While I was moving on to other calls and getting ready to call other clients, a day after, I received a call from Client A.

The follow up call is also a pressure call and moment of truth in the sales process

Before the 48 hours I had promised on the voicemail.  Remember that I had stated that without a returned call, I would follow up again with the CEO.  It was not from the CEO but from one of his VP’s that stated in the introduction what I was expecting to hear. ” Good afternoon Michel, my name is Debbie and I am calling you following a call you made to my CEO yesterday.”

The cold call had worked.  More effective to work with the CEO, but the VP being told by the CEO to follow up  with me was good enough.  This is one of the largest companies in the world remember.  Now the story has to hang together.  Debbie was following due process in returning a call.  I only had one minute or less to be effective at communicating our value proposition and why she should keep the conversation going.

This is pretty much like a cliffhanger.  Every step forward you make takes you higher but one bad step and you’re done.  So not knowing who would return my calls, I had prepared Value statements for each of the functions in a business.

If you talk to the CEO, his/her concerns are at a high level with items like improved market position, increased shareholder value and customer satisfaction.  In each functional area, the VP that can impact these concerns will have a more detailed approach to each of these statements.  Increased customer satisfaction might mean clearer invoicing and better terms for key clients for the CFO;  a website that is more intuitive with faster processing, moving back end systems to new platforms to serve customers better might be how the CTO will support the customer satisfaction initiative.  Every function will deliver to the corporate concern.  Inside the function, the directors and managers will assign roles that can deliver the departmental objectives.   In a sense, one’s ceiling becomes someone’s floor.

All this to say, that I had to take my value statement used to the CEO in my voicemail and turn it into a deliverable for Debbie’s group for her to keep me moving forward.  The call was cordial.  It seemed interesting.  She thought that there were some projects that were about to start for which she could use our help.  I was invited for a face to face meeting at their headquarters.

Please note that from an account development standpoint, I have now left one voice mail to the CEO and had a 30 minutes chat with a VP.  I know 2 people, and hopefully on my way to something big.