How To Rid Yourself of Prospecting For Good

How To Rid Yourself of Prospecting For Good

Everyone loves to cold call, door knock, beg for business, etc… right? To tell you the truth, I’m a go getter kind of guy and love talking to people face to face. But not everyone’s like that. In fact, a lot of people are dreadfully afraid of the face to face selling. If you’re the later, there is hope. I’m going to show you how and why I changed my approach to selling and why the change has made a critical turn in the tons of money I’ve made in my businesses.

First of all, let me start off by saying that this is not an anti-sales article in any way. I am all about sales. I’ve worked in door to door sales one of them being selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and did really well. If you’re not a salesperson don’t worry. My method of selling will help you overcome any fear of sales you may have.

Going back to my door to door sales story, if you can do door to door sales and make a good living at it then selling anything should be a breeze to you. Door to door selling is one of the hardest types of selling there is. In my opinion, I think door to door sales is harder than being a car sales person. If selling is not favorable to you then there’s good news for you. Door to door sales or cold selling is not the best method of selling. It’s actually the least most productive and least profitable sales method. I used to be this guy. You have to be tough and know how to take rejection. You have to be used to getting 100 no’s to get 5-10 yes’s. At least that’s what they tell you.

Now if you’re a strong salesperson and love the challenge of making a sale like I do then there’s good news for you as well. You will be able to take your sales strength and implement into a better way. No more wasting your time on hard leads or trying to convince someone to buy what you offer when they really don’t.

So what is your method? Glad you asked. Let’s imagine instead of calling or setting up grueling meeting after meeting to see if your “prospective” client is a valid one that you have qualified, eager and ready to buy from you, and customers begging you to buy what you have to offer. Wouldn’t that be a dream? Actually, this is how I operate my business and I’d like to share this with you as well.

Let’s start off with “What’s wrong with cold prospecting.” Here’s a list of things wrong with prospecting:

1. Positioning
2. Time Consuming
3. Costly
4. Not efficient

Positioning – Think of the last time that you were in a position of strength or authority in an important role. If you wanted to make a decision then you pretty much had the final say. There was no question to your decisions because you were the final say.

Positioning is everything that determines of you will be sought after or if you’ll be begging (prospecting) people to buy or subscribe to your services. This is a matter of you positioning yourself as the expert in your field or niche. Positioning yourself as just one of same as guys then you will struggle with the prospecting game. Why do you think a specialist in the medical field gets paid more than the general practitioner? Because the specialist is the expert in the field and no other doctor can match your skills or expertise or no other doctor is specializing in that specific field.

[ctt template=”5″ link=”T_69a” via=”no” ]Positioning is everything that determines of you will be sought after or if you’ll be begging (prospecting) people to buy or subscribe to your services. [/ctt]

I was in the catering business for 10 years in Tucson, AZ but I wasn’t just a caterer. Having 100’s of other caterers to compete with, interestingly, no one could come close to competing with me in what I did. We positioned ourselves as Tucson’s ONLY Authentic Hawaiian Food Caterer. We were at times the most expensive caterer because we were the specialists in our field. I’m Hawaiian born and raised and provided authentic Hawaiian food in the catering field. We dominated our field and were in a place of great positioning.

In my webdevelopment business, I’m the expert in building websites that position our clients as the expert in their field and while others are striving to create the coolest looking website, we strive to build websites that drive revenue to your business. Most web developers only know how to code but have no business sense whatsoever. I call them starving freelance webdesigners similar to starving artists.

Time Consumption – Not only is prospecting relinquishing your place of influence in your field but it’s also time consuming. Here’s why. One of the biggest marketing mistakes amateur marketers make is going in believing that everyone is their customer. In the real life business world, not everyone is your customer. Let me give you a few examples. A Mercedes car sales person would not be wise to open up a dealership in an area where the income level is under $25,000 year. You may want everyone to experience the luxuries of driving a Benz but the truth of the matter is that it’s not in everyone’s income bracket. No matter how well intentioned you may be, it’s just not going to happen. However, opening up a Mercedes dealership in a more affluent neighborhood would be the wiser decision.

[ctt template=”5″ link=”bokRb” via=”no” ]In the real life business world, not everyone is your customer.[/ctt]

Similarly, if you had a discounted generic handbag store that was affordable to individuals in the $25,000 income range then opening up your store would be your best market. On the other side of the spectrum if you opened up that same store in an affluent area where their taste was more for the Versace, Louis Vuitton or Givenchy handbags then this market will not be your best place to open your store.

Now knowing who your target market that is desperate and seeking out what you offer and then marketing to that market will eliminate 80-90% of the wasted time someone would normally spend prospecting to every single person that comes along the way.

When I was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners, they talked about going after the low hanging fruit. Going after a hungry crowd is the mantra to this saying.

Cost efficiency – Another problem with prospecting and going after everyone that comes along the way is that it’s very costly. Big ad agencies and corporate companies that have million dollar marketing budgets waste tons of money every day going after everyone. Now if you have an extra million to throw away then let me know. I’d be happy to help you out in this area. All kidding aside, most small business owners don’t have an extra million to throw away. And the good news is that you don’t and shouldn’t be throwing away that kind of money when you can invest it into marketing strategies that work and do what they’re supposed intended to do, increase revenue. We’ll implement marketing strategies into your business that will increase your revenues guaranteed. Call me at 520-392-5923 for more details.

Not only should your marketing investments be cost efficient but it should be measurable and trackable. You must be able to know what your marketing strategies are performing at. If you hired an employee to perform a specific task and he doesn’t do what he was hired to do, that person would not continue his employment with you, correct? We believe it is the same with any marketing strategy. If it doesn’t perform to do what you invested it to do then it either needs to change or go away.

