visit – well, you better start looking for the problem that is about to hit you in the face. I’ll bet you they can’t find anyone else to sell them anything due to lousy credit or something along those lines.
Here is the real story. When I first started in B2B sales, it would take a minimum of four touches to be successful. As time went on it moved to five touches and then seven became the magic number. Today, the magic number is somewhere around ten touches! So how do you manage making a minimum of ten calls to make one sale? (* point of reference here – we are talking about major sales to large accounts, we are not talking about a small personal item sale.)