The Benefits of Connecting to the Right People

You can use either a shotgun or a sniper rifle. Early on my career, I used the only prospecting weapon that I had at my disposal was … the shotgun. I picked a street and knocked on every door hoping to find the jewel buried in the dirt. 

Times have changed. I’ve grown smarter and we now have smarter tools. With a little preparation, prospecting is now much easier and more effective, to focus on those who are most likely to do business with you.

Benefits 

One of the largest benefits of discriminating connecting is that “focus” word. Let me ask you this. When you go to your news feed on any social network, are the updates that you see dominated by people you know and who provide you with value (measured in different ways) or by folks who you do not know and who have no potential of bringing you new business? Be honest.

That’s a problem particularly when your important connections are being drowned out. How will you get to know those people better, learn about their interests, and build the kind of long-term relationships that will lead to win-win scenarios? Focus.

A “clean” news feed will allow you to do that and more. It will allow you to discover new opportunities and new like-minded people (2nd degree connections on LinkedIn). As a result, you will achieve a more effective use of your time and your resources.

How to do it

There are many ways to discover those who you are most interested in connecting to. An “Ideal Client Profile” will define specific individuals. “Target Buyer Personas” can be used to specify ideal companies for your products or services. 

Regardless of what you want to call it, you know what it is and what you need to do. These profiles will help you to make that important decision on whether to extend an invitation to connect or to accept one received. 

If, for example, I say that I only want to do business with people in Idaho and that is a hard criteria for me … I likely will not connect with someone in Bora Bora, although I hear that it is very nice!

Next, filter your news feeds to focus on the chosen ones. I am not going to suggest that you disconnect from existing people. That would be short-sighted and things may change. Instead, create “lists” on Facebook and Twitter and you will have to “mute / stop following” individuals on LinkedIn. Voila! Clean news feeds.

Now it will become incredibly easy to follow the day-to-day activities of your favorite peeps and … do not squander that opportunity. Discover what and who is important to them. Learn! Engage! Like and comment on their shares where appropriate. 

Seek to provide them value where you can. Perhaps a referral or introduction? Maybe the heads up on a new business development that might present them with an opportunity? Now, I love me some donuts but do you want to know what I love even more? Opportunities to sell more of my stuff = all the donuts I want!

 

Uncovering a Customer’s Budget – Part II

First off, let’s get this out of the way. Everybody has a budget! Now then …

They may not know how much your service will actually cost – Educate them! Most, if not all, buyers today will self-educate with Google. I am certainly no exception. In many cases, this means that I know about as much of what is needed in order to be considered dangerous. Very dangerous.

Of course, this will vary by product, service, and by the buyer’s level of expertise in these areas. Still, as a professional salesperson, one of the ways to differentiate yourself from your competitors will lie in your ability to provide your customers with quality, understandable, education.

They probably don’t want to share it with you – You might spend it all. Maybe yes. Maybe no. Your job is to give them the best solution that meets their needs and that could very well be a product or service that is significantly less than what they are willing to spend.

They do have a good idea of what they are willing to spend – No budget but … I do know how many nickels I have in my pocket. Now, you might find yourself with champagne tastes on a beer budget, but you will never know this until you ask.

They will exceed their budget if perceived benefits exceed additional investment – When was the last time that you bought a car that was at or under your original budget? Be honest! That is not to say that some folks don’t have a hard budget that cannot be exceeded. But, for example, does that total acquisition budget dissolve with attractive financing?

Understand their needs, wants, and desires first

In order for you to even approach the topic of budget, you must first understand their needs, wants, desires, and what they hope to accomplish. This includes their expectations. Then, what happens to them if they don’t make this purchase? How will their business be affected? Finally, what aspects of purchasing are most important to them?

  • Are they looking for style … the latest and greatest?
  • Is it functionality that floats their boat?
  • Maybe it’s ease of implementation or speed of delivery?
  • Do they buy on price alone vs. value, quality, or service?

How to ask the big question 

“There are multiple ways that we can provide your services and meet your basic needs. All of these require different levels of investment. Before we go any further, might I ask what you have budgeted for this?

Nothing fancy. Nothing aggressive. Yet, in my experience, most salespeople are uncomfortable with asking this question. Why? Latest statistics have yet to show that any of us have died (salespeople and customers) as a result of this question being asked. However, never fall into the trap of assuming that, budget in hand, all you have to do is meet it!