Finally, your marketing strategy needs to be efficient. When you think of sales and marketing what is the first thing that comes into mind? Most people will say prospecting and trying to make a sale. Although some of that may be true, the only thing that sales and marketing should do is to increase revenue. How does this happen? The method that I’m going to talk about here involves defining the proper definition of sales and marketing.

We talked about hard sales and sales tactics above specifically prospecting and I shared my disdain for the word prospecting. My definition of real sales is not tricking people into buying what you have to offer. There are lots of people that can sell you the Brooklyn bridge if given the chance. You got the high pressure car sales people that mislead you into buying a car by giving you promises that they cannot keep or they get you into their show room to wear you down so that you just want to leave but know that the only way you’ll leave is buying a car.

I’m not saying that all car sales people are like that. In fact, I have car sales people that use my strategies in their business that have tremendous results. But going back to my definition of sales, it is the art of exchanging their problem or desires with what you offer as their solution. I believe Zig Ziglar talked about how he went into a sales meeting with the mindset that his client had his money in their wallet and he had the product that they want and they will be making the exchange before it’s time to leave.

Being a problem solver and finding ways to help people with what you offer is one of the keys to becoming very wealthy.

So how do you shift from prospecting to attracting customers that seek you out and chase you? Customers chasing you? Yes, you heard correct. This all goes down to all of the 4 things we just talked.

Positioning plays a huge role. People all always want we they can’t have. This may jog your belief system right now but trust me on this one. The harder you make in getting what you offer the more people want it. Have you ever tried booking with a specialist and they tell you that there’s a 4 month waiting period. Once you get down to the last week of waiting you’ll do anything to make sure you make the appointment. If he’s the best and you know that you’ll get what you pay for you don’t care what you end up paying right?

Think about this real closely. It’s hard to book an appointment, you’re willing to pay whatever it takes to get him, and he’s not out chasing for your business. What’s happening here? You’re chasing him to get give him your business.

Let me give you my personal example. We positioned ourselves as Tucson’s ONLY Authentic Hawaiian caterer. We charged as high as 100 – 300 per person for catering our Hawaiian food. Do you think this was accidental? Absolutely not. A lot of our positioning took place in our website copy. We were booked up to 3-4 years in advance.

Now that we’ve moved to Albuquerque we’re still getting calls for catering and we have to sadly inform them that we’re no longer in Tucson. But it didn’t stop there. We provided a superior product so not did we provide great food but we answered all of the other problems  in the catering industry. Most caterers were late, food terrible, or they wouldn’t even show up for their events. I’m talking about very important events like weddings, corporate parties, or government meetings. Trust has a lot to do with what we did. We took care of our people. We also backed up our product with a 120% money back guarantee. Full money back if not satisfied and 20% on their next catered event. After 10 years we never once had to honor a refund.

Customer List – Once you are positioned as the expert in your field or the sole provider of what you do, you want to acquire a customer list of like clients that you already attract and have. The list should consist of their name, business name, address, email address, phone number and whatever information available. You can gather your own by current customers and referrals and customer lists can be paid via mailing list brokers. We offer customer list services as well. Call us at 520-392-5923 for more information.

One of the things we talked about was not going after everyone as your potential client but only going after the ones that are able, willing and ready to buy what you offer. This saves you a lot of time, money and headache and is what we talked about above. You can get any information you can think of to help you targeting work from business income level, number of employees in the company. If your customers are residential (non-business) then you can get customers based on demographics, gender, income level, area, if they like cats or dogs, married, kids,  and whatever you can think of. This is important because everyone has a specific type of client that is attracted to your business.

In my catering business for a period of 1-2 years, the majority of my business was seniors, probably people that have been in the military stationed in Hawaii or traveled their on their honeymoon in the younger years. We bought a list of seniors and did really well in our catering tripling our business at the time.

Don’t underestimate the power of the mailing list. When you invest in our marketing packages, customized mailing lists catered to your specific business is included.

Irresistible Offer – You want to give your potential client an offer that can’t be refused. A sample from preview of what you do to make an educated decision on hiring you. My irresistible offer was free Hawaiian food tasting for up to 6 people, an over $349 value. This is how I was able to capture 99.9% of all of the clients we brought samples to. The .1% of those who didn’t hire us was usually those who couldn’t afford us or we couldn’t accommodate their date.

Think of what preview you can offer to to your prospective client without giving away all of what you offer for free. Write a book, article, make small samples of a product you sell. The key is that you have to offer something if high quality or value perceived by your prospective client. It may cost you some money or none but what matters is what their perception is. Our samplings costed us from 20-30 dollars but the catering of $1,000+ min. made up for the $20.

You can even make non-related gift offers. You see it all the time. Free gift with purchase. Sometimes that little extra differentiates you from a competitor that something that may cost you a few dollars can be a matter of the sale or them going with your competition. There is no hard rule on this.

Hopefully you get the idea. This maybe a harder article that I’ve written because it contains a lot of information that is non conventional to the norm. But if you would extraordinary results then you have to take extraordinary actions.

If you have any questionable or comments on this article please feel free to contact me by email at NextLevelwebdevelopers@gmail.com and I’d be happy to answer any questions or requests for hire on being able to make the shift in your business and take your business to the NextLevel. Call me at 520-392-5923 or email me if you’d like to move forward with us building your marketing driven website and/or creating your next marketing campaigns to boost and increase your current revenues.