Velocity and momentum are both essential in sales.
When you are selling anything, you, by definition, have a greater sense of urgency than the person on the other end of the line: you are there to solve their problem today, while they are often willing to wait until tomorrow (because doing something now means paying a known financial or emotional cost today for an uncertain benefit.)
For this reason, if you are the person selling, velocity is your friend. In a fight for someone’s fleeting attention, being exceptionally quick, responsive, generous and available is how you capitalize on any positive movement in your direction. Being quick is a free opportunity to give your prospect a glimpse of what it will be like to work with you: “She’s so on top of things, she’s attentive, knows her stuff and moves quickly” is a desired reaction no matter what your product or industry.
While velocity is your ally at all stages of the sales cycle, momentum is particularly important when you’ve gotten your first verbal “yes.”
Imagine you’ve just had a great sales call: you’ve accompanied your prospect through their doubts and helped them push through their natural inertia to get to a “yes.”
At this moment, it’s essential to keep momentum by getting them everything they need to cement that yes—the proverbial dotted line to sign on. Move too slowly, and time’s passage is your enemy, pulling them back from their out-on-a-limb ‘yes’ to the much more comfortable ‘maybe.’
We often think that selling is about convincing people that what we have on offer is worth buying.
That’s just the starting point.
What selling is really about is turning a positive inclination to positive action.
For that, close to the finish line is not good enough.
It’s your job to take all the necessary steps to get your prospect across that line.
