You can keep in touch over time, even when you can't afford to have a salesman going round to see somebody constantly. One of the most powerful weapons you can use is the good old questionnaire. You might be quite surprised at how willing people are to tell you about their plans. One client, a bank, we wanted to know what people's spending plans were over the coming year in terms of transport and various types of equipment. They succeeded in doing so with enormous impact on their bottom line.
Salespeople are expensive.
They should only be used when the cost is justified. If you can find another way of achieving the same result, then you should do so. On another occasion we wanted to know for Shell some information about how people bought petrol. For another firm, a telephone company in Canada, we were able to get companies to respond in very significant numbers to a mailing asking them how much they spent on the telephone each month and where they called. The key in fact to success in this business is not blind trust that you are going to find out something that is certain, but the intelligent use of your own imagination and understanding of customers.