2021 Starts Now
Victorian sales teams:
if you’re waiting for the end of lockdown until you can get back out there in person to see your prospects and customers, stop waiting! The time was 2 months ago. Act now.
I say this because it’s like we’ve been wading through treacle down here: lockdown after lockdown in the hope it’s the final lockdown…Getting traction has been hard for some people who still just can’t accept that B2B selling can be done as effectively on the phone and using video conferencing as a valid substitute for in person contact.
If you want anything in your pipeline come 2021, you will need to get over it now.
Act. Spend at least 5 hours every day reaching out to each of the following contacts in your ecosystems with the purposes of:
building a commercial relationship
understanding their goals, their customers and their challenges
understanding how they like to partner, what matters and what might be on the horizon for you within all of that
If you’re averse to using the phone to contact these people, you’ll struggle. In the first instance use the phone to connect, establish a reason to meet and then use video (zoom, webex, skype, teams….whatever) in the same way as you would use a face to face meeting.
When it comes to building your ecosystem, here is where I recommend you making a start
ONE Targets
companies you’d like to work with but have no current visibility over or direct contact with key personnel who work there. Who do we want to know?
TWO Prospects
Organisations and people you know, have some relationship with, and know there is an opportunity to do some work there/size of that opportunity (these are the specifiers and builders who tell us about projects)
THREE Referrers
People who are happily and proactively introduce you to key decision makers in organisations that fit their target market. The endorsement speeds up the sales process and carries a greater level of weight. Ask them: Who don’t I know that I should?
FOUR Clients
current and past. Ask yourself: how many of my top 10 clients thought about or advocated for me in the last year without prompting? Do I know enough about who I know?
FIVE Allies
those in your network who don’t compete for spend with client sales budgets but together you may be able to get some of what you wouldn’t alone, if not more. Sometimes these can open the door for you.
The last 3 all make selling easier.
Work your network and make your network work. Give before you take. As one of my dear friends/mentors says: “What can you learn from the world and then share with the world?”
And I say all of this because I want you to have a great start to 2021. But that depends on how you take action right now.
Now.