A prospective client sends you an email requesting information. You have the information they need, and you want to send it to them as quickly as possible.
You might want to believe that your responsiveness is going to make you appear professional and helpful. You might even suffer from the delusion that sending the information will help create a preference for you, your company, and your solution. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.
When a prospect emails you to request information and you send it, you have allowed the prospect to determine that you are going to transact. That makes you—and your company—transactional. And that makes you a commodity.
What Is Most Important
Is it more important that your dream client knows about you, your company, your product, or your solution? Or is more important that you understand who they are, what their challenges are, and what they need?
The information that you transmit isn’t going to differentiate you. If it is about your product, service, or solution, then you are not going to look a whole lot different than your competitors. If it’s about your company, it will generate no interest at all. If it is an answer to a question, it won’t likely be all that different than anyone else’s.
Why would you consent to a process that doesn’t serve you or your prospective client?
What’s most important is that you serve your prospective client where they are, and create the kind of value that positions you to win. Being subservient and transactional does neither.
Control the Process
When a prospective client emails you, you should pick up the phone and call them. You don’t have to agree to a transactional process—especially if you are not an undifferentiated commodity.
The questions you ask on a telephone call will do more to position you to win a new deal than any information you might provide. Asking for a meeting and sitting down face-to-face to help your dream client determine what they want and need and how to get it is infinitely more powerful than trying to sell by email.
Email isn’t a good medium for selling. The asynchronous nature of the communication is a poor substitute for a face-to-face meeting, a video conference, or a phone call. If you are going to sell, pick up the telephone, and do everything in your power to serve your prospect. And, do everything in your power to win.
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