Selling to Clients Outside your Geography

I had a skeptical boss from one of my previous organizations, who never believed selling any-where outside the city we work out of. I had a tough time to convince him to at least start doing so. So I gave up… I gave up not only the idea of convincing him, but also gave up my job with him. Today again, I had a new-joinee who was skeptical about selling in US while sitting in India. Let me say that it is not only possible to build a business but also can build a thriving business on this basis. In fact not just in US, today most countries accept the idea of selling remotely. I go a leap ahead and say it is possible even in India. At my current organization, we have mastered the art of remote selling. (And I am talking about enterprise customers.) These are a few things which I learnt the hard-way which will ensure successful remote selling:

1.       Act, as if he is near you: A customer needs positive validation at all decision points. He wants to understand you, your organization and its processes. So all his small requests (however small) are to be taken as utmost important. Just like someone sitting next to you, you dare not forget his requests (lest you should take-in his sneers, stares and scolds).

2.       Be at his beck and call: No business-contact in this busy world likes to call you just for the fun of it. So if he calls, it becomes obligatory that you talk to him or at least reach out in a meaningful delayed time. That gives him a lot more confidence.

3.       Collaterals are to be speck-less: I keep meeting people who say ‘let’s fill crap in case studies, ppts’. They argument is that no-one looks into them. Mind you in this world of outsourcing, a prospect is just looking for a reason to strike you down. And if your collaterals do not have proper sentences, tone, connotations, images, content, specifications; trust me he will not be impressed by your organization. For him each artifact (whether it’s a website, case studies, docs, ppts) are all his decision-points to make decisions on your process, meticulous nature and the team. If you are not in proper order, trust me you lose the order.

4.       Collaterals are to be relevant: They need to be your extensions of sales arguments. They should understand that you know what you are talking about. Sending irrelevant collaterals just for heck of it, will cast a negative impression. Be choosy in sending artifact.

5.       Every conversation, every resource, every person is important: You might be an excellent orator, a tough sales guy, a near-perfectionist, but if your team is not up to the mark and the conversation involves someone from your team who do not match the client’s expectations, then please strike down the lead immediately after the call.

6.       Meet deadlines: Always meet the commitments or deadlines. I have lost quite a good number of deals just because we could not meet the time line. The moment you don’t match up to the timeline commitments, a client will always perceive it as the time zone difference coming into play (for clients in other time zones) or the remote connect lackadaisical nature coming into play. Both are dangerous for your business.

7.       Keep calling all your clients once in a while: Remote connectivity might turn out dangerous, if you happen to be away from your client’s voice-mails/emails/social-media. He will perceive that you are hiding behind the veil of remote connectivity. The reason will be presumed that you do not want him to see you. Just like you happen to run into a person in office, you also need to ‘happen to run’ into your clients communication channels. A seasoned sales guy knows the importance of this in building long term relationships/businesses.

8.       Access the breadth of the organization on both sides: Try to build relationship across the breadth of the organization. This will help in two ways: a. Help with other opportunities/leads b. Help with getting a second line of contacts, in case the first line moves out. Similarly let your client do the same. That way he will have more confidence on your organization. This is quite common in face to face relationships, then why should it be different in a remote connectivity relation?

9.       References/Testimonials from same geography: Every client needs positive assurances. More so for a remote connectivity client, who does not have the luxury of visiting your office or meeting your team? Sometime even after visiting your premises some customers, like to know how your past clients felt signing you. So references and testimonials from same geography will always help to overcome the mind blocks.

10.   Escalation matrix: A remote client wants to know what if you go absconding on the right time or if you purposefully don’t respond to his communication. So this is one more argument to present your case that you are trustworthy and though he does not sit close to your city, he can reach out to someone higher-up for issues.

11.   Process Driven: Organizations when dealing with unknown entities prefer dealing with a process-driven approach than ad-hoc personal basis. This will give an assurance to the client, that the vendor company has-been-there, done-that, analyzed-the-outcomes and established processes. So project your company as process driven than a free-lancer or a cheap sweatshop. It showcases how the company has matured from past executions.

12.   Virtual Infrastructure: Unfortunately, clients sitting outside your city cannot have a look at your infrastructure or take a call on the organization’s ability. But it is important for a client to get a feel-factor. Here virtual infrastructure like Project Management tools, deployment tools, ticketing systems come handy. Creation of virtual infrastructure needs investment (both effort and time), it surely pays off at the end (just like real infrastructure). The bigger (and better ) the infrastructure created, the more are the brownie points earned. Once created, a sales person should insist that the client goes through this infrastructure. (Just like you show-around your office space to a visiting client).

13.   Transparency: Last and most important is the transparency factor. In (all) long distance relationships, this plays a very important role in creation of mutual trust. If you do not have resources, tell them openly that you do not have, but can recruit. Rather if you say you have resources and then delay the project start for lack of them, it immediately makes clients lose trust.

Happy Selling!!!