by Admin | Sep 3, 2019 | Business Development, Networking, Prospecting, Referrals
This year my husband and I celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary. One key lesson I have learned in staying married to the same man for that long is that every day takes 100% investment of effort into our relationship. There is no 50/50 in a marriage, it’s all in for each partner. In the beginning it was much easier as we had a lot of hormones running amuck and were very young and immature about relationships. We didn’t realize the path to finding your happiness lay in helping someone else find their happiness. This lesson came to us after the second child and about ten years in when I realized that this man helped me be the best me I could be. And that every day he wakes up and asks me how he can make me happy today and I realize that I want the same thing for him. How does this relate to your prospecting effort? Too often we have a ‘routine’ we follow and it becomes something we ‘have to do’ instead of something we look forward to. We also fall into the routine and out of love with what connected us to our profession in the first place. Today we will take a bit of a different approach to see what has to shift to make it more enjoyable and yes, it can be the most fun part of your business! Align with your ‘why’ – Remember what an impact you actually make with your best clients. Devote a significant amount of your prospecting effort to engaging your great clients. If you have an account...
by Admin | Aug 26, 2019 | Business Development, Business Relationships, Networking, Prospecting, Referrals
Today’s buyers have so many more tools at their fingertips to find solutions for the problems they are experiencing. Thanks to social media influences, the magic of Google and remarketing, they may be aware of problems they have that before wouldn’t have even been recognized. In some cases they may have unfounded fears or skepticism that need to be addressed before they ever engage with you. Whatever the situation may look like, the buyer journey your best client has gone through with you to engage your solution, similar prospects also go through to solve their issues. Today I’d like to talk about how a few conversations with your top clients can help you design a nurturing process to help your best prospects recognize their need, create urgency to engage and build credibility in your solution. And close more business for you in the process! Let’s get to it! Start with figuring out who are your top prospects, if you struggle with how to profile your client base, here’s a short post on LinkedIn that talks about profiling your clients to recognize how you narrow your focus to serve these folks often and well. And avoid those that aren’t profitable. This will help with creating your perfect prospect profile. Once you figure out who the top clients are that you’d like to reproduce, you need to dig into what their approach was to working with you. I would like for you to interview them about their ENTIRE buyer journey. Not just once you met them. I want you to go back in time to when they realized they had something...
by Admin | Mar 20, 2017 | Business Relationships, Referrals
When to move on in a referral relationship is a question that comes up often and I thought today was a good day to chat about it. In the past week alone I have had 3 clients make the decision to ‘move on’ from a potential partner or new relationship without really giving it a fair chance. I have hopefully talked them out of moving on, but want to open up this conversation with my ‘tribe’ on Linked In. Let’s start with why you would fire a referral partner: · Misrepresentation of their capabilities to deliver. There is no fake it til you make it with referral relationships. Your partners put their reputation at stake, it’s a risk that shouldn’t be rewarded with you practicing with a new marketpotentially at their expense. If you are taking a proven concept to a similar client that you have multitudes of experience with, that’s a different story. Be clear on what you can do and make sure you are overdelivering and underpromising with all introductions, otherwise, expect to get a pink slip from your partners. · Making bad introductions. Referral relationships invest their valuable time with you educating you on who they serve, what a good client looks like and even more importantly who’s not a fit. Time is precious and if you make introductions to ‘spiders’ and waste your partner’s time you deserve to go back to cold calling. · Bad Behavior. Sometimes people behave badly and you can’t afford to have your reputation tied to someone who doesn’t have the ethical standards to represent you or your brand, which is at stake with every...
by Admin | Oct 20, 2014 | Networking, Referrals
With referral partners? Made you look, didn’t I? This topic of conversation has arisen this week even more than it usually does, which inspired me to write this post. We cultivate relationships with referral partners hoping to gain those quality introductions, not be one of 3 on a list that is emailed over with no added insight from referrer. Introductions are something many struggle with to obtain from referral partners. It makes the difference between a 10% chance of getting the deal to a nearly 90% with a highly influential referrer. We often run with ‘you can use my name when you call’ permission from the referrer just because we don’t want to push our luck. What does this have to do with monogamy? The question is, should you only have one referral partner in a given profession? Is it cheating to have more than one? Let’s consider a few factors…. When an introduction is made, risk is taken by the referrer opening a door to a valuable relationship that could be lost if you screw up. I think just about anyone who has been in business for a significant time has been present and accounted for at a train wreck and I know of a few that have even caused the death of a few companies. Much is at stake. Trust is key. Which necessitates open doors of communication with referral partners about exactly who is, and who is not, a great referral. When I ask ‘who is a great client for you?’ and the response is ‘anyone who has a business, job, pulse, etc’ I am immediately...
by Admin | Feb 10, 2014 | Mindset, Networking, Referrals
Someone asked my husband once what I did for a living and he responded with – she drinks a lot of iced tea and hangs out in coffee shops meeting people. Doesn’t that sound like my job isn’t work? I am one of those coaches who believe you must practice what you teach to have credibility with your audience. And also, this stuff really works. This blog is a little about the day in the life of a SalezWORKS coach. We work with a large segment of clients in the financial services arena. One of the foundations of our process is to be able to offer a comprehensive solution to our clients for their growth challenges, which means we spend our time looking for coaches and resources our clients might be in need of on their path to success. We have a financial service advisor we are partnering with who referred us to 2 resources he has worked with successfully. Our blog is the result of those 2 meetings and to share with you characteristics we have found are present in great partners for us. And probably they’ll be present in your great partners. And even more importantly – how do you recognize a partnership that will be a one way street not heading your way… Meeting #1 – Highly successful career exec who has been in a leadership role in a fast growing company about a year. He’s known as a problem solver, innovative thinker and all around good guy. Scene – Coffee shop in the a.m., he arrived 15 minutes early, Joyce and I were right on...
