Secondary tools of selling

In my previous post I covered the primary tools required for selling to, setting up and maintaining your client data base. Although some salespeople have a natural "feel" for it, sales and marketing is not an art. Many "natural" salespeople make the mistake of thinking that it is not important to keep their client databases, stats and information sheets up to date. Following are a few secondary sales tools you can use to keep record of everything that is developing in your pipeline and maintain customer contact frequency:

Get a personal assistant

As your business grows and begins to put a lot of strain on your time I suggest that you get a personal assistant. Although it is not you who will talk to your clients personally, having a personal assistant will help you to keep the relationships together. It is very important that your personal assistant shares your high appreciation of good client service. Sometimes it ha pens that personal assistants disregard the importance of returning a call. It is important to remeber that the personal assistant can not replace you, and should therefore rather be seen as an additional value add to your sales force.

Develop a proper support system

As a salesperson you will know about all the capabilities and value added features your product offers. However, it is a brilliant idea to have an engineer, system developer, or product designer call an important client to answer the more specific technical questions.
I served in the South African Defence Air force many years ago. In the air force you only have pilots. That is the perception of the general public. Many people asked me if I was I pilot, since I worked for the air force. I always told them that I was not a pilot, but if it wasn't for the majority of the air force personnel, that the pilots would not fly.
The moral of the story is this:
Make sure you are backed by people who know about the technical things. There won't be time to suddenly get a support system in place once the aircraft's engine dies while in flight.

Use your fax machine

Just think about it. Your client receives hundreds, if not thousands, of emails per week. There is a very good chance that your email will not be read by the intended recipient. Most directors and CEO's have personal assistants who screen their messages. Your email might not seem to be important enough, and will most probably be deleted. Sending an sms is very unprofessional, and reeks of mass marketing. It will probably be forgotten and lost between the hundreds of sms messages received by your client. A fax message, on the other hand, is more personal. There is a 99% chance that your message will be read by the intended recipient. Most people will respond quicker to a fax message. If you decide to send faxes you should make sure that your fax messages are not hand written and stand out from the rest. It is also important to confirm receipt of the fax. Sometimes people take faxes out of the fax machine and file them or throw them away. Sometimes I send a fax into space because I got the number wrong.

Some other tools you can use:

If you use these tools smartly and sincerely you can also expect a higher return on investment for your time:

• Personal thank you's.


• Company awards.


• Let them know you read their article in the newspaper.


• Someone got promoted.


• Company won an award.


• Greeting cards.


• Post cards.


• Newsletters and invitations.


• Endorsement letters.


• How to's and helpful hints.


• Industry announcements.


• Specific offers and information matching your client's needs.