I love to hear your success stories and specific techniques that work well for you. Here is one from a fellow reader who used the ideas from the  “How to Handle an Immediate Cold Call Brush Off.”

Art,

This article came at a great time for me because I had just been given the Brush Off from a prospect I’d been trying to see for a while. So, I decided to send him an email. This is what I wrote:

Dear ____,

Sorry that I called you at a bad time on Monday. My apologies. I was hoping to schedule a short meeting on Wednesday morning to meet. Just 20 minutes is all. Although you seem to have a good thing with Donnelley, don’t you think it would be useful to interview other printers? If for no other reason than to confirm that you have a good thing with Donnelly?

I’ve been in the printing business for a number of years and when you reduce everything down to the lowest common denominators there are three:

1) quality,
2) service, and
3) price.

Of these three, two are absolutely essential: quality and competitive price. Surprisingly many print clients will endure poor-to-mediocre service just to get quality and price.

Would you be interested in knowing more about a company that can, and does, deliver all three all of the time?

Some of Continental Web’s largest clients include Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Dillard’s, Time Inc., Frontgate, and Zale’s. And we’ve been doing much of their printing for several years. There must be a good reason…and I can tell you why.

Could we meet for 20 minutes on Wednesday morning? I would appreciate it.

Regards,

Brian

I was delighted to get a reply the next morning. The prospect had finally agreed to seeing me. And when we met it was a very good meeting.

I think selling always requires a certain degree of persistence. But applying persistence successfully is, from my experience, a matter of timing and delivery. And sometimes you just have to know when to walk away.

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