sellingmagic

How to Start a Business Relationship

One of the major benefits of sales automation is building a sales pipeline for business. The concept is really simple. You take a series of events that you would normally do to initiate a relationship and automate them. If you want to follow the best practice of selling, we can look to personal examples. With Valentines Day around the corner, I’m thinking about how I initiated a relationship with my wife over 21 years ago.

Start with Good Research

In many ways, selling is like dating and we should approach selling and building relationships in the same way. I can remember when I first became attracted to my wife, Sallie, whom I’ve been married to for over 21 years now. Little did I know that I would follow the best practice of selling to win her heart.

I met my wife in a Sunday school class and I was immediately attracted to her. I wanted to know more about her. I did what anyone in my position would do, I did a little research. I asked questions and learned that she was a single mother and wasn’t in a relationship at the time. Not that is would have mattered to me. I say this because in selling, we often come across prospects that already have a relationship in place. Would this stop you? This shouldn’t stop us when we learn that a prospect is already involved.

What we need is a set of criteria that helps us determine whom is a good prospect for us. This criterion is vital to making good decisions on which we place on our all important prospect list. Trust me, I did quite a bit of research and determined that Sallie was a good match.

Getting Noticed

There are countless ways we can use to generate interest in our prospects. In my case, I used networking. I attended many of the Church events for singles and found myself talking to Sallie in casual conversations. When I’m doing this for business, I do the same thing. Sometimes it requires attending a Chamber of Commerce meeting or a Business Expo where I know my prime prospect will be attending. We can also use social networking with LinkedIn, Facebook and many others that help us create and generate interest in our prime prospects.

The goal at these networking opportunities is to get noticed and initiate a connection. In sales and in dating, it might take a while. For my wife, it took a few months before she actually noticed me and we started dating. In business, there have been many situations that I have tried to generate a response. It could take months and sometimes years to be noticed. In each case, we need to be on our best behavior and we should be persistent in what we will do. I say this because; we never know what will spark the interest we need to initiate a relationship.

Don’t Give UP!

The sad part about selling is that most salespeople will give up after the first contact. A few will move on the next steps. However, it will only be a few who will be persistent enough to get noticed. This is where a selling process and a sequence of events need to be choreographed to develop a relationship. What do you do that generates interest and are you persistent enough to get noticed on your prospects timing, not yours.

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How to Sell Out of A Slump

If you played baseball, do you remember getting into a batting slump and not being able to get a hit? It is going to happen and it happens to professional baseball players too. What sports professionals do to get out of a slump is the same thing we must do if we want to get out of a sales slump.

Perfect Practice and Focus

A baseball player who wants to improve hitting will spend time in the batting cage to hit more baseballs. While he or she is in the batting cage, a batting coach will watch and critique the swing of each bat. With technology, they can film the swing with slow motion actions to break down the swing. When the batting coach or batting experts can do this, they can analyze small details of how the batter swings at the ball.

The goal of batting practice is to correct the small details. Anything and everything that will improve the batters swing at the plate. The batter might be taking their eye off the ball as it streaks across the plate. The batter might be dropping their elbow as the ball approaches. It could be a leaning back and way from the ball instead of leaning into the ball. All of these small details can be corrected to improve the results.

If the batter is in a slump because they got away from the fundamentals, the player must retrain their body and approach so they return to the form that gets results. The perfection of practicing each move will get the results they want. This improvement strategy is the same in selling.

Practice and Perfect Your Selling Process and Approach

When a salesperson gets out of rhythm in selling and is not following a proven selling process, they can quickly get into a sales slump and not know why. Their confidence level will drop and the salesperson will begin questioning themselves. When this happens, salespeople need to re-focus on the fundamentals of the selling process. A selling coach can help in determining what is wrong. If you are able to record what you are saying on sales calls or the telephone so you can play back your words, you might discover simple ways to improve selling techniques. You might even hear it in your voice.

When I am on fire with selling, it is like a baseball player who is in a hitting streak. When this happens to you, you don’t want to change anything and you look forward to stepping up to the plate so you can repeat your actions. Your confidence will rise and it creates an unfair advantage of sorts against the pitcher. You will expect to hit the ball out of the park each time.

If we are talking about selling, your prospects will sense your confidence from your voice. Prospects will close themselves because they want what you have. I know from experience that when I have a high confidence level in what I’m selling and I have an expectation of closing business with my prospect, the closing is simplified. Following a proven selling process is also fundamental to success. I know when and where I am in the selling process of a prospect. When you have confidence in your selling process, you are one up on your prospects.

By Steve Martinez – the Sales Magician for Business Development

http://www.sellingmagic.com

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