At a keynote speech last week, as I was talking about the importance of proactively communicating with customers and prospects, an owner of a wholesale distributor company raised his hand and asked me the following question: 

 “What do I do with my (air quotes) seasoned salesperson who says he doesn’t want to bother and annoy his customers? He says ‘if they want it, they’ll call me.’” 

 This is my answer:

 Your customer will only call you when they need to reorder that which they have been buying from you for years, or maybe decades. But nothing else. 

 Of course, my research has found that customers only know about 20% of what they can buy from you. 

 They can’t call you about it if they don’t know you can sell it to them. 

 Even if you told them about something you can sell them, they may not know about it. This is why we frequently hear “I didn’t know you did that!” 

 Also, they’re busy. 

 You are thinking about your products all day long. 

 Your customers are not thinking about your products. They are thinking abouttheir own products and problems. 

 If you sit back and wait for the customer to call you, you will not grow. 

 You’ll do the opposite: You’ll contract. 

 To grow, we must call.

 We must help more customers more. 

 We must be present.

 That’s all customers want from us.

They want us to be present.

They want to know we care.

 Be there for your customers. And they’ll thank you with their money. 

 To discuss implementing my systems at your firm — to grow your sales by 10-20% annually —  contact me directly at 847-459-6322 or reply to this email.