Face time is more than just an app when you’re in sales

The reality of sales is that you cannot wait for a customer to contact you. We need to make the phone ring. Good things happen when we put ourselves in front of a customer.

By way of example, Greg Sanford is a district manager for the Urology SBU in Atlantic Canada. Having finally gotten on a GPO (group purchasing organization) contract, Greg sought the opportunity to show Cook Medical products in a hospital that had been a long-time user of competitor products. Unfortunately, we found out that they had renewed with their current vendor without even giving us a chance. It would have been easy for Greg to write off this customer as a waste of his time. Instead, he said to himself, “We have a lot of unique products that can help their patients, and I am going to make sure that the doctors are made aware of what they are missing.”

He did just that, meeting with the surgeons to show our Cook exclusives. A fan of the old detective show “Columbo,” Greg would detail a product, thank the physicians for their time, and leave. On his way out, he would pause and say, “One more thing, may I ask what you use for…?” Each time, it demonstrated that Cook Medical had solutions to their problems. In the process, the physicians revealed that they were never consulted about the contract and, in fact, the person that signed off on it no longer worked there.

A door that once was closed, was now open because Greg decided to knock.

Interestingly, the competitor rep had never been visible in this account even though he had the business. If he is waiting for a call from this customer, he has a long wait coming.