We all have heard that in order to effectively sell in today’s intensely over competitive world, you (and your sales reps) must be persistent.
The sad reality is very few businesses I have worked with (out of thousands) do this very well. Yet statistics show that the majority of sales happen after the 7th contact.
A real-world illustration from a vet turned salesman to build a $40M company
A client of mine, Joe Jurgielewicz and Sons, is the 2nd largest provider of ducks for food services in America (www.tastyduck.com). Dr. Joe Jurgielewicz is a veterinarian that started with nothing in upstate Pennsylvania. He built his business the old fashion way, through personal selling and personal persistence. And even today, as the CEO, he still hits the road, checks on customers, builds lifetime relationships and yes, refuses to lose a sale.
This incredible company is an illustration of the Ultimate Customer Service (they lose less than 1% of their customers a year in a fiercely competitive market that has historically used “price” as the buying criteria).
The Story of Persistence
As an example of persistence, Dr. Joe, as his clients call him, had decided to aggressively pursue the hospitality market with a focus on larger volume sales restaurant operations.
After over 20 attempts, via pop in visits, emails and calls, Dr. Joe finally got the opportunity to make a proposal to provide his high quality ducks to this major prospective client. He was told that he had the business but no order came. So he contacted the company (again this required multiple attempts) to finally learn that a competitor had under bid him by 10%.
This prospect’s chefs had indicated “quality” was the primary buying criteria but the management quickly bit on price and Joe Jurgielewicz and Sons were told they lost the bid.
Okay, so 99.9% of entrepreneurs and their sales reps would have called it a done deal. But not Dr. Joe.
He persisted several times to try to contact the chefs that were so impressed with the quality, taste and texture of Joe Jurgielewicz and Sons ducks. But no response.
So Dr. Joe went to their hotel restaurant location, bought duck off their menu, took it into the parking lot and did a taste test vs his duck (now that’s a tailgate party).
As he is doing the taste test ,the two chefs, dressed in their white chef uniforms, pulled up in the parking lot!
Dr. Joe met them in the lobby and invited them out to his truck for their own taste test…is that great or what.
They immediately agreed that his duck was vastly superior and to switch their business to Joe Jurgielewicz and Sons!
Marketing is a powerful thing, but there is no replacement for good old fashion face to face selling, coupled with the Power of Persistence.
If you are a member of the www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com you have free full access to the complete workshop on The Power of Persistence, part of the Sequential Marketing Series. In addition, you will find over 40 real world business growth training sessions on Marketing-Sales-Management-Profits and more.
To access the Power of Persistence, simply go to http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/members/150.cfm
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