As technology advances and people get busier, its no surprise that business people these days rely much more on email as a form of communication. When dealing with email, however, there are specific do’s and don’t you must follow. Think of it as email etiquette. Not only will this help you more effectively use email it will also help you with your sales too, because of the methods Bill explains for selling your product/service through an informal email.
Sales Training Q&A #15: How to Effectively Use Email in Sales from Joe Kelner on Vimeo.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent advice. I caution sales people to be on guard to not rely on email in place of a phone call. It’s better to handle an objection over the phone and not through email.
Bill.
Here’s a constructive scenario I’m sure is all too frequent with untrained sales people. It leads up to an email “don’t.”
On a phone call the prospect shows interest and asks the salesperson to send over the info drop in email. They agree to speak again in “a week or so” and then the prospect mysteriously vanishes for several weeks. Then, the salesperson gets lucky on his fifty seventh call attempt and asks the prospect, “did you get the information I sent? What did you think?” And…silence…he didn’t think anything because in all likelihood, it’s an unopened email nearly at the bottom of his inbox. When they ask for information, DON’T send it and agree to get back in touch. Have it ready to send at any time. If the prospect asks for information, have it in their in-box whilst still on the phone with him! Tell him it’s time sensitive, just like their problem, and ask them to open and read it with you right then and there. If they’re not willing to, then it’s pretty safe to assume that their pain isn’t substantial enough to warrant solving it. If they’re not interested in solving it, then you’re not on the phone with a prospect. You’re on the phone with a nice person who took your call. Big Difference.
Thanks for dropping a note. Much better.
Wow, Todd. You got it. The issue here I agree about the significance of their pain. People who want you to ’send them something’ are rarely prospects. Unless they’re asking you to send them a recommendation of how you’ll fix the problem they just told you they have.