"Came all this way, just to walk the lobby"-Rod Tidwell

Good morning everyone! I hope you are all off to a great start to the week. It's been a couple months since my last post, I apologize for the absence. Along with our consulting service, I have been doing some leadership training and development for a company and they have gotten all of my creativity as of late. 

Until I came across one of my favorite movies, Jerry Maguire. That, Boiler Room, and Wall Street, anytime they are on.....I get sucked in for a minimum 15 minutes. Anyways, so Jerry Maguire comes on at like 5 in the morning, I'm up doing some planning, the wife just went on a run, so I tuned in, if anything for a familiar noise in the background. 

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Jerry (Tom Cruise) attends the NFL draft to represent his client, #1 draft pick hopeful. Jerry invites his only other client at the time Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding) to attend the draft with as well.

Jerry wants to get him a little face to face exposure at a meet and greet, as well get some publicity, because they are up to renegotiate Rod's contract. Long story short, the only event that Jerry does with Rod at the draft, is walking thru the event's trade show/conference portion of the Draft. Once they finished making the rounds of the room, Rod noticeably irritated and impatient, kind of smirks to Jerry, "Came all that way, just to walk the lobby"; to which Jerry replies, "ya, and it might have even worked."

I was working with a locum tenens company (temporary physicians) and their new hire class, and one of my points in the training the other day, came down to having a thick skin to rejection, and the ability to continually build a relationship.

 I think most have seen this little stat by the National Sales Executive Association, but near 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact. So unless you get them on the phone first shot out the gate, and they have a need, and utilize companies such as yourself (which happens), this is a relationship building business. So you can't get down on yourself when things don't happen that first go around, you don't cry and quit when you get 90 no's in a row. Those no's turn to maybe's turn to Yes's, and sometimes they turn into calling you with an emergency and you become a hero to the clinic, especially when they get a good survey, or better don't have to miss out on care for a day because you got them a doc or nurse, or accountant, new equipment..... whatever your business is....and what is needed in between those maybe and yes's, is a lot of "walking the lobby". 

There is a lot of getting in front of potential clients in different ways, and still not become a bothersome. Not inundating them with email after email, and voicemail after voicemail, but still get noticed. A chance here or there to get a couple points across, to make them laugh, to be an ear, and again...just get noticed. There are a lot of companies that do Locums, a lot that are really good at it, I was fortunate to be President's Club to one of the biggest and best. That was maybe the one place, well that an my stint as a consultant with Amazon, where name recognition carried a lot of weight. Other than those, man, I mean LinkedIn, catching an article someone wrote, or finding a common ground topic, anything you can do to get in front of a potential client and have a chance. In other words, "you have to walk the lobby".

So in Rod's point of view all he had gotten invited to do was to walk the meet and greet, and get to do a couple radio interviews. For Jerry, working with a client that no one was dying to take because of an attitude issue, he saw an opportunity to show people that he was nice, funny, educated, presented himself well, also he got to meet with owners and introduce Rod to them. What Rod won't get to see is the follow up that Jerry will make to those owners. "At the draft you got to meet my client Rod Tidwell, Arizona's leading receiver , I wanted to talk to you about...."

Jerry got to give out his stats on a live ESPN radio show as well while "walking the lobby"; he was able to give a few selling points to a national audience at a time when all the attention was on football, during the NFL Drat. 

For me, there are some great moments in movies that can relate to every day life, jobs, and for me directly sales/marketing positions. This is one of them. You are going to have to be willing to "walk the lobby". Even when you are at the lowest of lows, waiting for that contract to come over, wondering where the future was going to go, where it was going to lead, and more importantly how you were going to pay for it on the way. lol. Every time you can get in front of someone (in a positive light) you have to "walk that lobby", when you do you cut down on those "contact" attempts to making the sale. Each time counts towards the 5th to 12th contact.

All the technology advances have made the "lobby" opportunities more readily available. You can connect with them on social media, just being active in a professional manner in social media, you know people look out of curiosity, you never know what will lead to your next communication. 

Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Best regards,

Hal Brock
www.campcrusade.com

Post note: If you or your company are looking for additional and or outside training, and you like any of mine or one of my associate's writings, please take a look at our website www.campcrusade.com; we would love to work with you thru a variety of channels. You can email us directly at [email protected]. We also provide marketing services, proficient in adwords,  media buying, social media, copywriting, and more to smaller sized entities.  
Also check out my book, available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Failures-Earned-Lessons-learned-Surviving-ebook/dp/B00YB4ZKNS
And you can also follow me on twitter @halbrock