The Nature of Nurture

Don’t let the title fool you; this post isn’t about overcoming objections. It isn’t about never saying die. It’s about understanding the nature of nurture.

Your dream client has never heard of you. They may or may not have ever heard of your company. They have operated successfully without you and your help for years. Maybe decades. Maybe even longer.

During this time, they have developed the relationships and the partnerships that have provided them with the products and services that they need to serve their own customers. They have identified and developed deep strategic partnerships that have been built of years of working together and a history of solving problems.

So now you have decided to pick up the phone and call your dream client to ask them for an appointment, and you have been soundly rejected. You weren’t really surprised, were you?

The nature of nurture is that it takes time.

Determining whether or not you are a value-creator isn’t going to be decided because of a single event. You are going to have to establish a record of value creation, from your first phone call, to your first sales call, and through every call in your sales process. This takes time.

Determining whether or not you are trustworthy and whether you will ultimately walk your talk and deliver what it is that you promise isn’t going to be decided during your first cold call. You are going to have to prove that you can be counted on to tackle the difficult tasks and that you will persevere. This, too, takes time.

Your dream client can’t easily tell if you are a poseur. They can’t tell if you are one of the salespeople who is going to call them every quarter, and only because they put a prompt in their sales force automation to remind them to, or if you are someone with whom it is worth spending time. More time.

The nature of nurture is that it takes time, more time than you would want it to take. Your dream client doesn’t know who you are until you start making yourself known—and making yourself of value. Then you have to keep making yourself known and keep making yourself valuable.

This is the nature of nurture.

Questions

What is the difference between a single event and nurturing?

How do you establish a record of value creation?

How do establish with your dream client that you can be counted on to deliver and that you will walk your talk?

How can establish that you are not a poseur? What does the fact that your dream client only hears from you on the quarter with no real effort to communicate between calls?

What is your plan to nurture your dream clients and how much time are you willing to take?