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 Hello, :
Well, basic contact information isn't enough.
Last week I was meeting with a BroadsOnBusiness.com member who is doing well, but wants to do even better. In his sales position just over a year, "Jim" already generates 90% of his business through referrals and has made or exceeded his quotas for the past six months.
Not bad.
Yet Jim wanted to take his business to the next level. He admired, even envied his sales colleagues who, in the business far longer than he, had developed large numbers of customers within organizations and other groups.
Jim was definitely on the right track. He had figured out that leveraging his existing customers was the way to faster and increased sales.
Too many business owners, salespeople and independent sales representatives, however, don't understand this. They simply don't gather the information at opportune moments to help them leverage the business they already have. Focused on new business commissions, they simply "go on to the next one."
What a misguided philosophy!
Let's say you sell insurance to an accountant. What organizations does her practice belong to? To how many other accountants does she have access, both within her own practice and her profession? Who are her closest colleagues? What are her hobbies? Where does she volunteer? In what other circles does she move? Who are her clients? What are their needs for insurance?
You see, once you acquire these (and other) nuggets of information over a period of time, as you build trust and solidify your relationships, you'll be working much smarter than if you keep trying to drum up new business in the vast unknown. Your referrals will increase. The length of your sales cycles will decrease. Price will become a virtual non-issue.
So, then, why do so few people in sales adopt this manner of doing business?
Many reasons: poor direction from the boss and/or the home office; desperation to meet sales quotas; narrow thinking that persists in working hard rather than smart; a core belief that price is all-important, and one just has to go out and face the jungle every day. And with this economy? Whew! It's worse than ever.
Yet, if you have your marketing ducks in a row, and you systematically "work" the business you already have, you'll discover that sales can be exciting and rewarding. Our economy notwithstanding, many people still recognize that one gets what one pays for. They still buy based on confidence, comfort level and trust.
And isn't being able to sell more in less time what successful selling is all about? | 
