Car shopping is one of those experiences where you and the sales person know when the sale is done—you drive off in your new car.
And yet even car salespeople—who we love to pick on as using the most obnoxious sales tactics—can drop the ball.
Like the guy who never got back to us after a test drive where we made it clear we loved the car and it was on our short-list.
We expect salespeople to keep going until it’s obvious the process is done.
What’s not so obvious is this: your potential clients expect the same follow-through from you as a seller of expertise.
Even when—maybe even especially when—they throw up weird roadblocks or go dark. They are relying on you as the professional to help them get to the end of the sale.
And the bigger the transformation you’re midwifing, the more this is true.
Of course, clients don’t want high-pressure sales tactics—they just want to know that you’re acting in their best interests. That you’re sticking with them as they work through buying from you.
That process is a test drive for how you will work together, which means you can’t stop until you know your sale is done.
And it’s only done when:
Your buyer tells you it’s done (you win the work, they choose someone else or decide not to do it—note that a delay does not count as “done”).
You actively decide after some ghosting (and perhaps a non-response to your magic email) that it’s done, because this is not a client you want to engage.
That’s it—those are the only two times your sale is done.
So until then, you want to stay in the game. And that means following up—even multiple times—especially when selling high ticket/big transformation work to complex organizations.
It means swallowing the stinky fear of rejection because that’s what it takes to keep putting yourself out there in service to the transformation.
Following up is not an obnoxious sales tactic—it’s being professional.
Related: One Surprising Way You Might Be Outsmarting Yourself