“You’re too pushy”, frowned the prospective client. I was sitting in his office, laying out what we could do to rescue his company. Sales had tanked. Collectors were snapping at his heels. And I was trying to get him to make the decision to take action. The first task was to handle a law suit, which claimed a very substantial sum for a past-due debt. If left unattended, it promised to sink his business.
I had been trying to overcome his inertia for weeks. He was indecisive and couldn’t figure out what next to do. Times were tough, for sure, but he hadn’t been adjusting to the new realities. And his firm ended up getting well behind with its payables.
My retort was that he needed sales people who were “pushy”, and a marketing plan that effectively pushed his customers’ hot buttons. There seemed to be no sense of urgency to his business. Creditors were being pushy, as were collectors and collection attorneys. So he’d better start thinking that way himself.
Competitors will eat you alive if you don’t let your customers know how you can satisfy their needs – and then follow through with your promises.
Business people tend not to know much about the debt settlement and turnaround profession. This is changing fast, but a majority of small to medium sized business owners and their profesional advisors still don’t go looking for someone to preform this service. So part of our job is to to reach out and contact them.
Clearly, nobody likes a pushy salesperson. But every company has to be imbued with a sense of urgency and common purpose and attention to customers’ needs.
If potential clients and customers of any good business are not made aware of the benefits on offer, they are not being well served. And if the honest and open process of promoting urgently needed goods or services is occasionally interpreted to be ”pushy”, then it’s unfortunate, but so be it.
This story has a happy ending. The major law suit and urgent demands were settled to meet the cash flow limitations of our client. Creditors received a lot more than the alternative, had the firm declared bankruptcy. The company is alive and thriving, lessons learned, and moving ahead with a new and ”pushy” lease on life.