Whether we like it or not email is with us to stay, and it’s made a significant difference to how most of us run both our businesses and our working lives.
In a sales capacity it’s an incredibly useful tool that enables us to generate leads in a relatively low-cost way and allows us to keep in regular contact with a larger audience than many of us can manage using traditional methods.
From a tactical sales perspective, however, there are in my opinion, some times when I consider it only as a last resort. One of those times is when following up proposals and quotations – let me explain:
Email is generally considered to be a ‘one way’ communication tool – meaning that you send something and wait for the recipient to respond at a time that is convenient to them. By definition, this means that you are not interacting and therefore not overcoming objections, progressing the sale or negotiating.
On the subject of progressing the sale I would even go so far as suggesting that you are actually prolonging the sale by nature of having to wait for a response – this in turn can also dilute your proposition.
So the next time you’re sat reviewing your sales pipeline and one of your sales people tells you he’s emailed them to follow up a proposal, simply ask them to step forward, hit them with a blunt object and tell them not to do it again (joke!)
The methods for following up proposals should always be interactive, ideally face to face or alternatively over the phone. Never online.
