Episode #99: Send It To Me - Uh Oh!

How I hate those four words – “send it to me”. I get that heavy feeling in my stomach and around my shoulders. I know we are now on the path to sale’s hell. I particularly hate it when I hear that request after I have tried for the second time to secure a meeting to go through things face to face. After you have requested the meeting and they push back, you can go back again and try for the meeting. However, when they push back twice in a row you have nowhere to go, you have to send it or you come across in a bad light, as someone who is either stupid or socially tone deaf. Neither are attractive to buyers so we best avoid plunging ourselves into those negative brackets.

The “send it to me” request usually refers to sending basic information such as brochures and flyers or it might be around content and pricing. The latter is usually a quotation or a proposal. The reason the buyer normally puts forward for not meeting you is that they are too busy to see you. If you have had one meeting already and it is time to propose the deal, you can send the document by email and not meet. The chances of them buying though are substantially reduced and you may as well post it to yourself for all the good it will do. Those flyers and brochures you diligently sent in response to their request will soon be winging their way to the waste paper basket, to be forgotten immediately.

I struggle with this “send it to me “ request. I know I have to do it, if I have exhausted my chances of a face to face meeting. However, I know this is a dead duck. I often meet senior decision makers who will request I send the information so they can share it with the “team”. What does that look like? If it is a physical entity it will just be sent to the designated person with very little explanation.

Now I may have spent an hour with the senior company representative going through chapter and verse of the innumerable benefits and marvelous advantages of our widget. This gets compacted down to “take a look at this” when passed down the line. The end receiver in Japan is often indignant that anyone is intruding on their turf and they have that “not invented here” histrionic approach. If they didn’t know about it already or they didn't find it for themselves, then it can’t be any good.

The people who need to get involved vote with their feet and end the process right there. You are left high and dry with nowhere to go. You don’t get to meet them. When you follow up, the big boss tells you the team has had a look at it and decided they are not going forward with the information. Where do you go? Basically you go and find another buyer because this is a train wreck.

Next time though you should apply a different approach. Ask the senior person to introduce you to the people down the line, who will do the actual work. Now they may refuse to do that for whatever reason, but you should always ask. And ask in a way that is hard for them to say no. For example, “Suzuki san, what we have found is that when we present our materials to people who often carry out the actual tasks, they see many more possibilities than we can imagine, because they are at the coal face. Would it be beneficial for your company to be able to generate innovative ideas and new possibilities if I was able to take your team members through the details, rather than just passing on materials which by themselves, provide insufficient context?”. Now that is a question carefully designed to elicit a “yes” response and this is the type of question we need to insert at this point.

When it is a proposal document, we are normally sending it to the senior person we met previously. Remember this a false dawn. They are going to go straight to the back of the document and will see only costs and no value in the pages presented. Without us there to explain the associated value of the investment, they cannot rationalise the two together, very easily. We know our product or service much better than they do, we have broad experience of where other buyers have benefited from it and we can answer any enquiries they may have right there on the spot. When we send it, we are sending the proposal out naked to the world, with no protection from the harsh glare of buyer skepticism.

The proposal is like the headline of a magazine article. To really understand what is going on, we have to read the article itself, to get the proper perspective and context involved. When we don’t get that chance we are sending our sales hopes into oblivion. I had one of those “send it to me” requests last week and I sent the proposal with the numbers knowing full well, this was a guaranteed suicide mission.

When the buyer decides to not make the time, then they haven’t been sold enough on the value. I had one prior meeting, but obviously I didn’t do a good enough job on explaining the value of what we do. The leadership team over there will look at the numbers and will say to themselves that it is out of their budget. The reply I expect will be “thanks but no thanks”. Those numbers supplied are relative to the return they will bring and the real cost of our service is zero, because the costs will be paid for out from the additional growth. This genius conversation is unlikely to be had, because I won’t be able to get in front of them to make my points.

“Send it to me” is the kiss of death in sales. Sometimes we just can’t avoid it but we should always push hard for a face to face meeting. Don’t push too hard though, because you will mark yourself out as an idiot and they will never deal with you again. Today’s “no” is only no to the offer in it’s current form, in this part of the business cycle, within the limitations of this year’s budget. It doesn’t mean no forever and one day the planets will align and we will go back in there and make the sale. We have to be patient and keep plugging away with other buyers in the interim.