“Make a customer not a sale.” Katherine Barchetti
This well-known quote from the Pittsburgh retailer speaks volumes on the importance of professional persistence. Professional persistence in your business development efforts is about creating relationships. This means you build trust with prospects, getting to know them as an individual rather than a faceless opportunity in your pipeline.
Professional persistence takes time. Some sales statistics suggest it takes until at least the fifth call to get a prospect to say yes. And that is after reaching them. It can take up to eight tries to reach a contact1.
Professional persistence pays off because it:
Puts you ahead of the competition
The average sales person makes two attempts to convert a lead2and 92% give up after hearing “no” four times.
Brings in lifetime clients
Prospects who trust you lead to more than a onetime sale. Lifelong clients are better for your business. Retaining customers is up to seven times less expensive than prospecting new customers4.
Translates to higher profit
Leads nurtured through professional persistence generate 47% larger sales2 and a 20% increase in future opportunities5.
Brings in more business
A trusting client is less likely to haggle you on updates or price increases. Also, they’ll be more likely to make referrals. All you have to do is ask – recent stats say over 90% of clients are willing to give referrals, but only 11% of sales reps ask4.
While the payoff of professional persistence is obvious, actually doing it can be a challenge. You need to train and mentor your business development team in the art of being professionally persistent. Statistics show that ongoing training leads to 50% higher net per sales rep4.
Better yet, partner with an organization like NuGrowth, where professional persistence is embedded in the culture of the organization. We hire for it. We train for it. We mentor to it. And we practice it every day. Let us be your “feet on the street” hunting down opportunities, building relationships, and freeing up time for your enterprise reps to focus on closing new business.
Using our established sales as a service model, proprietary territory management system and professionally persistent outreach, NuGrowth Solutions has the people, processes and systems to bring your organization to new heights in customer acquisition. If you are interested in working with a partner you can trust to grow your business, please give us a call at 800-966-3051 or fill out a short contact form and we’ll be in touch soon.
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Author: Sarah Deak
Sarah is a copywriter for NuGrowth Digital clients. She likes to look for the unexpected angle, and uses her background in nonprofit development and marketing to create interesting and informative pieces that drive prospect engagement.
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Resources
1http://www.salesshift.ca/fast-facts-scary-stats
2http://www.slideshare.net/JakeAtwood1/20-shocking-sales-stats
4http://www.thebrevetgroup.com/21-mind-blowing-sales-stats
5http://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-statistics
Sarah Deak is a veteran copywriter and content strategist with NuGrowth Solutions. She likes to look for the unexpected angle and uses her background in education, business development, and marketing to create interesting and informative pieces to equip readers with actionable data