5 Sales Basics That Will Make You Better Than 90% of Reps

Good Morning. Forbes just fired its Chief Content Officer after he failed to disclose a $6 million “gift” from the company that helps Forbes rank the country’s top wealth advisors. I love the power of reciprocity in sales, but I think $6 million might be pushing it here. The only gifts I get are Yeti mugs & gift cards. But if you’re looking for a very cool newsletter writer to send a $6M gift to, you know where to find me. Now, let’s get into today’s Follow Up. (:

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A few weeks ago I filled out a contact form on a Monday.

Yep, I was an inbound lead. It felt pretty good to be on the other side of the table.

So I sat back and waited for a sales rep to reach out and sell me.

That time finally came on Wednesday, when I got an email from a rep who wanted to book a call... for the following week.

Meanwhile, there were two days left in this one. So I pushed for something sooner, and he reluctantly agreed to a same-day call.

20 minutes into our call, he told me he'd send over the specific info I'd asked for. A week later, it still hadn't shown up.

Now look… I know I’m not a Fortune 500 company shopping for a $5 million deal. I probably would’ve been treated differently if that were the case. But in this deal, I was a qualified buyer with a budget and a need, ready to buy a solution ASAP.

But none of that matters, because the rep blew it.

Their competitor followed up the same day, got on a call, and sent me the info right away.

Even if the first company had a better product with a better team, I now think of them as unreliable. If buying from them is this painful, I can't imagine how painful it'll be once I'm actually a customer who needs their help.

That's the danger of having a bad sales rep on your team. They can single-handedly wreck a company's reputation and lose deals that should've been easy wins.

The good news is it works in reverse too. A great rep can win you deals you'd otherwise lose, and make your company look incredible even if you're not the market leader.

It all comes down to the basics, the stuff you're probably already doing most weeks.

Just like Michael Jordan never stopped practicing layups, you should never stop practicing the sales basics.

Here’s the five that will set you apart.

Waiting on a sales rep to follow through is a lot like watching your food delivery app say "preparing your order" for 45 minutes straight. You get super excited, but by the time it actually arrives, most of that excitement is gone.

Don't make people wait, especially when they want to give you money.

Push for the first call to happen as soon as possible. Even better if you can call their cell phone right away and introduce yourself.

And this includes weekends.

Just last week, I had a lead come in on a Sunday night. I reached out to him within 15min and got a call booked for Monday afternoon.

He told me on the call that he rarely hears back this fast, and that speed gave him a good feeling about our company.

Execs are on their laptops Sunday night, prepping for the week, and nobody on their team is blowing up their phone yet.

It's likely the least distracted they'll be all week, and the easiest time to get on their schedule.

It’s easy to go quiet when you don’t have any news or updates to share. But it’s a mistake.

A short note that says "still working on it, nothing to act on yet, but still thinking of you" keeps you top of mind and makes you look proactive.

Tell them there's nothing they need to do, and keep them in the loop.

This sounds too obvious to write down. And yet it's the single most common way to lose someone’s trust.

You say you'll send the pricing sheet or an answer to their technical question. Then you don't, or you do it four days late.

And when you finally get around to sending it, you remind them how you said you’d send it right away, but didn’t.

Jason Lemkin wrote about a vendor who sent him two generic, unpersonalized emails for a deal worth over $100,000 a year, right after he told the rep about his very specific situation.

His line on it stuck with me: “the way a vendor treats you before you sign is often the best they'll ever treat you.”

Prospects are people with very specific issues and situations they need help with. You can’t put them into one-size-fits-all buckets.

When they tell you their timeline, budget, or why now, you need to reference those details every chance you get.

It's also the easiest way to prove you were actually listening.

I know, this one fights against work-life balance.

But reps who respond fast to prospects and to their own team are viewed as reliable.

Think about any time you need an answer from a teammate. Without even trying, you probably have a general idea of how long that person is going to take to reply.

Teammates who respond quicker are just better to work with.

If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading. It takes a lot of time to put this together, and I don’t take your attention for granted.

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.