5-Minute Selling

CHAPTER 30ASK AND RECEIVE: HOW TO ALWAYS ASK FOR THE BUSINESS

When we ask for the business systematically, we are showing our customers that we are interested in helping them, and we are also systematically doing our customers a terrific favor. We are allowing our customers not to have to think about these products—which they get to buy from us now—again in the future.

Every salesperson knows that asking for the business consistently is extremely helpful to sales success. But few of us do it regularly and consistently.

The reason is always the same: Our fear. We don't want to turn off the customer.

“I don't want to offend-upset-anger-lose them. I've worked so hard to get this customer—what if I ask for the business, and they leave me altogether?”

They've been with you for 5 or 10 or 20 years. Do you think they'll leave you if you ask them when they'd like the order delivered? (That's one example of a pivot to the sale; see a bit later in this chapter for the complete list.)

Do you think they'll go to another supplier if you ask them when you can expect the purchase order? Of course not.

Remember, you serve these people incredibly well, and you're not bothering them when you ask to help them.

Plus, they trust you. They value your opinion. They want your help.

But we don't operate this way, do we? We operate as though we are an annoyance. A bother. A pain.

We are the opposite of those things. The sooner we can understand this and start to behave accordingly, the sooner our ...