How to get lucky in Sales
Setting up a Synergistic Networking Group
By Richard Elmes CSP
Your ideal prospect calls you with a problem that you are uniquely qualified to solve, asking you if you can help. There is no competition, no haggling over price, no hard work and no you are not dreaming. By setting up a synergistic networking mastermind group, this dream can become a reality. Here is how you do it:
Step 1 – Determine what your ideal type of customer or your target market is. What characteristics or traits do they have? Make a checklist. In business as in dating we need to list what we want in a date or a customer, in order to ensure that we end up with the right partner for us.
Step 2 – Approach your best customers, the ones that best fit your checklist, explain that you want to make their life easier by setting up this Synergistic Networking group and ask them what other non-competing services they buy. And from who?
Step 3 – Get in contact with those other non-competing sales people approach them with the ideal of setting up a synergistic networking group. Get together to determine if they you would be able to credibly refer them to your customers and if they feel the same about you.
Step 4 – If there appears to be a fit, spend some time educating each other on the products and services that you each provide. Also learn the right questions to ask in order to uncover a need for what they are offering.
Step 5 – During your sales meetings with your customers keep your radar up for signs that there is a need for your networking partner(s) products or services.
Step 6 – When you uncover a need, ask who is providing that service for them now? If they ask you why you are asking, mention that you have someone in your network that might be able to solve that problem. This will position your as and information resource, not only a sales person.
Step 7 – Give your customer the contact information of your networking partner and suggest they give that person a call. As a back-up, call your networking partner to let them know that they may be receiving a call. This does two things: It gives them a heads-up on the situation and it gives them an option to call your customer if they don’t receive a call in a couple of days.
Step 8- Keep in touch with your customer in order to let them know that you are interested in if the problem got solved. This will also remind them that you have done them a favor by giving them a referral and helping them solve their problem.
Step 9 – Keep updating your networking partner on new product/service developments that you offer on a quarterly basis. Also look out for other networking partners that will fill another need that your target customers have.
Step 10 –Reap the rewards, of being an valuable resource for your clients, networking partners and their clients.
By forming and using this synergistic networking group you not will you get lucky with your networking partner’s customers, but you will be able to position yourself as a specialist, but be viewed as a valuable information resource to your own customers.
So the customers win, because they don’t have to search out new vendors, who they have no trust or loyalty toward.
You networking partners win because they get hot prospects falling in their lap, and you win because not only are you helping people, but you will also get some new ideal hot prospects falling in your lap as well.
Now that is what I call getting lucky!!!
Richard Elmes CSP
"The Sales Dating Guy"
www.richardelmes.com
Strategic Serendipity in Sales
The Art of being in the right place at the right time
By Richard Elmes CSP
Before you can understand how strategic serendipity in sales works you have to understand what is happening in the buyers thought process during the buying process.
First the buyer realizes that he/she has a need or some pain that they need to get fixed.
Second they look around within their own network for a solution provider to take away that pain. And if they find one that they trust they usually go with that solution provider, without questioning prices or seeking a solution elsewhere.
If there is no solution provider to take away the pain within their immediate network, then they will look outside of their network in order to find someone to take the pain away. If they are forced to take this route, they will then diligently look at all of the factors including price before selecting one solution provider. There is a lot more competition, and the buyer is more suspicious because the level of trust between the buyer and the seller is lower.
Strategic Serendipity, the art of being in the right place at the right time, allows you to be positioned within the buyers immediate network, where haggling over price is minimal and the competition is non-existent.
In sales there are 8 steps in positioning yourself and your organization to take advantage these profitable situations.
- Ask yourself what problems do you solve?
Every company exists to solve a problem, because if they didn’t they wouldn’t be needed.
- What problems do your organization solve better than your competition does?
After finding out what solutions your organization provides find out what solutions your competitors provide and determine the point of differentiation.
- Who are the target customers that experience the kind of problems that you solve better than your competition?
Targeting only those customers that need the unique solutions that only you can provide will position you as the solution provider of choice.
- Get inside your customer's head. Where do those customers hang around? What do they read? How do they take in new information? Think like them in order to find out where they hang around? Do they attend Chamber of Commerce events, trade shows, what trade literature do they read and what is their preferred method of digesting new information.
- Position yourself to hang around in those areas and communicate your Distinct Value.
A well positioned trade show booth, an article in a trade publication, being in the media or speaking at an Association conference are all opportunities to showcase your Distinct Value to your customers and prospects in order to position yourself as an expert in your field.
- Be available to solve their problem when they contact you.
Make it easy for them to contact you can mean having a toll free telephone number, email address, or extended working hours in order for you to be available. And if they do reach a voice mail or do decide to email you, get back to them as soon as possible.
- Solve the problem and take away their pain. This is the time to walk your talk. There is no sense completing the first 6 steps if you are unable to do as you promised.
- Keep in touch. Newsletters come in many different forms, print, email or audio, and they are a great way to keep in touch and position yourself as the expert and keep your organization in the top of the mind, so you will be positioned to provide solutions for their future challenges. Now that is what I call Strategic Serendipity.
Richard Elmes CSP
"The Sales Dating Guy"
www.richardelmes.com
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