(By Loyd Ford) Things happen in life. You gain clients and lose clients. Things go wrong and sometimes things go right. You’re not special in this way; this is everyone’s life.
The double-bottom line is you want to build your business no matter what the economic conditions and ups and downs of regular business cycles are today, tomorrow or any day.
But what does that mean?
It means you have to be responsible for the behaviors that can only result in higher sales. What are some of those behaviors?
- Develop a plan to focus on the activities most likely to bring elevated sales. See more decision-makers and always put the things in front of your prospect that make their life better. The best sellers are here to make lives easier and solve problems for them. People really do notice when you do this consistently.
- Make caring about other people a critical priority with every person you see. You know this. People want to know you care about them before they trust you. Build that trust by being interested in them and caring about them as a human.
- Separate your days of the week and have daily goals for different activity that supports putting you in front of more buyers more often. Build your daily agenda the night before each day of work. Have a weekly workflow plan and a daily agenda. They are not the same thing.
- Develop daily goals and hold yourself accountable. This is part of being prepared to be helpful to more people. Each day of the week can involve some prep for what is coming and a dedicated period each day to see more potential clients and existing clients.
- Make sure your elevated activity includes in-person visits, email, text messages and positive surprises for potential clients that don’t always involve selling. Sales isn’t just one impression. In fact, today it takes more of the right impressions across time to become an essential member of the “inside team” of a business owner, decision-maker or buyer, but this should be a serious goal for you. Experts say an average seller may have 7 to 11 contacts with a buyer before an actual buy occurs. That’s what you really want. More contact, more opportunity. You want to be the one call that a business owner or buyer will take immediately. “So-and-so is on line one.” “Oh good” is the response you want when “so-and-so” is you. That is built with trust and that comes from always being helpful consistently (even when individual activity doesn’t result in a sale for you).
- Carefully craft your own digital profile. This means consistently offering messages that reflect your brand. We all know sellers who are afraid of digital. Don’t be that rep. Doing this will help people more rapidly know what you can do to help them and it is another way to offer helpful information to business owners.
- Do everything you can to make it easier for a decision-maker, business owner or buyer to do business with you and the company you work for. Making it difficult to do business with you is done more than you think in every industry. It’s certainly true in radio today. Be accessible to answer questions. Make yourself known beyond just sales calls. Speak to groups. Do the networking, other sellers won’t. Offer to go that “extra mile” so a client doesn’t have to be caught up in any red tape, delays or poor experiences. Sometimes little things make a big difference. Don’t be afraid to make a big difference for business owners regularly. Doing this will set you apart over time.
- No matter if you are seeing clients, prospects, co-workers, managers or someone else, be the calm and positive influence on them purposefully. Always be positive. Always look to share the positive aspect of what is happening. When you are the only person people can depend on for positive energy, you will attract more opportunity and cooperation.
Oh, I bet you have others. If you are doing these eight things, you are on the right path.
Loyd Ford is president and chief strategic officer at Rainmaker Pathway Consulting Works (RPC). Reach him anytime at 864.448.4169 or [email protected].
