I love working with our coaching clients and watching them grow their business. It never gets old seeing someone learn new sales techniques, or observing them develop great connections and closing more and more sales.
Last week, while working with one of our amazing coaching clients, one of the salespeople asked me what marketing material they should take when going on an outside sales call. I answered, “Just a business card and a notebook.” They were amazed, and followed up by asking why they wouldn’t need marketing material. The answer is simple, if you go into a business with flyers, you have already made it about you – not about them.
How many times have you gone into a business with your notebook full of marketing materials or a handful of flyers? And then did your prospect say, “Well just leave us your information and I will look it over.” We then end up spending hours calling and emailing (that is, IF we were lucky enough to get their contact information), trying to see if they are interested in what we were selling. We lose control of the sale when we bring flyers, again, because our flyers are about us.
The number one rule of selling is, “Find out what the customer wants, and sell them that.” When we go into someone’s office with a product on our mind for them, we’re not qualifying, we’re setting up for the ‘pitch.’ Sure, marketing material can be great, but it isn’t the first thing we need to present when we go into a business to speak to someone face to face.
Instead, I recommend that you take notes when you are onsite, and ask for one of their business cards when you are trying to find out who the decision maker is. When you get back into your vehicle at the end of your meeting, jot down any information you might need for your next step while it’s fresh in your mind. It is easy after that to go back into your center and get that information into your CRM or database for future reference.
Just the other day, I spoke with a proprietor who told me that one of the best promotions his center had ever run happened when his managers went out with no flyers– just business cards. I also think business people are more open and less guarded when you don’t walk in with a handful of marketing materials. People are more likely to speak to you, the person standing before them, when there aren’t flashy flyers standing between you!
I hope that you’ll try this, and that you’ll let me know if it works and makes your day of sales so much more fun and productive. I think it will.