If needed, throw out a number

Well, we could spend up to x dollars. Would that work for you?” If no, what would?

Be careful! Only use this if ….

  • You have a solid understanding of their needs and your possible solutions.
  • You know that this number will be the upper limit of what they could spend. 

The last thing you want to end up doing is coming back with a final proposal that will exceed this number, unless their needs have changed, and even then they will likely only remember this number. 

True stories

Backfire – I almost got burnt by this once and I was an idiot for getting sucked in. An existing customer called me, told me that they were going to be opening a small chain of mattress stores, and he wanted a sign budget. There are a huge number of variables in electric signs. I got as much information as I could from him.

I knew that this was dangerous and I hemmed and hawed before relenting and throwing out a budgetary number. Naturally, when the time came to design and quote the actual signs, the reality bore little resemblance to what he had told me. He, of course, had no recollection of what we had discussed other than the $ number.

The price was substantially higher and he was quite upset. I got the deal, but only after I suggested that he get competitive quotes. This a very risky move and one I did not want to make. I pointed him to my most expensive competitors and thus managed to dodge the bullet that I had fired at myself. By the way, I was not the low bid. There is no honor in being low bid.

In God’s house – When I was in the commercial  A/V business, we met with the pastor of a church in Twin Falls who wanted to upgrade the chapel’s audio and visual systems. After doing our assessment, we asked about their budget. “We don’t have any budget. We have no idea how much this will be?” The second part was true.

“We could spend up to $100,000. Would that work for you?” “$100,000!? The committee decided that we couldn’t spend over $14,000!”. In the church, in front of God, and from the mouth of his servant.

 

There’s No Crying in Baseball, No Do-Overs in Sales

Seems like, for a lot of folks, there is never enough time to do it right, but there is always enough time to do it over. However, in selling situations, there is rarely enough time to do either. You simply don’t get the chance. It’s over, the fat lady sings, and you have squandered your opportunity.

I hate losing probably even more than I like winning. Mind you, I’m not a bad loser. Most often, losses have been fault alone, plain and simple. Therefore, I made a pact with myself. I could stomach losing if, and only if, I could look at myself in the mirror and say … “You did 100% of everything that you could to win this sale.”

The only thing that is worse than losing the sale is “what if?”  What if I had done this? If only I had … These are examples of knowing what needed to be done but either lazily not doing them or … not remembering to do them. This knowledge had not yet become … reflex.

Ultimately it comes down to doing your job, putting 100% effort into every sale, and never becoming complacent. Complacency will often rear its ugly head when you figure that this job is in the bag. Perhaps so, but then it still remains your deal to lose. You get one chance. One chance only.

Winning deals is not complex, but then neither is losing them. And, for the record, the close is overrated. A win is the natural culmination of a selling process well done! Some tips …

Be prepared – Know your product and know your customer. Take good notes and refer to them prior to your next engagement.

Help to set, and then to manage, customer expectations – Every customer has expectations. Do you know what they are? Are they reasonable? Now, even though they might have expectations, they might choose to  not share those with you unless … you ask them. 

Educating your customer on the process … from this call all the way through to completion … will go a long way toward making sure that you are both on the same page. Speaking of expectations … there are only 3 possible outcomes from any selling engagement …

  1. You did not meet their expectations – No explanation needed.
  2. You met their expectations – Meh. Neutral. Even if you got this sale, you don’t have a customer.
  3. You exceeded their expectations – Referrals and repeat business.

Continuously hone your skills – I’ve been in B2B selling since 1977, but I am constantly striving to be better at my craft. I don’t know it all. Buyer behaviors have changed, there are multiple new tools and strategies that are available, and all are designed to help me to sell more. If you are not open to new ideas, I feel sad for you and I fear for you.

Practice, practice, practice – If you want to turn this knowledge into reflex, you are going to have to practice and do so continuously. Reflex often gets lost due to a lack of consistent practice … aka complacency. Honest self-reflection also goes a long way toward solidifying skills as does asking your customer why they did or did not buy from you.

How about you? Always up to get better or too old of a dog to learn new tricks?

 

F.I.F.O. or L.I.F.O. to Close More Sales?

Most people are familiar with F.I.F.O. or L.I.F.O. as inventory control terms … First In First Out or Last In First Out. However, they are also applicable in selling. There are two schools of thought.

