In sales, take advantage of the “immediate ask.”  If the ask is not too big, it works quite well.

First date went well?  Immediately ask for a kiss and you’ll get it.

Close a new account?  Immediately ask for a recommendation on LinkedIn and you’ll get it.

Sign-up a new subscriber to your email list?  Immediately ask them to like you on Facebook and you’ll get it.

If the “immediate ask” is too big, however, you’ve made a grave mistake.

Go ahead.  Immediately ask her to come up. Immediately have a colleague your new account has never met call to solicit more sales for the company.  Immediately ask the new subscriber to take a survey.  You might get what you want.  But the relationship you worked so hard on creating is frayed forever.

So, the immediate ask works.  There’s just a fine line between one step forward and two steps back.

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