337 What To Do About Losing Track Of Buyers

<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU">How could we lose track of buyers?  Unfortunately it is very easy.  That nice person we have been dealing with inside the company, the one with whom we have built a solid relationship, where the trust is brimming and the bonhomie is pumping, is transferred to another section or they leave the company for another job.  Suddenly we are left with nothing.  If it is an internal transfer, we may find there is a new person who decides they will put their own stamp on things. They bring in their own suppliers who are their favourites.  They have a competing established relationship or maybe they don’t like the cut of our jib.  If a new person is being hired in to replace the incumbent, then there will be a break in the traffic for a couple of months and before you know it, things have begun to drift and we have trouble making the connection with the new person.</span><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang= "EN-AU"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU">Maybe there is a global pandemic and everything shuts down for a couple of years.  The company has stopped spending on what we offer and when we go back to rekindle the relationship quite a lot has changed.  The people may be gone, the budgets may be gone, the strategy may be new and different.  Basically, we have to start again.  We know the history with the client, but often the new people we are dealing with have no idea who we are and we are basically doing a cold call to this company.  Some are working in the office and some are still at home.  Getting hold of people puts us in quandary. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU">That iron wall of disinterest on the part of those answering the phone is there in all its confronting glory.  In Japan, if you don’t know the actual name of the person, you are almost guaranteed to never get through to the function you need to be speaking with.  “We will take a message and let them know” in my experience never translates i