Proponents of F.I.F.O. would suggest that, in any competitive deal, he who is in first can seal that deal and avoid competitors altogether. L.I.F.O. aficionados prefer to give competitors their best shot and then rise above them and walk out with the sale. There are benefits and risks to each strategy.

Let’s start with the risks. If you choose F.I.F.O., and your customer is keen to shop, you may not even get that chance to close the deal. If you follow L.I.F.O., you may never reach the point of seeing that customer … period.

Benefits … If nothing else, F.I.F.O. folks have a chance to control the sale and to set the criteria that their competitors will have to follow. Even in a deal that the customer has identified as being “competitive”, you will still have an opportunity to change that script.

If you are L.I.F.O., you can take advantage of the work that your previous competitors have put in. Your customer should have a pretty good idea of what they like, and dislike, about what they have seen to this point. And, if you are last, you can still scoop the deal as all other cards have been played … hopefully.

One must always anticipate the unexpected. If you become complacent (lazy), I can just about guarantee you that something, someone, will rear its ugly head and bite you in the hindquarters. This is where good listening, questioning, and qualifying skills become so important. And, of course, where you come in may not be your choice.

While which strategy will work best for you is up to you, your industry can certainly play a role as well as how this opportunity has been structured by the customer. Let’s say that, if they are the ones who are reaching out to you, you are going to want to know why and how they found you. In my day, if the answer was “the phone book” … no bueno.

There is also a considerable difference between a spec’d out “bid” situation and one where the customer has little to no idea of what they want and need. Your first question about that bid should be … who wrote the specs? If not you … it’s probably going to be a tough row to hoe.

In my businesses, in multiple industries, I always preferred to be the first in and the first out. I could set the standards that others would be expected to follow. What I liked even better was either creating the deal out of nothing or getting a great referral. Both are sales gold!

If I was unable to convert that opportunity prior to competitors being given their chance, I always made sure to have valid reasons to get back in front of that customer throughout the entire buying process. By the way … “I just wanted to check in with you and see if you have made a decision” … is not a valid reason. 

Regardless, you always want to be the last face that they see! First Out wins. Arriving in the middle of the pack? Not good but, that’s me. How about you? F.I.F.O. or L.I.F.O. and why?

Configuring Nimble CRM for Touch and Referral Tracking [Video]

I am currently spending some time each week investing in myself. While I am performing a number of initiatives, a big one is upping my game in the referral marketing (sales) arena by taking a course from a gentleman, Tom Gay, who I have known for over 10 years.

When he moved to Boise, Tom and I connected on LinkedIn and he also became a member of my networking groups, NetWorks! Boise. While I have been familiar with Tom’s teachings in these areas, I have never dug in deep into their fundamentals which are structured around building an effective referral network based on win-win-win relationships.

The main goal of this system is to find, create, and build relationships with those folks who are best positioned, and most interested, in a mutually beneficial association. This will require the repeat engagements that are necessary to get to know each and to build trust. As such, in order to maximize effectiveness, you need to be able to track these activities and results.

As I am a Solution Partner for Nimble CRM, it only made sense to configure this application to assist me in my record keeping as well as to allow me to stay on top with this program’s suggestions. You can do all of this on paper, a spreadsheet, or even on a document, but if you have a CRM … why? 

The video below will demonstrate what I have done to Nimble in order to customize it for these tasks. Note that you can probably do something similar with most, if not all, CRMs. The focus is on what I believe to be the simplest, yet most critical functions of any CRM. Jon Ferrara, the CEO of Nimble calls these the 3 C’s …

  • Contact records – keep good notes, record activities, and organize your records.
  • Calendar – register events, tasks, and reminders.
  • Communications – log emails, phone calls, texts … whatever.

Enjoy and, if you are wowed but in need of some help, I would be more than happy to chat with you and to also discuss my paid services. I can be reached at craig@adaptive-business.com. Thank you! The actual Nimble video starts at 2:45 minutes.

 

Always Busy but Always Responsive – Sales 101

Anybody who has spent anytime around me knows that I am of the strong opinion that nowadays the bar has been set so incredibly low that any salesperson can set themselves ahead of any competitor by only doing one simple thing … return calls and answer emails. Be responsive.

You don’t believe me? Be honest now. As a buyer, how often do salespeople respond to your messages in a timely manner? Never or close to it. And the ones who do? Is their status elevated in your mind? Of course it is. They have demonstrated that they want your business.

