October 27, 2009
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A Sales Tool You Should Check Out
Tim Roberts
Are you frustrated getting past gatekeepers?
Two things are paramount in determining your business development success: Your ability to establish a trust-based relationship and the length of your selling cycle. Both require focus, perhaps even more focus than you’re employing now. I invite you to consider taking on the challenge of working on both.
Trust is hard to come by and given the current climate it’s even more challenging. Salespeople everywhere tell me getting through to a decision-maker is harder than ever. It’s tough to develop trust when you can’t get in.
A key tactic to start the trust building process is called social proof. When people know that family, friends and business associates are doing something new and different, their automatic response is, “then, it must be OK for me, too.” The principle is at its best when developing new contacts.
Imagine the confidence you would have if you knew five business associates who had a relationship with one of your hard-to-reach targets and sent that target an email with a message that said, “I have worked with (you) and I think you would benefit by taking their call and having a conversation.”
If friends and colleagues recommend your name, company or service to one of your prospects, the chance that the prospect will take your call rises significantly. The prospect’s subconscious mind says, “If these people recommend it, it’s OK for me to take the call because I trust them.” You get a trust boost from the get go. There is a sales tool out there that can make this happen: www.onedegreeconnected.com. This new tool, with its extensive database, has the potential to be your gatekeeper buster forever. It gets you recommended in as opposed to being screened out.
The second key tactic is to track the length of your selling cycle with every prospect, whether the file is closed or not. This is especially crucial in the world of B2B selling of intangible services. Far too many salespeople have selling cycles 50% longer than necessary. By tracking your efforts you’ll actually be fine-tuning your sales process. Live by the process or die by the lack of one.
If you had one goal in 2010 – and you put it in writing for all to see – it should be simple: GET RECOMMENDED IN.
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Trustpointe, Inc.
6666 East 75th Street, Suite 150
Indianapolis, IN 46250
Copyright ©2009 Trustpointe, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
