Long-term clients can be a boon to apparel decorators, and help bring in steady business for shop owners of all sizes. In some instances, those frequent contract jobs even help a business expand into a bigger, busier production facility. But how do you accommodate a long-time customer who might be taking an excessive amount of time to approve a job, or is just generally being indecisive? If artwork is taking a while to be approved, or a price quote still hasn’t been okayed, it’s undoubtedly going to hold you up. This is a tricky situation since you obviously don’t want to hurt the client relationship, but also need to make sure the work is worth yours, and your employees’ time.
Sales Tip – Basing your sales call goals on getting told NO!
So you have read the title of this blog and you must be thinking I have lost my mind, but this is not a new sales tip. Throughout my career in sales and marketing, I have heard this strategy in several different variations. I am not sure who originally coined it and definitely not taking credit for its invention, but I think it is very beneficial technique to generate business. Personally, I compare this approach to a similar strategy for playing Blackjack. Side note, I’m a horrible Blackjack player and seem to be the guy who can have a 20 with the dealer showing a 6 and inevitably the dealer will pull a 5 card for 21! But…I am not crazy; this really is a good sales tip. I have heard it from other professionals and it makes sense.