I was talking to a couple of members of our networking group the other day. One indicated to me that his industry has a reputation for ignoring potential customer calls. He doesn’t and … he is highly successful. 

Another told me that she returned a call the other day (same day), and the customer was ecstatic. He had left a message three weeks ago for one of her competitors and, she too, is highly successful. Duh.

Is there a pattern here? Sure there is. Return calls, messages, and emails and make more sales. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could be simpler. Same day is good. Next day should be the minimum. Within a few hours is exceptional. Be exceptional.

Mind you, if you are slammed you don’t have to be prepared to engage in an hours- long conversation. Acknowledge receipt and promise to get back with them for further discussion by (insert day/time). Then exceed that expectation. No more excuses. It gets better. 

Not that anybody likes it, but we have all become conditioned to expect crappy service. It’s a sign of the times. Even mediocre service is bound to exceed expectations.  As the height of the bar is relative to the current expectations, maybe we could dig a hole and drop it in there. That way you won’t even have to trip over it.

Being responsive is not to be confused with having nothing to do. People do want to work with busy people because the perception is that they are in demand. So … create demand. 

“I can’t see you tomorrow, but I can see you next Tuesday. Would that work?”. Hell, I’m pretty much retired but I’m always “busy”. I have never, repeat NEVER, had a client push back on me regarding a suggested alternate meeting time and, generally, I will. I’m also highly responsive. The two work well together.

My shortest post … evah. Nothing more to say. Not needed. Simple.

It’s Time to Change Things Up!

Stuck at home in the middle of the Coronavirus has given me the opportunity to do a lot of thinking. Mostly I have been bored but also depressed at the lot of those less fortunate than myself. Maybe this is as good a time as any to just go ahead and fully retire. The idea seems tempting, but not that tempting.

If things were not bad enough already, now we have rioting in the streets. Peaceful protests, and they are entirely warranted, are one thing but looting and killing is something else altogether. I’m just not sure about anything anymore.

My weekly lunch group moved to a Zoom setting on March 18. While it has worked better than I had anticipated, we are all looking forward to meeting again in-person on June 3. However, I have at least familiarized myself with online meetings and have conducted some mini-webinars for our group.

Several years ago I had experimented with open webinars, some in collaboration with others, but with mixed success. On top of that, they were free webinars. Lots of work with limited to no monetary return. I bagged that idea. Instead, I created a lot of free training sessions on YouTube and those did result in some business, but not a lot.

Many people encouraged me to monetize those video training sessions that would have meant re-doing all of the videos (the application that they were focused on had evolved) … and I just did not have the energy or the ambition to figure the whole “monetizing” process out.

Over the past six months I have been working on creating workshops with presentation materials and handouts. These are still under development and will be geared toward individual companies vs. an open setting. I’ve done open workshops in the past, with some success, but boy were they a lot of work!

A couple of weeks ago a gentleman that I have known for close to 10 years sent me an email where he is offering an online self-paced course for $297. Now, I’m familiar with his topic (referrals) and methodologies based on already knowing his passion and formulas. For that matter, I have integrated some of his ideas into my own materials.

Why then did I sign up? Mainly out of curiosity. This would be my opportunity to see how these are done and have someone who might be willing to help me with any questions I might have should I elect to develop such a course on my own. Recurring income. The course also integrates a Mastermind group, another area of interest.

Although I did not fully anticipate this … I am very much enjoying the course and it has forced me to reevaluate my own sales and marketing processes. Sometimes the hammer is best when my thick skull is the nail.

My creative juices are, once again, percolating and I am now going to develop an online course of my own. Better yet, I already have the bulk of the materials developed. The platform that my friend is using also, based on my research, appears to be a viable option. I could/might also host it on my own site.

Marketing, unlike selling, is not one of my strong suits and that is a concern. It’s not that I can’t learn. I can, but I don’t particularly want to. I find the entire discipline to be tedious and boring. I used to do a newsletter and I hated every minute of it.

I know that this will be a key component to success and I believe that I have some potential solutions for this need. If not, I’m screwed but I don’t think so.

Workshops … in-person, live online, online self-paced courses. These are my passion and I prefer short gigs to lengthy engagements. Better yet, you can pick your poison in regard to how you wish to absorb the materials and at what level of investment. Perfect. 

Looks like I may be working a while longer but, when playing guitar badly is your only hobby … sounds like fun! My thanks to Tom Gay for helping to pull me out of the doldrums!