Offline Selling - Part 1
Posted 10th March 2009 at 09:29 PM by TimCastleman
There will be several blog postings about this but lets recap.
You got in front of your target audience, you pitched them for the initial meeting and now you are sitting face to face. What the hell do you do now.
We'll it depends. For instance if you pitched them on finding out more about autoresponders and they want to know about autoresponders then well... you talk about autoresponders.
But what if you are just there to talk to them about internet marketing in general.
What do you do then?
The answer - shut up and listen. Seriously, business owners are stressed to the max. Payroll, rent, inventory, failing businesses, slow months, poor help, etc. The list never ends.
My friend runs a martial arts gym and he thinks about business 18 hours a day. He is on vacation right now but calls in everyday to check on business, is in constant contact via email, etc. It never ends for a business owner.
The other thing to remember is this - you can't motivate anyone, they can only motivate themselves.
Read that again - you are not going to walk into a business to motivate them, they already have a motivation and your job is to find it and expand on it.
What do I mean? When I go to talk with a business I don't have a set agenda. Sure I have packages, etc at the ready but I don't start with that. I ALWAYS START WITH QUESTIONS.
I do this because it doesn't matter what I WANT, it matters what the business owner wants.
This is never about me, it is always about them - their wants, needs, goals, etc.
So in order to help them get what they want I have to find out what that is. The only way to do that is ask some questions.
I usually start with some easy background stuff - how long have they been in business, are they the original owner, various other "soft questions"
This is my ice breaker and lets them know that I am interested in them and their business.
After that I start asking different business questions - what type of marketing do they do, where do they get a majority of their business from, etc
These first two sets of questions help me get a picture of where they are in business. For you to measure anything you have to know where the starting line is.
Then I start asking them about goals in business - what they are looking to do money wise, marketing wise, if they want more new customers, get them to spend more money, or get old customers to come back.
This set lets me know where they want to go.
So now I have both sides of the equation.
where they are + X = where they want to be
Once I get to this point I make sure that we are on the same page and agree on the starting and finish line. By doing this I am getting their agreement on the main issues.
The only thing to do now is show them how using what I offer will get them from where they are to where they want to be.
What happens if I can't connect the dots with my services - I tell them upfront. It is much better to know up front that we aren't going to be a match then waste both of our times.
More to follow....
You got in front of your target audience, you pitched them for the initial meeting and now you are sitting face to face. What the hell do you do now.
We'll it depends. For instance if you pitched them on finding out more about autoresponders and they want to know about autoresponders then well... you talk about autoresponders.
But what if you are just there to talk to them about internet marketing in general.
What do you do then?
The answer - shut up and listen. Seriously, business owners are stressed to the max. Payroll, rent, inventory, failing businesses, slow months, poor help, etc. The list never ends.
My friend runs a martial arts gym and he thinks about business 18 hours a day. He is on vacation right now but calls in everyday to check on business, is in constant contact via email, etc. It never ends for a business owner.
The other thing to remember is this - you can't motivate anyone, they can only motivate themselves.
Read that again - you are not going to walk into a business to motivate them, they already have a motivation and your job is to find it and expand on it.
What do I mean? When I go to talk with a business I don't have a set agenda. Sure I have packages, etc at the ready but I don't start with that. I ALWAYS START WITH QUESTIONS.
I do this because it doesn't matter what I WANT, it matters what the business owner wants.
This is never about me, it is always about them - their wants, needs, goals, etc.
So in order to help them get what they want I have to find out what that is. The only way to do that is ask some questions.
I usually start with some easy background stuff - how long have they been in business, are they the original owner, various other "soft questions"
This is my ice breaker and lets them know that I am interested in them and their business.
After that I start asking different business questions - what type of marketing do they do, where do they get a majority of their business from, etc
These first two sets of questions help me get a picture of where they are in business. For you to measure anything you have to know where the starting line is.
Then I start asking them about goals in business - what they are looking to do money wise, marketing wise, if they want more new customers, get them to spend more money, or get old customers to come back.
This set lets me know where they want to go.
So now I have both sides of the equation.
where they are + X = where they want to be
Once I get to this point I make sure that we are on the same page and agree on the starting and finish line. By doing this I am getting their agreement on the main issues.
The only thing to do now is show them how using what I offer will get them from where they are to where they want to be.
What happens if I can't connect the dots with my services - I tell them upfront. It is much better to know up front that we aren't going to be a match then waste both of our times.
More to follow....
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