The Boss is Too Busy

I had a call recently from the administrative assistant for the Sr. VP of Sales of a medium size, regional company. She asked for pricing and I said that I needed more information first and the best way to get it was to talk with the VP directly. The Admin was nice but firm and said that they had had two previous bad experiences with sales training and that it was her job to screen the candidates to improve their success rate. (does that make sense to you?) She said I should ask her the questions and she could answer them.

Ok, I said. "What are your annual sales?" She could not tell me. "What increase are you expecting this sales training to give you?" She had no idea. "What skills sets need to be improved in your team for this training to be successful?" She had no idea what I was talking about.

Eventually, she said that it was obvious that a meeting with the VP was needed and that she would arrange it. Bottom line, the VP refused to talk until I quoted prices.

I no-bid the job.

If you can't get to the decision maker, you can't make a winning proposal. Don't let the client's flawed buying process ruin your selling process. Stick to your plan and you will waste less time on fruitless proposals.

Wishing you selling success,

Steve Waterhouse
www.effectivevoicemailmessages.com

Waterhouse Sales Training