I deal mainly with Industrial clients. Many of my clients are frustrated by the anonymity of the Internet and the inability to more directly reach out to prospects.
For the most part, the “old” sales cycle was about prospecting, cold calling, trade shows, manufacturers’ reps and good old fashioned “feet on the street”. The world doesn’t work that way anymore.
Just look at your won life never mind the convoluted sales cycle. PEOPLE DO NOT TALK TO EACH OTHER ANYMORE. Not if they can help it. We email, we text, we direct message and at all costs we avoid talking in the phone.
Parents and their kids text more than talk. Grandparents are now on Facebook and keep up that way. Workers in offices next to each other send emails instead of shouting over. We insulate today more than communicate. It just is the way it is.
And it is beyond me to reason why that is, but this I know. Prospects and web visitors are just as reluctant to talk to you. They don’t want to call your company and fear being connected to a pushy salesman or an inept customer service rep. If you provide them all the RIGHT information in the CORRECT format and make it EASY to contact you via a simple form or email, THEN they may contact you. Or if they are in a great rush, they MAY pick up the phone and call you. But only after you have answered all their questions online via your site.
SO don’t pretend you can feed prospects a hint of information and they will jump on the phone to find out more. Satisfy their needs ONLINE…after all….that is how they are searching. Feed them the answers and the qualified prospects will reach out. Otherwise, the y will reach out to your competitors sites.