More about salespeople and prospects

My post on friday about some recent propects’ blatant contempt for our attempts to contact them was just a reflection of my salespeople’s frustration. But the comments I got brought me back to being a marketer, so thanks.

Alanmed told me its a bad message when our isn’t pricing on our website. Yes, but its also a reflection of reality of our business, as we have agents around the world with different pricing and even different models. Our US model sells for less than our Asian version, but we can’t be cannibalizing the Asian division’s sales.

Peter Davidson followed that up by suggesting “explain in detail why you don’t offer pricing information and offer next steps for prospects,” which is a great idea. In fact, I am missing a whole ‘call-to-action’ mode on our product listings, and this may be a way to do it.

David Shaw responded on his blog with a post titled Salespeople: Shooting ourselves in the foot that ends in this also helpful suggestion: “The trick is to convince prospects that your salespeople will listen and solve problems–not push products.”

In other words, I shouldn’t be just marketing the product, but marketing our way of doing business. Why we don’t have prices listed, that we may have salespeople call, and how we are just here to help. Great stuff for my to-do list. Thanks guys!