Wrong! The entire purpose of this trip is to give a sales presentation to a potential customer. Time to bring out all the bells and whistles, it's sales time!
Your company paid for a round-trip flight, lodging, and car rentals, setting them back a pretty penny. If you don't make the sale: they just spent all that money for nothing. Don't forget that salespeople can lose their jobs at the drop of a hat. No pressure!
In a day and age where conferences can be done over Skype and files can be instantly shared hundreds of miles away, is there even a need to do all this traveling? I say yes, but with a catch!
In my opinion, a company takes a big risk by spending all this money to get their salespeople hundreds of miles away in order to make a sale. Oftentimes, these meetings occur after only one or two phone calls. Why not minimize the risk by having a virtual sales meeting?
By having a virtual sales meeting, you are going to get across the same information that you were going to get across anyway, without spending money flying round-trip. Also, you can better gauge your customer's feelings on your company and product prior to an actual in-person meeting.
If the virtual meeting goes well and you think there is a real shot at selling, THEN set up an in-person meeting, which will likely be used to elaborate further and finalize anything. This will be where the final sale is made.
To sum it all up, don't throw all your cards in the basket by travelling too early. Instead, go for a virtual meeting. If that meeting goes well, then you should go for the in-person meeting. I find that this minimizes travelling risks and can also make prospects more comfortable when you meet in person, since they have already seen you.
Who else does this? Any thoughts? Do you often find yourselves on the road to sell? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments!
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