Ever feel like a nuisance when you follow up with your prospects? It’s a frustrating place to be, isn’t it. You wish you had something new to say or some compelling reason for them to budge. When you don’t, it often leads to not making the call at all. If you don’t need the work, then it’s fine to leave the issue alone. If you need the business, then you are better off placing your (lame) call because there is always the chance that they fully intend to do business with you, they just need a reminder.
If you want to take your sales results to another level though, consider this notion. You’re not a sales person, you are a venture capitalist. I’m not suggesting that you impersonate a VC in the hopes that you can trick your prospect into talking with you. I mean you would benefit from taking on that philosophy.
A Closer Look
VCs (especially those involved with early-stage businesses) expect the majority of the companies they invest in to either fail completely or fall far short of expectations. Does this sound a little bit like your pipeline of business? If you expect MOST of your prospects to close, then you’ve got wishful thinking or an amazing close process that I need to learn about . Sales is based upon the assumption that only a fraction of the opportunities you pursue will succeed – just like the portfolio of companies that a VC selects.
O.k., so we’ve established one similarity between sales people and venture capitalists — each pursues an array of opportunities knowing full-well that only a fraction will result in “success.” Scratch below the surface and we immediately find an important difference between how VCs and sales people operate. VCs invest in the companies in their portfolio. Not just money, but time and resources as well. They join in the fight to make each company succeed. In the end, they have to be shrewd and cut their losses, invest more in the “winners,” etc. But along the way they are busy trying to help each company reach its goals.
How do you think they would do if all they did was call around to each company in their portfolio on a regular basis to ask “have you made us money yet, how is it going?” Pretty weak, right. So (as a sales person or business owner) how helpful are you when you call around to your active prospects and keep asking, “…have you made a decision yet? Have you talked with your boss or gotten approval from your CFO yet?” Pretty weak right.
So remember, I’m talking figuratively here. I’m not proposing that you have to invest hard money in your prospects. But how can you benefit from that perspective? What would a venture capitalist do? Well, he or she would treat the list of active opportunities as a rolling portfolio of “investments.” In each case he would determine what is needed to make them successful. So stop there. Note the *them*.
Here is where sales people can lose sight. Do you want business from your prospects? INVEST in them to help them realize the benefits you know they want. Can you introduce them to someone in your network to help them get further along in their project or important aspect of their business? Can you point out a resource for promoting their business that they may not be familiar with? Can you give them a taste of the service you provide with a focus on delivering tangible benefits?
Reciprocity is a powerful force. Sure giving your prospects a gift or treating them to box seats at the A’s game may be appropriate at times and make them feel indebted to you. But invest your energies into helping them reach their business goals and you will set yourself apart, and create more winners in your “portfolio” in the process!
I have helped a number of business owners, my clients and other people I know, take a simple step to register their business with Google via their Local Business Center. It is an extremely simple process. Perhaps you have already done this. If so, I encourage you to revisit your listing to keep it up to date and full of terms that people will use when searching for your type of product or service.
If you haven’t yet registered with Google in this way, or are not sure what the Google Local Business Center is, watch this short video to find out. With no web design skills (in fact, even if you don’t HAVE a web site), you can DRAMATICALLY increase your exposure to people near your business using Google to search for your type of product or service.
This simple step has brought thousands of dollars in new opportunities to my clients and me. It is very straight forward, but is not as well known as it should be, so I wanted to spread the word!
The classic phrase has been stuck in my head for the past week or so — “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” In this environment where everyone is evaluating their expenses, from their personal cell-phone plan to the number of employees they have, marketing expenses invariably end up under scrutiny.
I think that is a good thing. Marketing expenses ought to be under constant scrutiny. But be careful. Each of your marketing activities (and you already have more underway than you think) is either bringing you business, or has the potential to. Do you know which marketing activities are your lifeblood? Do you know which ones are a complete waste of time and money?
When trimming back on your marketing expenditures, be sure not to bite the hand that feeds you! How can you avoid that? Here are a few tips:
Six Simple Words
“How did you hear about us?” Resolution number one for 2009 ought to be working this question into every conversation you have with a new prospect, every form you have a new client fill out, the web form you present to someone signing up for your newsletter, and anyplace else you have the opportunity.
If you are going to defer that newspaper ad campaign, hold off on that web site facelift you were planning, or think twice about sending out another direct mail piece, how do you plan to arrive at that decision? Can you predict how much business you will forego by canceling that effort?
Good for you for insisting that your marketing dollars work hard for you. No expenses should be automatic. If it doesn’t bring you a sufficient return, cancel it. Sounds simple, right? Well it can be. Step one is to be informed about what expenses and activities are bringing you business today. “How did you hear about us?” and a spreadsheet, paper log, accounting system, or even system of jars with beans in them will take you a long way.
In This Hand…
You say you’ve been tracking the sources of your business for a long time now — excellent! So you know which marketing efforts aren’t worth it, which ones have earned the right to more $ or effort, and maybe even have some ideas for new marketing tactics that will work for you. Right?
Well, you’re probably part of the way there. Calculating the amount of business that specific marketing activities generate for you can be tricky. Have you tracked the lifetime profit that each new customer provides? Have you accounted for the referrals that those new customers have sent your way? You may have run a series of newspaper ads 5 years ago that seemed like a complete failure — only 2 new clients. But are they now your best clients who have also brought you other business? Or were they bargain hunters that took advantage of a sale and disappeared?
The answer to what is working and isn’t working for you is burried in the data you have (or could be collecting). The answer to why something is working or isn’t working is more complex (and one of the things my clients hire me to figure out).
For now, ask the question “how did you hear about us” and begin tracking the answers to get smarter about picking which hands to bite.
3 Comments to Read 
. Sales is based upon the assumption that only a fraction of the opportunities you pursue will succeed – just like the portfolio of companies that a VC selects.
