After 30 years, I still let distractions such as business event luncheons and networking meetings interrupt my weekly b2b sales prospecting activities. Sometimes, I will scold myself with every intention of not repeating THAT mistake again, when my attendance proves to be a waste of time. You see for me, lunchtime hours are some of my best times to access decision-makers by phone or computer. This blog is about how to choose the events which net meaningful and worthy b2b prospect contacts.
I’m constantly getting e-mails and voice-mails from consulting associates telling me about the wonderful ‘exposure’ they received speaking for free at local trade association chapter or business networking luncheons. It’s their shameless way of coaxing me to do the same. Most often, I politely refuse and just keep prospecting and working my referrals. Exposure, without meaningful sales contacts, is counter-productive!
I could fill every waking hour in my appointment planner with free speaking or networking engagements but I don’t for several reasons. First, I have to pay my bills. Second, when I’m not on the phone or my laptop connecting to new sales prospects, following up on strategic referrals, or servicing clients; I’m not ringing up sales. Negative cashflow is a commission sales person’s worst nightmare. There are too few prime time prospecting hours in my day even though my day begins at 4:00 am.
So, today, I’m going to share with you my 4 test questions for deciding whether to be distracted or to pass on an ‘opportunity’. Distractions are always cloaked as ‘opportunities’. I still do an occasional free luncheon speech, and I selectively attend b2b networking luncheons but ONLY if they pass my test.
When I am invited to attend an event or to speak at an event, I always ask the meeting planner 4 questions:
What is the exact purpose of the meeting or event? I avoid meetings or events positioned as ‘the networking event of the year’. It’s pure hype. Anyone who has to pitch their event so blatantly is seeking to seat ‘breathers’, not professionals. Not for me! Also, I’m not into networking luncheons open to ‘entrepreneurs’. ‘Entrepreneur’ is a code-word for b2c MLM sales agent who seem to be popping up, like attorneys at traffic accidents. Since I only train b2b sales professionals and I only accept money, not beads and blankets (trade-outs) for my services, I avoid b2c MLM groupie events.
Were I attending as a guest, what would it cost me? I avoid free events. The food is usually marginal and the company isn’t much better. Moochers who are regulars at free events don’t spend money. I guess that’s why the moochers usually show up en mass. My interest begins at $35 per person. People who call themselves professionals realize they will not sit in the company of peers for free. They ‘get’ it and so do I.
Name some of last month’s attendees by company and their job titles? The answer to this question is the deciding factor for me. While b2b company names are important, I’m more interested in the job title of the typical attendee. Why? My best prospect-types by job title are: sales managers, regional sales managers, new business development directors and marketing directors. These are the people who sign contracts to hire me to re-tool their b2b sales teams and they make quantity purchases of my eBooks. So, an opportunity to rub elbows or to speak to a group of 40-60 of these job titles is worth my time.
How many people attended your meeting last [week, month or quarter]? For some reason, meeting planners have a tendency to add 10 to their last attendance count. Maybe, 10 more attendees is a lucky number! So, if I hear 25-30, I presume, it’s usually 15-20 which is too small for me to net any worthwhile contacts. When I attend functions, I’m seeking a critical mass of 40 - 60 attendees. This is true whether I’m the speaker or just an attendee because I will always meet 3-5 serious b2b decision-making prospects for my services.
How do you find out about these business event luncheons? Of course, most daily newspaper have a business section with weekly event listings. Also, GOOGLE ”local business event luncheons by City, ST”. But what about business event luncheons of decision-makers, by their job titles, for what you sell?
Read Chapter 1 of my new How to Get Face-Time with People Who Buy What You Sell ebook (also called the PowerProspecting eBook) and you will learn how and where to get FREE Lists of these decision-makers, by their job-titles, for contacts in your local, regional or national sales territories. To preview my eBook for FREE, CLICK on Purchase The eBook Now, in the right sidebar. CLICK on Home Page. CLICK on View FREE Minibook. Remember, you have a 1 Year Money-Back Guarantee to tailor and test my Power Prospecting Formula to painlessly and systematically get qualified prospect appointments for your b2b products and services.
Starting next week and every week, thereafter I’ll deliver shorter blogs beginning with Part 1 of How to Prosper in Tough Times. Have a happy and carefree Halloween and remember to vote next Tuesday.
