Two ways to get sales visibility: Reaching out and being reached

VISABILITY: Being seen in the right way by the right people at the right time. (The ability to create sales visibility with customers)

Being seen is easy. Go to an event with a lot of people, hand out your business cards, shake hands and say with exuberance, “Let’s have lunch!” There you go. You’ve done it. You’re visible. You can just sit back and wait for the business to pour in. Right?

OK… Nobody thinks this is reality and yet so many do it. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen sales people aggressively handing out cards at public events ranging from kids soccer games to non-profit fund-raisers. To be clear, I’m not talking about people who get asked for their business card. I’m talking about people attending these events with a goal of handing out 100 business cards and calling that success.

In sales we have to reach out and be reached. (e.g., cold calling or reference selling) Incredibly successful sales people do both well. More importantly, they know that the goal in each situation is the same: get the second meeting. If the customer wants to see us again, it means we’ve created the suspicion of value. With suspicion comes curiosity. With curiosity comes investigation. Investigation requires a second meeting.

Reaching out: Cold calling, prospecting, door-knocking, etc. No matter what we call it, this is the act of contacting a potential customer who has no previous experience with us, our company or our products. The potential customer often doesn’t know why they would want to engage with us in the first place. In this situation we have to create the suspicion of value by:

  • Knowing the history, evolution and current challenges of the customer’s industry. We can then have meaningful discussions with consultative questions.
  • Knowing the history, evolution and current challenges specific to the customer. We can then personalize the discussion so we can represent our offering in a way that fits their needs.
  • Having a 30 second statement that begins to formulate a solution that creates a suspicion of value such that the customer wants to know more.

Being reached: References, connections, introductions, etc. They get us in the door and the reference affords early credibility, but the connection doesn’t guarantee the second meeting. Assuming that the reference does anything more than getting us a hand shake causes poor preparation. When the preparation starts with the misguided belief that the prospective customer already knows that they need our product, we come ill-equipped to create suspicion of value.

Incredibly successful sales people know that the preparation is the same whether cold calling or reference selling. We need the knowledge that allows us to engage in discussion that creates a strong suspicion of value in the customer’s mind. A strong suspicion of value leads to the second meeting. The second meeting is the first step to winning the sale.

©2013 Rick Wong – The Five Abilities® LLC

 

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