Most companies send out a quote especially if the buying process means going through a procurement system. How many of you send out your quotes without asking the questions:

“How many other companies have you asked to provide a quote?”

“What is your decision making  time-scale?”

“Who else is involved in your decision making?”

The answers to these questions should give you an indication as to when your quote needs to be followed up. You are taking the time out of your busy schedule to provide this information to them and they will respect you more for asking when it should be followed up.

The second thing I’d like to know is what happens next?…

• Do you fire over an email?
• Do you pick up the phone? if so, how many times?

The inspiration to this quick message is that I have spent this morning re-igniting cold quotes for my client. They had quotes going back to the end of 2010 which hadn’t got an outcome against them but these were sat in their pipeline – Obviously this is not a true pipeline and needed addressing.

The calls this morning have had varying outcomes but there is a pattern forming…

Mr/Mrs/Ms is no longer with the company!!!

Perfect opportunity! The person that has taken over from the vanishing prospect now has some degree of responsibility to you. They feel that you have been abandoned and want to clarify things quickly. Out of the 7 this morning that have a new contact they have all requested a copy of the quote – DO NOT re-send!!!!! At this point you should be saying:

“I would be happy to provide that information to you again but don’t you feel it would be better for us both to meet to ensure your requirements haven’t changed, budgets haven’t been cut and most importantly to make sure we are going to like each other enough to be able to do business?”

A quote without some sort of a relationship would probably not even be read and if you ask the above question they are highly unlikely to say NO!