When Buyers no longer answer their phone and your voice and e-mails get deleted, how will you win new business so that you achieve quota?
Well, if you accept that going back to basics and smiling and dialing won’t take you where you need to go, don’t despair.
But before I show you how to win new business, let’s first take a fieldtrip to a typical Buyer’s office Continue reading… so that you understand why they are so hard to reach. By appreciating the intense time pressure they are under, how to now engage with Buyers will become clear.
So, let me introduce you to Alex, your typical Buyer. It’s 8:20 am Monday morning and Alex arrives at his office late since he had to drop the kids off at school this morning. For the past 18-months, he has been putting in 60-80-hour work weeks thanks to the last corporate re-organization. He now does the work of two people for the same pay. At least he kept his job: Many of his ex-colleagues are still unemployed.
As he pours himself a cup of coffee, he anxiously reviews the presentation he finished last night after the kids went to sleep. His outlook alarm beeps, only 30-minutes until he presents to the Executive Committee. Alex’s eye shifts to his inbox and is pleased that today there is only 157 e-mails. The phone rings; another interruption. As usual, he lets it roll into voice-mail. He stopped answering his phone a longtime ago. The phone flashes 30 voice-mail messages and he just cleared it yesterday. Most were from salespeople. He deleted them all. Why shouldn’t he? All of the information he feels is available online when he wants it and right now he doesn’t want it because he’s swamped with work.
To survive, Alex knows that he can’t do everything. And lately, he has been so swamped that he often puts up with the status quo- even when it hurts the company. You see, Alex knows that one more project could be the difference between swimming and sinking.
His alarm goes off again, only 20-minutes until the presentation, time to clear his inbox and voice-mails.
As Alex clears his e-mail inbox, he looks at both the senders and subject lines. His rule of thumb is that if he doesn’t know them or if the subject doesn’t address one of his immediate critical business issues, he delete’s it.
Hmm, 5-minutes to his meeting, Alex plays his first voice-mail message with his finger on the delete button. “Hi, this is Bob Jones. I’m calling today to introduce myself and my company…” Delete.
So, after hearing this story, does going back to basic and smiling and dialing sound like the best use of your time?
If not, then we offer a fresh approach to winning new business that is more intelligent, more effective and more fun in our New Business Creation Workshop.
Yes the bar has been raised. To win new business you will need to invest significant time doing pre-contact research, create relevant messaging, and implement numerous account-entry campaigns. Don’t worry; I can help show you how to put it together.
One of our strategies, for example, is for the Salespeople to send a ‘Maximum Credibility Proposal’. In it, Salespeople will include a critical business issue that the Buyer is experiencing based on the pre-contact research. We also suggest, if possible, including a Connection (referral, contact in company etc.) and a Catalyst Event (Management Change, Regulatory Hurdle, etc.)
Imagine sending out only 4-Maximum Credibility Proposals, along with following-up, and booking 1-meeting. Wow. That’s what one of our accounts is doing.
So, the choice is yours. You can either make 100s of cold calls or send out a few letters to achieve the same result. And let me ask you, if you had to pay for the plane ticket, what meeting would you rather go to?
So, what are you going to do? Will you invest in right tools and strategies to help your team create new business?
If so, I strongly urge you to visit our website and review the agenda for the “New Business Creation Workshop.”
Alternatively, feel free to give me a call.
Whatever you decide, I wish you and your sales team success.
-Michael Harris