Are you hungry?
How soon after delivering a quote should you wait to follow up? You don’t want to sound too hungry, after all.
For starters, I would suggest that a good sales person is always hungry. But a common sales technique is to try to not to appear hungry.
Sales is often perceived as a game of who blinks first. And in many cases this is how it is. It's an adversarial relationship. But it does not always have to be. It is incumbent upon the sales person to read the prospective client and the better one is at doing that, the better chance there is of making the sale.
On a level playing field, I would think a week would be a reasonable time to wait before making a follow up call.
But there is no definitive answer because so much depends on the situation. There have been times when I've felt perfectly OK with letting a prospective client know that I was hungry. I needed the job. Or maybe I didn't need it that badly but for one reason or another I wanted that particular job. But this will only work with a certain kind of person; one with a good sense of basic fairness. If you open yourself to a taker you are going to regret it.
One option is to simply ask a prospective client how much time is needed to consider your proposal. For example, how about if I get back to you in a few days?
Posing a question like this is a good practice in general because the more questions you pose, the more information you will get. This question might be answered with "Well, we are considering other bids so we will let you know." That's a disappointing answer but something you need to know.
I once had a client answer with an immediate acceptance of my proposal, even though the plan was to sleep on it. Had I not asked, I might have left empty handed.
D.D.
