Chapter 14
Let's Follow Up a Deal
You did it! You closed the deal! Now what? You can sit back, relax, and count your chickens—or you can immediately start taking the steps toward turning that one closed deal into a long-term client. We all know the myriad efforts that went into making this sale: the connections we made and the packaging, marketing, and Perk-O-Lating. We don't want to have to start from scratch all over again, do we?
Learning to thank your customers in spectacular ways that are memorable and life-lasting is a major step toward creating loyals for life. Loyals for life are those customers who set up a chain of business that perpetuates year after year. Word-of-mouth referrals come from satisfied and loyal customers. Let's look at an example of how to thank people for their business.
There are two types of people—those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am,” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are.”
—Frederick Collins
Frequent Closer
Over the course of a year, I had one of the best and one of the worst years of my life.
In January of that year, I closed the biggest deal of my sales career: a multimillion-dollar contract with Procter & Gamble (P&G) that literally doubled the size of our company overnight. P&G had been an active and large account for me at SPAR Marketing Services, with our company providing their retail service support (putting up point-of-purchase materials, cutting new products into retail space, audits, surveys, etc.) in outlets ...
