Page 152 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

the actual sale. If you are not continuously proactive, sales will run out. It’s hard to pick things up when there is no work in the sales pipe. Then you are in catch-up panic mode to get out and make sales. You have to start the whole sales cycle again.
Lastly, it’s ‘Jonny on the spot’. If you are not in your customers’ faces, someone else will be. They will be trying to take that work off you. Remember: ‘Life is a passing parade’. We have to be there when the customer is ready to buy. Never assume when they are ready to buy; they will buy when they are ready. That is why, as a sales person, you have to be in their face. I have seen it time and time again in my businesses where random sales calls at the opportune time has taken the business away from the incumbent. In one case, we had been buying quite a bit from a particular company and we hadn’t seen one of their sales reps in five years. When they lost the business from us through a ‘Jonny on the spot’ cold call by a sales rep, they didn’t even try and win it back!
Paulism: More sales? Throw those boomerangs out there. Be patient and persevere and just throw them out. Get in your customers’ faces and they will come back to you one day. It’s simple: sales calls make sales.
5.8 Targeting for opportunities – Birds of a feather flock together