When IT happened before we didn’t have the Internet. We were lock-stepped into drastically reducing our in person sales prospecting activities due to our reliance on our vehicles. This time, we have a more efficient and widely distributed option thanks to the growth of online business networking communities plus the software at our fingertips to mine and manage their data.
I’m no spring chicken and learning new technologies has required self-discipline and hours of self-study. My bookcase is full of the “Dummy” book series. I’ve invested the time, money and effort to learn how to author eBooks so I don’t have to conduct far away seminars, anymore; auction stuff on eBay; leverage software and some new biz tools to maximize my time away from my gas guzzler. If you read my “Let The Arabs Drink Their Oil” blog post, you know where the line is drawn in my sandbox.
My point is simply this………..now, is the time to become more skilled using today’s and even yesterday’s business tools to change the way we meet new prospects. Last year, after reading The Virtual Handshake authored by David Teten and Scott Allen (2005, AMACOM Books), I signed onto several popular online business networking communities. After kicking the tires at each of them, one became my tool of choice recently to exponentially expand my online business contacts network.
Check it out if you haven’t already done so at www.linkedin.com. The feature which convinced me to upgrade from a free membership to a monthly subscription fee and to get serious leveraging this very powerful business network is the one that permits me to Accept or Decline an Invitation to link to one of their 12 million members.
There are still too many getters who have no intention of sharing relevant, timely referrals. I choose to avoid these people. Having the convenience of quickly scanning another member’s Profile and credentials before accepting an invitation to link places me in control of who I add to my Connections.
The LinkedIn Dashboard works well with my Microsoft Outlook so I can stay on top of my new linking invitations. Another huge time-saver that will really turbo charge your email management activities is at www.xobni.com. Cute, xobni is ‘in box’ spelled backwards. At the About Xobni page it states:
“Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments. After a quick install, you’ll see the new Xobni toolbar appear in Outlook - and suddenly information will become much easier to find. When a new email arrives, the sender’s full communication history appears in the Xobni sidebar, including past conversations, attachments and contact details. Xobni also includes a blazing fast email search tool.”
It’s a free download since this is a beta version so, there may be some bugs to patiently tolerate. That’s OK, the embedded search feature which enables me to Global Search keywords in past, stored e-mail messages is a dream come true. I agree with Bill Gates’ comments about this software tool!
Next week, we will get back to mastering tactical phone-use skills to make sure we book more business by conducting face-time sales calls, not social calls. After all, none of us can make a living making social calls at today’s pump prices!
Here’s how I use my ACT Contact Management Software to make fewer monthly trips to the One-Armed Bandit at my local gas station. My Central Florida sales territory is divided into 4 quadrants. Each week, I conduct highly targetted personalized mailings into one of the 4 quadrants so when I conduct my timely follow up qualifying phone calls to each mailed addressee, my ‘qualified’ decision-maker face-time appointments are clustered by quadrant, thus reducing drive-time and cross town trips across my widely dispersed, traffic-challenged sales territory.
It’s a simple matter of just labeling one of the 14 ACT User Fields as a ‘Quad’ code field and editing the Drop Down Values numerically with: 1, 2, 3 or 4. Main highways and traffic arteries are the territory dividing lines and, of course, work seamlessly with mapping and even the newest GPS software.
While there are plenty of more sophisticated contact management software programs than ACT, I prefer the flexibility and the powerfully simple user-friendly features which enable me to tailor it to my specific territory management needs. It’s priced right; updated frequently; and compatible with several other time-saving sales tools I use to cut the cost of managing my sales territory.
The built-in User Guides and Feature Tours suit my impatient learning style and the online Knowledgebase Help Files accessed at SUPPORT at www.act.com match each version so non-techies, like me, can focus on what matters most: the daily business of managing our sales territories much more efficiently.
This is a FREE endorsement of a software product I have used since Patrick Sullivan introduced version 1.1 of ACT Lite over 20 years ago. I’m not shilling for Sage Software. I pay for it each time I purchase an updated version. While several contact management software vendors during the past 35 years offered me free packages, in exchange for rave reviews, I politely declined. I continue to use this product for the reasons stated in this blog post. I’m not ‘Goody Two Shoes’ but I still own my soul.
So, what works for you? Please enlighten me with Comments about your sales territory management tips.