There's the old, tired cliche that all things being equal, people do business with those they know, like, and trust. ...Here's the thing, it's an old, tired cliche because it's FRICKIN' TRUE. If you are trying to build your sales success by taking shortcuts and not creating that trust, that emotional bond, with your prospects and customers, you are building a house on a foundation of sand. But it doesn't take much time, or any fancy tricks, to create that connection with your prospects and leverage the most powerful sales tool you have in the modern sales toolkit: your humanity. Build a Human Foundation Too often, we think a gimmick … [Read more...]
The #1 Reason Why Your Sales Network Sucks: You Only Network When You Are Desperate
In a hyper-connected world, the new opportunities that you are looking for in your career are going to come from the people you know. So if you want to expand your access to opportunities, you have to expand the number of people that you know. And if you want access to new opportunities, then you need to make some new connections. There's a trick to this, though. Instead of hastily reaching out to build new relationships only when you need something, you can plant seeds and cultivate new relationships before you even know where they are going to end up. That's right, you can start a new business relationship without a specific, … [Read more...]
The Easy Technology that Super-Charges Business Relationships
Let me ask you a question: How many hand-written notes did you receive in the mail in the last week? Or maybe the better question would be: Did you get any hand-written notes in the mail last week? Getting mail isn't too common these days. And I'm not trying to point out how few friends you have. I'm also not trying to start a rant about how letter-writing has become a lost art (which, sadly, it kind of has). I am pointing out the opportunity to stand out that every master networker and salesperson takes advantage of. They send physical, personalized, hand-written notes. Stand Out By Doing What Others Don't In a world … [Read more...]
How to Combine Technology and Process for More Effective Sales Networking
updated May 2021 In Networking in the 21st Century, I spend a lot of time looking at the importance of follow up. The key to powerful networking is relationship-building. And relationships aren’t transactional, so your networking has to be more than just one-time encounters. To ensure that this happens, it’s important to create processes and systems that allow you to touch base with your networking contacts on a regular basis. This is where technology can really help. Social media and digital tools can give you an easy way to maintain you connections over time. Technology Tips to Become a Relational Networker 1. Capture contact … [Read more...]