I read a great post on Mike Myatt’s N2Growth blog titled Stop Selling and Add Value recently and wanted to share it. I know the title of my post is a bit kumbaya, but it’s the way we (at Lead|Riot) represent and reach out on behalf of our clients and if you’re handling new business internally, it’s how you should be pursuing new business as well.
Before I throw in my two cents on how Mike’s post relates to new business, here are some key points from his post:
Trust me when I tell you that your prospects and customers have heard it all before. They can see the worn-out, old school closes coming a mile away. They can sniff antiquated selling strategies and will immediately tune out on presentations not deemed relevant.
If your sales force is still FAB-selling, spin-selling, soft-selling or using any number of outdated, one size fits all selling methodologies, your sales are suffering whether you realize it or not.
Frankly, most people I know would rather talk to a knowledgeable customer service person over a sales rep any day of the week.
The reason for this should be obvious…The perception is that a customer service professional is providing information and helping them meet their needs. A salesperson is trying to sell them something.
Call me crazy, but I don’t want to talk to someone who wants to manage my account, develop my business, or engineer my sale. I want to communicate with someone who wants to service my needs or solve my problems.
As you can see from the above, Mike’s post is focused more on selling a product, but it can be applied directly to any new business effort.
The key, of course, is being able to position your firm appropriately so that you have the opportunity help them meet their needs. That of course is the hardest part.
Sure, you want an internal new business person that has something of the hunter mentality, but she/he also needs to have a healthy dose of the farmer mentality as well. If you shove your firm down their throat with every call, you’ll get nowhere-and 100 calls a day won’t get you anywhere either if you aren’t asking questions AND listening to the answers. Mike sums it up well with this statement:
The reality is that until I know that you care more about meeting my needs than yours, you’ll remain on the outside looking in.
By the way, in order to understand my needs you have to actually know something about me.
Prospecting words to live by.
Click here for Mike’s full post.
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