Search For
People Who Want to Develop Relationships by
Jeffrey J. Mayer
On Thursday
morning Jill opened her e-mail and found the following messages
in her in-box:
"Jill,
I am going to be out of town on business tomorrow and
won't be able to keep our scheduled appointment. I will
e-mail you when I am ready to reschedule.
Thanks very
much.
Stephanie "
------
" Jill, We are on some temporary cut backs through the end
of our
fiscal year, which goes through December. This includes minimizing
outside contractors, vendors and suppliers where possible until
the
next fiscal year planning/budgeting process is finalized.
So I feel
that we should put anything we do together on hold,
and I will remind myself to get in touch with you mid-January
to determine if we are able to work with you.
Thanks again
for your time and I apologize for any inconvenience.
Speak to you in a few months.
Best Regards,
Gloria "
------
" I had a chance to talk to the owner of the company yesterday,
and
at this time we will not be pursuing additional vendors or suppliers.
I do appreciate
your time and valued information. I look forward
to hearing from you in the future & possibly pursuing this
again
at a later date."
Sincerely,
Fred "
------
To say the least, Jill found herself feeling angry. Three "prospects"
had just canceled on her.
This was in
addition to the two people who canceled out on Wednesday
and the third person who didn't keep her scheduled conference call.
(This was the 2nd time he had stood Jill up.)
Jill is a financial
planner. She's been in the business for several years
and has been doing quite well, but knew she could do much better.
She had asked
me to help her grow her business, close more sales, and
make more money. She's working on only two-cylinders and knows
that if she can become more focused she could easily double her
income.
As Jill was
telling me her tales of woe, and we were discussing her
current situation, I realized that she was looking at these
cancellations from the wrong perspective.
The wrong point
of view.
These people
were doing her a favor.
They had already
made up their minds that they weren't interested.
By canceling their meetings they were giving Jill more time
to get on the telephone and find a better prospect.
Someone who
is interested in having her help them... TODAY!
As I always
say, "If you're going to lose, lose early. I hate chasing
someone for 30, 60, 90 days, or longer and then find out
they aren't going to buy." How about you?
Ever Have An Easy Sale?
"Jill,
have you ever had an easy sale?" I asked.
"You call
someone on the phone and he says, 'I'm glad you called.
I've been thinking about reviewing my financial planning and
would like to discuss it with you.' Please tell me a
bit more about what it is you do."
"Yes."
Jill replied. "That happened to me just last week.
"I called
on Tom and he told me that he had gotten married a year ago,
his wife Caroline was expecting their first child in six months,
they
had just bought a new house, and he had gotten a promotion.
"A lot
had happened in his life."
"So how
hard did you have to work to close the sale?"
"This was
easy." Jill beamed.
"He came
over to my office and we talked about his
situation and closed the sale on the spot."
"How did
it feel?"
"Great!"
Jill gushed.
This is the
kind of experience you want to have day-in, and day-out.
This shouldn't be a once-in-a-blue-moon experience.
This should be business as usual for you.
But it only
happens when you spend your time looking for new
customers. When you're calling the same people over and
over again - especially those who cancel appointments
- you're setting yourself up for failure.
Want to save
time, open doors, close more sales,
and make more money? If so, you'll find my new
"Cold Calling" training manual to be invaluable.
You'll learn
how to use the telephone to reach decision
makers, create more opportunities, and get better results.
Here's the
link to order your copy:
Cold Calling Training Manual
Look for people
who want to say YES!
Relationships! Relationships! Relationships!
Business is built upon relationships. Not PowerPoint presentations.
Not fancy brochures.
Relationships
are built by solving problems. Adding value.
Providing solutions.
After speaking
with these people, they decided that they didn't want to
explore having a relationship with Jill. It was time to move on.
Why am I sharing
with you Jill's "tales of woe"?
Because we all
waste hours of time each day trying to develop relationships
with people who don't understand the value we have to offer them.
For one reason
or another, they aren't open to even hearing about
what it is we do, and how we can be of help to them.
Two Questions
So let me ask you two questions
* What do you
do when someone cancels a meeting? Call them
over, and over, and over again to try and reschedule?
* Are you afraid
to call and confirm an appointment/meeting
because the prospect might say "I'm not interested." and
cancel the meeting?
Here's something to think about:
LET THEM GO. FIND A BETTER PROSPECT!
If you don't
have enough prospects, you probably
need to improve your networking skills. My eBook
"Creating Opportunities by Networking"
teaches
you how to become an expert networker. If you want
to get ahead in business - and in life - this is a must read.
If you want to improve your telephone results, you need to
have a GREAT Elevator Speech. My best-selling eBook
"Opening Doors with a Brilliant
Elevator Speech" teaches
you how to create more opportunities over the phone.
Look at this
from another perspective: Life is just too short to spend hours
of time trying to convince someone to buy something that they just
don't
want, aren't in the mood to buy, or aren't interested in.
Stop trying
to force square pegs into round holes.
I recently did a program for a company, and one of the
participants said with a great deal of pride: "It took me 10
years
to get my biggest client." As I thought about it, how much
time, effort,
and energy was invested over those 10 years? And how many other
clients could have been acquired if the same time, effort, and energy
had been invested in them?
Yes, I know that thousands of sales books walk you thru the steps
of
overcoming objections, but that comes with a price. It takes a lot
of
hard work and effort to make the sale, and more often than not,
the
sale doesn't get made.
(And even if
the sale is made, do you have a long-term relationship,
or did you just close a sale? Especially if you had
to dramatically cut your price.)
Spend your time looking for people who want to develop a relationship
with you.
Life is a whole
lot more fun, and financially rewarding, when you find
people who can see the benefits and advantages and value of working
with you.
Reprinted with
permission from "Jeffrey Mayer's
SucceedingInBusiness.com Newsletter. (Copyright, 2003, Jeffrey J.
Mayer, SucceedingInBusiness.com.) To subscribe to Jeff's free
newsletter, visit http://www.SucceedingInBusiness.com.
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