Your salespeople have finite capacity, and we should probably assume that they are consistently busy. This means that if we ask them to perform an activity, it will be performed in place of another activity.
If we consider the pool of possible transactions upstream from your organization, this pool can be divided into two categories: “yours to lose” and “yours to win”.
The first category contains those where inertia is acting in your favor. As long as you respond quickly and offer competitive prices, you will convert most of those potential transactions into revenue. Most inbound enquiries fall into this category, particularly if they are from existing customers.
The second category contains those possible transactions where inertia is acting against you (in a competitor’s favor). Unless you invest significant effort, you will not convert these transactions into revenue. You are not even aware of most of them! You know they exist because all your competitors can keep their lights on somehow, but you don’t have details. Obviously, this second category is by far the largest.
Now, your salespeople have two modalities. Diplomacy and Relentless Pursuit. Obviously, these modalities map to the two categories of possible transactions.
Per unit of effort, relentless pursuit has a much greater impact on revenue than diplomacy does.
Salespeople cannot switch back and forth effortlessly between these two modalities. Significant effort is required to switch to the relentless pursuit state. And it’s a fragile state, meaning that if flow is disrupted, they’ll quickly revert to diplomacy.
When we ask a salesperson (or anyone in our organization) to perform quote follow-up, we’re not expecting the relentless pursuit of that possible transaction; we’re simply asking someone to pick up the phone and confirm that the quote was received and that it is fit for purpose.
Diplomacy, in other words.
Diplomacy does not convince customers to purchase from you (except in a small number of edge cases). Customers are selfish creatures; they will purchase when you present a proposal that is in their economic interests and that is clearly superior to competitors’ proposals.
If you want your salespeople to drive revenue (and growth), you need to ensure that they are focused on the relentless pursuit of new business. They need to spend all day, every day, chasing “yours to win” transactions. You need to do everything you can to prevent them from switching to the diplomacy mode of operation.
If you direct them to follow up on all quotations, you will achieve the exact opposite.
So, what I’m saying here, as clearly as I can, is that not all quotes should be followed up.
You should design a process for inbound enquiries that captures customers’ requirements and proposes appropriate and competitively priced solutions with alacrity and without the involvement of salespeople.
Then, you should trust this process!
Now, it does make sense to monitor the flow of enquiries through this process and manually escalate some enquiries to salespeople (post-proposal) for relentless pursuit. But only some of them. Never all of them.
If you are doing a good job of maintaining your salespeople in that relentless pursuit modality, it should be evident that most enquiries should NOT be escalated to salespeople because most folks who already intend to purchase from you will not appreciate their breathless and unrelenting attention!
