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Leslie Groene Website Homepage March 2019, Vol. 164
 

Selling Best Practices! Part 2

Manage the Relationship not the Project!
As we try to sell more solutions to current clients, we must remember to make sure that the relationships are still intact. I find some sales people focus on the project and do not pay attention to the client's needs and concerns. As relationship sales people, the relationship is the most important part of the process.

Show You Give a Damn About Presentation
Make sure that every aspect of how you present yourself, from your business cards, to your website, to your social media profile, shows care and effort. Show that you care about your brand, your service and the people you deal with. This manifests itself in the smallest details, more than anything else. This can be elaborated on in two ways. First, dressing like someone who is a professional in your industry in a way that you are comfortable, will make you begin to actually feel the part and improve and strengthen your own brand in the process. Second, perhaps you want to present your brand in the way you dress and present yourself. Got a favorite color that you might want to wear consistently?

What Time Do You Open for Business?
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a high-end store to purchase a product and arrived a few minutes before it opened. The store signage indicated that it opened at 11:00am and as we waited out front I noticed that there was a company meeting being conducted inside. Well, as we waited outside with a couple more customers, they continued the meeting for another 5 minutes well past the posted opening time at which point we left to purchase our item from a competitor. This has also happened to me at a large national bank where I waited at the door past their posted opening time while they conducted an internal meeting. In both instances the employees inside could readily see that there were customers waiting outside. Make sure you are available to help your customers (and prospects) when they want and need you!

Send a Handwritten Note
Sending a handwritten note after your first sales call or presentation will dramatically increase your chances of getting a return call. Why? Because a handwritten note increases your likeability, helps make the prospect feel good about you and encourages them to take your calls. It never ceases to amaze me at the number of emails I receive from clients and prospects thanking me for my handwritten notes. Obviously, they have an effect on people that yet another voice or email doesn't.

Go Where the Prospects Are
How about a trade show where your prospects might be? You may be the only one from your particular industry in attendance so you can gain access to these prospects . . .or at least pick up lots of leads! One of my clients attended a huge trade show where there were 1,500 exhibitors!

Strive for Excellence and Beyond
How can you add further value to your products and particularly your service? Adding consistent and unexpected extra value to your services will become part of your brand. Define your core strength, and work it. Ask yourself, what do I do that I am most proud of, and revolve what you do and the way you sell yourself around that.

Focus Point

92. Give your coach your total “buy in”.

Once you are confident that you have secured the services of the coach you want, take the next most important step in assuring the success of this program. Do your part to make this endeavor successful. During your sessions, be forthcoming with your objectives for the program. When your coach gives you homework to do before the next session, give this work the attention that it deserves. Unfortunately, some individuals never really make a complete commitment to their coaches. They may hold back important information or view this whole process as something that is being foisted upon them by their sales managers.

If this is the case, it will be readily apparent to your coach. In time, your coach may decide that you are not worth the effort and decline working in your behalf. Your coach may become discouraged by your lack of effort and that may impact the coach’s view of your prospects.

When I determine that a client has not “bought in” to the program that we have mutually determined, I have a heart-to-heart with the client and provide one more opportunity for the client to commit. Naturally, I realize that circumstances sometimes are beyond the control of my clients. Sometimes, a client’s time will be drained by a successful business deal and since facilitating my clients’ success is the very essence of the coaching relationship for me, I do make accommodations for such situations.

However, when the client is just not up for our program, I believe it is better for all concerned for me to terminate our relationship. Fortunately, the vast majority of my clients have gone “above and beyond” my requirements and the outcomes have been positive!